Dear Jenny and Allan
As CAFF has signed a Memorandum of understanding with APECS I want to invite three APECS member to participate one in each in the upcoming CAFF events: I include some short information about the workshops. There is also significantly more information on CAFF.IS/MONITORING. I expect that this could be mutually beneficial for both parties, as it was in the Sea-Ice workshop in Vancouver. When discussing this with the co-chairs of the Expert Monitoring Groups they were asked to identify expertise that would be the most useful.
Freshwater: Waterfowl (would be especially beneficial) also mammals, GIS or general ecology of lakes/streams would be helpful.
Terrestrial: No preference
Marine: No preference
If you think that you have any APECS members in the vicinity which would be interested in participating that would be great
Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program- CBMP Marine Plan Implementation Workshop 14-15 Sept Vancouver Canada.
The CBMP-Marine Plan has been approved and endorsement by the CAFF Board and Senior Arctic Officials of the Arctic Council and the first workshop to start the implementation of the marine monitoring plan is shedule to be held on September 14-15th 2011 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Venue to be determined).
Tthis workshop will bring together members of the CBMP-Marine Steering Group, Marine Expert Networks, the CAFF Secretariat and CBMP Office to discuss and confirm the implementation approach for the Marine Plan. The implementation of the CBMP-Marine Plan represents a major advance in the coordinated monitoring of arctic marine ecosystems and the biodiversity they support. Priority ecosystem components, metrics and methodologies to monitor these components, optimal sampling frameworks and data management and assessment approaches have been defined in the plan. The work of the Marine Expert Networks is particularly important representing an opportunity for experts in these disciplines, from across the Arctic, to collaborate, on an ongoing basis for improved monitoring approaches, aggregation and analysis of data to establish statistical baselines, and advance our understanding of these systems and the mechanisms that drive them.
To download the full workshop draft agenda please click here. Further information http://caff.is/marine-ecosystem
Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program- Freshwater Expert Monitoring Workshop 3-6 October Frederickton Canada.
Arctic freshwater ecosystems (i.e., rivers, lakes and ponds) are under increasing stress from climate change, contaminants, introduced species, increased UV radiation exposure, and resource development. Climate change will directly and indirectly affect these systems and the biodiversity they support, including fish that provide food for Northerners.
Many of these effects will be due to changes in the physical and chemical properties of freshwater systems (changing water temperature, thawing permafrost, changing ice cover extent and duration, altered hydrological processes and water balance), but will also involve the impact of growing competition from southern species expanding northwards as the result of ecosystem-restructuring.
All of these stressors are expected to result in changes to freshwater fisheries around the Arctic, changing distributions of aquatic invertebrates, vertebrates and plants, and modifying ecosystem services to humans such as harvests from freshwater systems, drinking water, hydroelectric power, transportation and sewage disposal.
An Arctic FEMG has been created to support the development of a multi-disciplinary, integrated, pan-Arctic monitoring plan (optimal sampling schemes, common parameters and standardized monitoring protocols, etc.) that identifies critical monitoring gaps and develops strategies to fill gaps. The output of this monitoring plan will serve to inform both the public as well as decision and policy makers from the local to the global level and will contribute to periodic assessments of the state of the Arctic fresh waters.
The FEMG is led by Canada and Sweden, with members from Russia, United States, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Greenland and the Faroes and Gwich'in Council.
http://caff.is/freshwater-ecosystem
Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program- Terrestrial Expert Monitoring Group Workshop 11-13 October in Sonnerupgaard, close to Hvalsø a small town located app. 40km outside of Copenhagen
The terrestrial EMG is responsible for developing a pan-Arctic, integrated terrestrial biodiversity monitoring plan that serves as a monitoring framework that ensures better coordination between existing terrestrial monitoring networks and more efficient and effective delivery of the results of this monitoring to decision-makers, stakeholders and the general public. Their goal will be to promote, facilitate, coordinate and harmonize terrestrial biodiversity monitoring activities among circumpolar countries, and to improve on-going communication amongst and between scientists, community experts, managers and disciplines both inside and outside the Arctic. Such coordination will enable more efficient and effective arctic terrestrial biodiversity monitoring The net result of this approach will be improved ability to detect, understand, report on and respond to change in the composition, structure, and function of arctic ecosystems and the biodiversity they support.
The primary objective of the Terrestrial Expert Monitoring Group is to develop a multi-disciplinary, integrated, pan-Arctic long-term terrestrial ecosystem-based biodiversity monitoring and assessment plan.
The first workshop will use the TEMG background paper as a platform to further develop a framework for the development of an integrated monitoring strategy for Arctic terrestrial biodiversity. This would include identifying what to monitor (indicators), when (over what time period and how often) and where (geographic locations).
The workshop will focus on the identification of what monitoring is required within the Arctic terrestrial ecosystems and start the work to design the terrestrial biodiversity monitoring plan. It will be necessary to address the following overarching questions:
· How should the monitoring plan be designed to be able to detect trends in terrestrial biodiversity in the Arctic?
· Can causal links between such trends and stressors be identified?
· What criteria should be used to choose common and standardized indicators (parameters) and monitoring sites?
· What existing and ongoing monitoring activities/ programs can be used to build the integrated monitoring plan?
· What organizations and networks are responsible for the monitoring activities, and who are the main users of the monitoring information?
· What kind of questions can we expect the main users (administrators, politicians, local communities etc.) will ask and what issues will they need information on in the future?
These discussions should produce an outline of the monitoring plan. At the same time, we can already anticipate some of the changes in biodiversity that might occur in Arctic terrestrial environments. Hopefully we will be able to build on results from the ongoing Arctic Biodiversity Assessment that is expected to be finished within 2012. The workshop will on this basis continue with the following questions:
· Of the biodiversity trends we might expect in Arctic terrestrial environments, which ones should the monitoring plan be able to detect
· What trends may the plan be unable to detect?
This will provide the background for the last two questions:
· What are the major gaps in current monitoring?
· What new and existing data and/or projects could be developed to fill these gaps?
· How can we benefit on ongoing work and existing networks and how can we use IASC and INTERACT in the next steps to develop an Integrated Monitoring Plan for Terrestrial Biodiversity.
http://caff.is/terrestrial-ecosystem
Best wishes,
Kári Fannar Lárusson
Phone: (+354) 462-3354 /462-3350
Mobile: (+354) 699-2203
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