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REPORT OF GOVERNING COUNCIL
The Governing Council met from 9:00–18:00 hours on November 1, 2008, and
from 9:00–14:30 hours on November 2, under the chairmanship of Dr. Tokio
Wada. All Contracting Parties were represented at
the two sessions (GC
Endnote 1). At the first session, the Chairman welcomed
attendees, introduced the provisional agenda circulated on September 17, and suggested the
order in which to take up the various items. The agenda was adopted with the addition of
the review
of the procedure for
preparing the Council report
under Agenda Item 16 – Other Business
(GC
Endnote 2). The Executive Secretary requested each Contracting
Party to examine its draft Delegation List and submit the final Delegation
List prior to the second
session. This report summarizes the treatment of each agenda item during
the course of the two sessions.
Agenda Item 3
Report
on Administration
The Executive Secretary summarized the activities of
the Organization and the Secretariat since the 2007 Annual Meeting.
Council reviewed and adopted the report (GC
Endnote 3).
Agenda Item 4
Membership and observers from other countries
The Secretariat did not receive proposals from any country
to accede to the PICES Convention.
The Chairman re-iterated that scientific cooperation with non-member countries and
other international organizations
is crucial for extending
the activity of PICES, and has been an important
subject of discussion in Council, especially because many of the issues
addressed by PICES are not unique to the North
Pacific. At the 2006 PICES Annual Meeting, a Study Group on Scientific Cooperation between PICES and Non-member
Countries (SG-SC) was formed,
under the direction of Council, to explore
options on how scientific cooperation with non-member countries could
be best achieved (Decision 06/A/6).
The SG-SC report was
adopted at the 2007 PICES Annual Meeting (Decision 07/A/4) and included
in the 2007 PICES Annual Report. The Study
Group was unanimously negative to the idea of amending the PICES Convention
to expand the “area concerned”. One
of the options for scientific
cooperation within the current Convention offered by SG-SC was to establish
an
affiliate status system in PICES, similar to the arrangement implemented
some time ago by ICES.
Following a request by
Council at the 2007 inter-sessional meeting, a draft Affiliate Member Policy was developed and presented by the SG-SC Chairman,
Dr. Laura Richards, at last year’s Annual Meeting (see 2007 GC Endnote 6). Council reviewed this document, but was unable to reach consensus on its adoption and
agreed to continue discussion at the 2008 Annual Meeting.
All Contracting Parties were requested to provide their views on the
affiliate status system and comments on the draft policy to the Chairman
and Executive Secretary prior
to the meeting. The comments from the Japanese and U.S. delegations
are appended as GC
Endnote 4. Editorial
changes suggested by the US
delegation were included in the 2008 Council Background Briefing Book.
In Dalian, Council extensively
discussed the comments provided by Japan
and the United States,
but again was unable to reach consensus on the adoption
of the affiliate status system. Dr. Richards reported
that the F&A Committee reviewed the PICES Rules of Procedures, and suggested possible changes
in order to accommodate experts
from non-member countries or other organizations to subsidiary bodies
of Standing Committees (ex-officio
membership). These proposed changes are not expected to have
financial implications, except costs related to the distribution of
PICES publications to these experts.
Council agreed that this is a viable alternative approach to
the affiliate status system, and requested Dr. Richards to work
with the Secretariat to prepare actual amendments for
consideration at the next meeting of Council.
Some Contracting Parties recommended extending ex-officio membership to Technical Committees.
Agenda Item 5
Relations with
relevant international and regional organizations/programs
The Executive Secretary provided a report on communication with the relevant international
and national organizations
and programs since last year’s Annual Meeting (see GC Endnote
3 for details).
He also pointed out that more than 20 organizations
and programs were present as observers at the PICES Annual Meeting this
year (GC Endnote 5). In particular:
§
Dr. Patricio Bernal (General Secretary of IOC) attended the Science Board
meeting (October 26) and meetings of several expert groups, and shared
his views on potential areas of collaboration between IOC
and PICES. These areas, summarized
in his letter sent to the PICES Secretariat on October 31, include:
(1) joint efforts on developing
understanding of the vulnerability of fisheries to climate variability
and change as a potential input to the 5th IPCC Assessment
Report; (2) cooperation in an information
network on ocean acidification
and a common database on natural iron; and (3) PICES involvement in
the OceanObs’09 conference (http://www.oceanobs09.net).
