GACS holds annual Board meeting at SAHFOS
During September the Global Alliance of CPR Surveys (GACS) held their 5th Board of Governance meeting at SAHFOS. This annual event is always a great opportunity for all GACS partners and stakeholders to convene – discussing current GACS activities and future objectives; working towards our main aim of getting a better understanding of plankton biodiversity at a global level.
Highlights included GACS’ newest member, the Indian survey, successfully completing a pilot tow in the Indian Ocean, over 720 miles of tows across Drakes Passage into the Southern Ocean by the Brazilian CPR team and our MEDCPR partners have just celebrated their 2nd anniversary of successful monthly tows with ideas to increase the number of tows in the pipeline. Future taxonomic workshops are also planned with SAHFOS hosting a fish larvae workshop in November along with the 4th Phytoplankton Identification workshop planned for July 2017.
Feedback from the working groups were presented, this provides a great forum for pooling ideas and resources and recommendations for best practice. The next GACS newsletter will be amalgamated with a report card - production planned for spring 2017 and the next Global Ecostatus report planned for 2018. Future projects and collaborations were presented with some really great ideas by Sanae Chiba, Rowena Stern and Pierre Helaouet – watch this space!
Present: Sonia Batten (GACS Chair /SAHFOS), Willie Wilson (SAHFOS), Hans Verheye (DEA S Africa), Sanae Chiba (JAMSTEC), Rana Abu-Alhaija (MEDCPR), Martin Edwards (SAHFOS), Darren Stevens (SAHFOS), Marianne Wootton (SAHFOS), Claire Taylor (SAHFOS), Pierre Helaouet (SAHFOS), Linda Horsfield (SAHFOS), Sophie Seeyave (POGO), Anthony Richardson (AusCPR via link) and Claire Davies (AusCPR via link).
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