As most of you know, this past week after visiting with the Yeosu Mayor (see blog below), I joined Dr Clarence Pautzke, Executive Director of the North Pacific Research Board, at the Annual North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) 2009 meeting in Jeju, South Korea. PICES is the premiere marine vehicle for science/fisheries collaboration between the six North Pacific Countries (Russia, Korea, China, Japan, the USA and Canada). NPRB is an active partner in PICES activities. My attendance was primarily in support of my role as Chair of the NPRB, although I did manage to get a little Sealife Center business done while here!
This year’s PICES meeting was one of the largest ever – 490 delegates from 17 countries, 272 oral presentations and another 147 posters – full program details are available at http://www.pices.int/meetings/annual/PICES-2009/2009-background.aspx, and presentations and reports will be uploaded to that site over the next 3-6 months. The theme of the conference was ‘Understanding ecosystem dynamics and pursuing ecosystem approaches to management”. The conference pointed out the challenges of understanding marine ecosystems as climate change effects such as warming and acidification occur. Even in long studied systems such as the Sea of Japan we have such a limited understanding of species and ecosystem status that differentiating climate chnage effects can be very difficult.I managed to attend 41 oral presentations and also delivered a presentation (jointly prepared with Kerrie Wilson and Hedley Grantham) on Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) that was well received… despite being on the last afternoon of the last day of the conference! MSP is a key topic globally and is a specific focus of the current President’s Task Force on Ocean Policy.
Overall, I was very impressed by both the quality of the research presented and the organization of the meeting – PICES have a tremendous secretariat and worked very well with local hosts from KORDI and other local institutions to maximize the synergies between PICES members. I learned a lot about trends in ecosystems dynamics in Alaska and across both sides of the North Pacific. I was especially pleased to be able to spend time with key Alaskan/North Pacific researchers such as Drs David Fluharty (UW), Andrew Trites (UBC), Bill Sydeman (Farallon) and Franz Mueter (UAF). I also appreciated the chance to connect with new colleagues from Europe, China, Korea, Japan and Australia. I was especially impressed with work being done in Norway by Dr Erlend Moksness on approaches to modeling and assessing coastal ecosystem functions – the work is described further at http://www.spicosa.eu/.
I am looking forward to sharing what I learned with NPRB Board members and ASLC Board and SAC members and staff and would be happy to provide further details on any aspect of PICES if anyone wants more information. PICES is clearly a forum ASLC researchers should be more engaged with going forward….
The impressive ICC Conference Center in Jeju - PICES venue
The spectacular coastal basalt cliff scenery in front of the conference venue is also a site for traditional marine resource harvesting by female marine divers. Jeju is very proud of its world heritage listing - coastal volcanic features are a key reason for that designation.
The marine produce harvested locally and quickly made available to passing tourists - not cheap ($25/lunch), but very fresh!
YUM!
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