§
Dr. Adolf Kellermann (Head of ICES Science Programme) participated in the
Science Board meeting (October 26) to present an update on the continuing
science reform in ICES and
to discuss joint activities of the two Organizations in 2009 and beyond.
§
Dr. Manuel Barange (Executive Director
of GLOBEC) attended the meeting of the Executive Committee of the CCCC
Implementation Panel to (1) provide information
on discussions within a GLOBEC-IMBER Transition Task Team on
a way forward
for international marine
ecosystem science after the completion of GLOBEC, and (2) outline plans on the 3rd GLOBEC Open
Science Meeting to be held in June 2009, in Victoria,
Canada. He also liaised with
the PICES Secretariat on logistics for
this meeting.
§
Representatives of several other programs and organizations
(Argo, BEST, ESSAS, IMBER, IWC, NOWPAP,
PAG, SOLAS, WCRP/CLIVAR) addressed PICES Standing Committees or their subsidiary bodies on potential areas
of collaboration with PICES,
and submitted specific proposals for
joint activities (details can be found in the reports
of Standing Committees).
§
Some programs and organizations
(Argo, BEST, ESSAS, IMBER, NOWPAP, PAG and SOLAS) had posters on display
outlining their scientific objectives and highlighting recent activities.
§
A brief presentation on the implementation of the
Action Plan resulting from the 2007 PICES Publications Review was given
by Mr. Brian Voss (IAMSLIC) at the meetings of the F&A Committee and Study Group on
Communications (F&A Endnote
6). The plan, once completed, would allow a smooth
transition to more on-line
access for PICES publications.
Council reviewed the progress made
in the integration and coordination
of PICES activities with other international and regional scientific
organizations and programs, and approved keeping the Standing List of
International and Regional Organizations and Programs, and
priorities for
interaction in 2008–2009, as recommended by Science Board (Decision
08/S/8). This list is used, in part, to assist the Executive
Secretary and Science Board in decisions regarding sending PICES representatives
to meetings of other international organizations/programs.
Agenda Item 6
Future integrative scientific program of PICES
The second integrative scientific
program of PICES, FUTURE (Forecasting
and Understanding Trends, Uncertainty and Responses of North
Pacific Marine Ecosystems) will be the highest priority activity of the Organization
for the next decade. At the 2007
PICES Annual Meeting, Council:
§
approved in principle the Science Plan for
FUTURE, subject to minor
modifications to be completed by the end of 2007 (Decision 07/S/1);
§
agreed that $40,000 from the encumbered
funds designated for high-priority
projects be earmarked for
the development of FUTURE (Decision 07/A/3(v));
§
endorsed two activities proposed by Science Board for 2008: (1) a 2-day workshop
to develop an Implementation Plan for
FUTURE to be held in April 2008, in conjunction with an inter-sessional
Science Board meeting (Decision 07/S/3), and (2) a 1-day Science Board
Symposium on “Beyond observations to achieving understanding
and forecasting in a changing
North Pacific: Forward
to the FUTURE”, to be convened at the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting
(Decision 07/S/2).
At the
second session of Council on November 2, Dr. John Stein (Science Board
Chairman) reported
on the progress made in the development of FUTURE. The following activities took place after the
2007 Annual Meeting:
§
The
FUTURE Science Plan was modified, taking into consideration comments
from the 2007 Open Forum and recommendations by Science Board and Council,
and its final version was posted on the PICES website in mid-February
2008.
§
The FUTURE Implementation Plan workshop was held April 23–24,
2008, in Seattle,
U.S.A. The goals of the workshop were to discuss: the organizing principles for implementing FUTURE,
the framework for an organizational structure, potential membership
and co-chairmanship for the Implementation Plan Writing Team (IP-WT),
and a timeline for developing the Plan.
Attendees of the workshop included practically all members of
the Study Group on Future
Integrative Scientific Program(s)
(SG-FISP), Science Plan Writing Team (SP-WT) and Science Board, and
several invitees. Some Council members participated in the workshop,
which was valuable to the deliberations.
A brief summary of the workshop was published in PICES Press
in June 2008 (Vol. 16, No. 2).
§
The IP-WT was established in May 2008, through the Council
approval process, with the responsibility of drafting the Implementation
Plan for FUTURE. This
Team includes 21 scientists representing all Contracting Parties. Drs. James Overland (U.S.A.) and Hiroaki Saito (Japan)
were appointed as IP-WT Co-Chairmen.
§
The draft Implementation Plan was circulated to Council,
Science Board and SG-FISP and posted on the PICES website on October
10, 2008.
§
This
draft was reviewed by Standing Committees and their subsidiary groups
prior to, or at, the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting.
A 1-day Science Board Symposium
on “Beyond observations to achieving
understanding and forecasting in a changing North Pacific: Forward to the FUTURE”, and several FUTURE-related
Topic Sessions and workshop were also convened to assist in the development
of the program.
§
some IP-WT members of ecosystem dynamics, and the communication of scientific
results to policy makers and stakeholders.
Extensive discussion on the structure
and implementation strategy for FUTURE took place after Dr. Stein’s
presentation. While no formal decision was made by Council on the structure
of FUTURE, some of the delegates suggested that a closer integration
of FUTURE, Science Board, and Committees is desirable in the Implementation
Plan. It was noted that this
was also a major element of consideration when the Science Plan was
being created, and that the intent was to facilitate better linkages
between Standing Committees and the science program. Although
the delegates had different ideas what a desirable degree of integration
should be, they all agreed that the ownership of FUTURE belongs to Science
Board, and that Science Board should serve as the Scientific Steering
Committee for the Program. The
Co-Chairmen of FUTURE must be on Science Board to coordinate
the implementation of the program with and among Standing Committees.
that these Committees be fully engaged with
the program to ensure that all of the scientific capabilities within
the Organization are contributing. Determining
how
to connections between the
FUTURE Science Plan and the Strategic Plan of the Organization, and
to linkages between scientific outcomes of FUTURE and the ocean management
policies of Contracting Parties.
Concerning
the schedule, it was confirmed that
Council
approved a 2-day workshop to finalize the development of the Implementation
Plan for FUTURE, to be convened in conjunction
with inter-sessional meetings of Science Board and Council in April
2009, in Qingdao, China
(Decision 08/S/2). A proposal
to have an IP-WT meeting between November 2008 and April 2009 was considered,
but consensus was not reached, and the decision was deferred to the
IP-WT Co-Chairmen.
Dr.
Richards suggested that sufficient funding is available in the budget
for activities planned for 2009.
Agenda Item 7
Capacity building activities and PICES Intern Program
Holding special conferences,
schools on marine sciences and training courses for early career scientists,
providing financial support for their participation in PICES Annual
Meetings and symposia co-sponsored by the Organization, and the Intern
Program are all essential components of PICES’
strategy for capacity building (http://www.pices.int/about/capacity_strategy.pdf). The Executive Secretary reported on capacity
building activities in 2008 and some plans for 2009.
Travel support
for early career scientists
It is estimated that about $38,000 from the Trust Fund
will be spent in 2008 to support
participation of early career scientists in the international symposium
on “Effects of climate change on the world’s oceans”
(Gijón, Spain),
and in the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting (Dalian,
China). This amount
includes about US$12,500 provided by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) to cover travel of scientists from countries with “economies
in transition” to these two meetings. Council
expressed their thanks to SCOR for their continuing support. Following
the revised guidelines for
operating the Trust Fund adopted in 2006 (Decision 06/A/4(i)), the Executive
Secretary provided a detailed report
on applications received for
support and their disposition at the F&A Committee meeting.
PICES schools on marine sciences
At the 2007 PICES Annual Meeting, Council
supported a proposal to organize the second PICES Summer School on “Ecosystem-based management and ecosystem approach”.
Fifty students and early career scientists from China,
Japan, Korea, Russia
and U.S.A. attended
this school held August 23–26, 2008, at the Graduate School of Fisheries
Sciences, Hokkaido University, Hakodate,
Japan. The major funding for foreign participants was
provided by several Japanese programs: Japan–China Students Exchange Program (support for 17 Chinese graduate and undergraduate
students), Japan–Korea
Core University Program (support for 6 Korean students), and Sustainability
Governance Program of Hokkaido University (support for 3 Russian, 1
UK and 1 U.S. early career
scientists and a foreign lecturer).
Participation of Japanese students, early career scientists and
lecturers was covered by scientific grants from the Japanese Society
for the Promotion of Science. Funding from Japanese sources was coordinated
by Dr. Yasunori Sakurai. PICES provided travel expenses for 1 foreign lecturer and 1 Russian early
career scientist. The summary
report of the school will be published in the next issue of PICES Press
(January 2009, Vol. 17, No. 1).
The originally planned theme for the third
PICES Summer School was “Recent methods of investigating red-tide organisms
and controlling red tides”, but has been changed to “Satellite oceanography”. This school will be organized from August
25–28, 2009, in Seoul, Korea, and wIn this course, principles and applications in
three major areas (optical, infra-red and microwave) of satellite oceanography
will be introduced to students and early career scientists who have
little experience in the field (focus will be on Asian countries). In addition to lectures and seminars, hands-on
training of image processing will be arranged. The major funding for the school will be provided
by various Korean agencies. PICES
is requested to support 1 foreign lecturer and 5 non-Korean students.
The first
PICES Winter
School on “Field survey of sea ice area” was being planned for late February
or early March 2009, in Vladivostok,
Russia.
It is postponed and will proceed in 2010, if
funding and logistical problems are resolved.
Workshops on ecological modeling
It was recommended that PICES partner
with other organizations and programs to broaden applications of the NEMURO
and NEMURO.FISH models developed by the CCCC MODEL Task Team. A 4-day training workshop on “Simulation
techniques for building multi-trophic level marine ecosystem models: Examples using NEMURO and NEMURO.FISH” for
Ph.D.-level Korean scientists was held January 29–February 1, 2008,
at the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI)
in Busan, Korea. Dr. Bernard
A. Megrey (U.S.A.) delivered a series of lectures to 32 students from
Pukyong National
University, Seoul
National University,
NFRDI-Marine Environmental Lab-Pusan, NFRDI-South Sea Lab-Yeosu and
NFRDI-Jeju Island. The workshop was co-sponsored by NFRDI, PICES
and the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service.
Council
commended these organizations
and also Drs. Megrey
and Jae Bong Lee (Korea),
who coordinated the project, for their efforts.
Training HAB courses
A new area of capacity building for PICES is the enhancement
of monitoring programs that may mitigate the expansion of harmful organisms
and establish a free exchange of information on harmful algal blooms
(HABs) in the Pacific Rim. Recent increases in HAB events have caused damage
to fisheries and disturbance of ecosystems in the North Pacific and
areas to the south. In order
to minimize the impact and expansion of harmful organisms and lower
their occurrence and damage to fisheries, a first step is building capacity
in developing nations through focused training.
In this effort, which is funded by the Ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry and Fisheries of Japan, through the Fisheries Agency of Japan
(see Agenda Item 10), PICES has partnered with the Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission (IOC) to determine which countries have the
greatest need and a strong interest in improving HAB monitoring and
testing, and a commitment to sustainability.
Site visits to labs in Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as
participation in the 2nd Asian GEOHAB (Global Ecology and
Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms) conference in January 2008 (Nha
Trang, Vietnam), and the 7th WESTPAC Scientific
Symposium in May 2008 (Sabah, Malaysia), facilitated country
selection. The initial training
course will be from January 15–23, 2009, and will focus on assisting
the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), which is the agency
that manages HAB events in the Philippines. The course will include: (1) training in methods for testing shellfish
for paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins; (2) review of phytoplankton
identification, with specific focus on harmful species in the Philippines;
and (3) introduction to on-line HAB databases.
This project is being led by the Section on Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms in the North Pacific.
PICES Intern Program
The PICES Intern
Program, approved in 1999 (Decision 99/A/7) and commenced in 2000, aims
at the professional development of marine scientists and managers from
PICES Contracting Parties, and increasing the capacity of the PICES
Secretariat to support the work of the Organization.
From May 2000–October 2008, 9 scientists from three countries
(3 from China, 4 from Korea
and 2 from Russia)
have worked as interns at the PICES Secretariat. The Executive Secretary reviewed the current
positions of the former interns and their involvement in activities
of the Organization. Two former PICES interns from the State Oceanic Administration, Gongke
Tan (First Institute of Oceanography) and Chuanlin Huo (National Marine Environmental
Monitoring Center), were the nucleus of the Local Organizing Committee
for this year’s Annual Meeting and contributed greatly to its
success. Council noted that it
is an indicator that the Intern Program is working effectively.
Council accepted
changes in the background documentation for the Intern Program recommended
by the F&A Committee to align the description of the program with
current practice (Decision 08/A/6(i)).
The changes are related to supervision (under the PICES Secretariat),
start date of the internship (normally begins on or about February 1)
and level of required education (university degree, with an M.Sc. or
Ph.D. as an asset). The updated document can be found in this Annual
Report (F&A Endnote 7)
and on the PICES website (http://www.pices.int/projects/intern.aspx).
In July 2007, Mr.
Key-Seok Choe (Project Management Team, Korea
Ocean Research and Development Institute) was nominated and subsequently approved
as the 2008 PICES intern. His
originally-offered 8-month term
started on February 1, 2008. At the 2007 PICES Annual
Meeting, Korea
announced a voluntary contribution of US$10,000 to the Trust Fund in
2008, to allow this term to be extended to 12 months, assuming good performance by the intern. At the recommendation of the Executive Secretary,
Mr. Choe’s term will continue until January 31, 2009.
Earlier, Council agreed to postpone
the deadline of nominations for the 2009 PICES internship until the
beginning of the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting (Decision 07/A/6(ii)). In accordance with the guidelines for application and selection of interns,
a member country that has had an intern in
any year is eligible to have an intern in the following two years only
if there are no applicants from other member countries.
Therefore, it was expected that Russia will nominate an intern for
the 2009 term. The Executive
Secretary reported that in his letter of June 18, 2008, Dr. Lev Bocharov
(Russian National Delegate) requested that Russia
be allowed to nominate an intern for the 2010 term, and suggested that
China nominate
an intern for the 2009 term. This
proposal was accepted by China. Council was informed that Mr. Yongling Zhu, Director of the Foreign Affairs Office, Second Institute
of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration) was nominated (September 8)
and subsequently
selected (October 28) as the 2009 PICES intern. At the recommendation of the F&A Committee,
Mr. Zhu was offered
a 12-month term to start as soon as possible after February 1, 2009.
Given
that Mr. Zhu’s term will continue until early 2010, Council extended
the deadline of nominations for
the 2010 PICES Internship until the Governing Council meeting at the
2009 PICES Annual Meeting (Decision
08/A/6(ii)).
Over the years, the Intern Program has been financed
solely by voluntary contributions. The Executive Secretary reported that in 2008, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS) and the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute
(KORDI) contributed
US$15,000 and US$10,000, respectively, to the Trust Fund for the Program. It was also indicated that NMFS and Fisheries
and Oceans Canada have been the most generous partners of this activity
to date, providing from 2000–2008 approximately CDN$150,000 and CDN$71,500,
respectively, for the Program. Council thanked both organizations and KORDI for
their support of the Intern
Program, and instructed the Executive Secretary to invite all Contracting
Parties to make voluntary contributions to maintain
the Program in 2009 and beyond (Decision 08/A/6(iii)).
Council
confirmed that the stipend should be kept at the current level of $2,000
per month. The
nominating Contracting Party could consider supplementing this modest
stipend, depending on the intern’s personal circumstances (Decision
08/A/6(iv)).
It
is estimated that at the end of FY 2008, the Organization will
be holding about $15,000 for the Intern Program.
With the current stipend level, this amount is sufficient to
maintain the Program for about 7 months in 2009.
In the absence of voluntary contributions, the registration fee
revenue from the Annual Meetings has to be used to finance the Program
(Decisions 01/A/4(iv) and 04/A/5(iv)).
International scientist/student exchange
Even though there is a provision (clause 4(iii)) in the
PICES Trust Fund Guidelines
that allows usage of the resources in the Fund to support visits by
scientists to laboratories for collaboration or training related to
scientific projects sponsored by the Organization, the Secretariat did not receive any requests for support.
Agenda Item 8
Schedule, structure
and financing of future Annual Meetings
In 2007, Council accepted an invitation from Korea
to host the 2009 PICES Annual Meeting from October 23–November 1, in
Busan, with the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute
(NFRDI) as the local organizer,
and supported in principle the proposed theme of the meeting,
“Understanding ecosystem dynamics, pursuing ecosystem
approaches to management” (Decision 07/A/5(ii)). The theme description was finalized at the 2008
inter-sessional Science Board meeting (April 2008, Seattle, U.S.A.)
and can be found in this Annual Report
(SB Endnote 4). Brief information
on the status of preparations
for the meeting was provided by the Korean delegation. It
was indicated that because
of a restructuring within the Korean
government, the local organizing
committee will be now composed of the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (MLTL), the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI)
and NFRDI. The venue has also
changed from Busan to Jeju. Council
approved these changes and, at
the recommendation of the F&A Committee, agreed to provide
$40,000 to Korea to partially cover costs for the meeting (Decision 08/A/5(i)).
Last year, the United States confirmed their willingness
to host the PICES Annual Meeting in 2010, and this invitation was accepted
by Council (Decision 07/A/5(iii)). Interest
was indicated in exploring
the opportunity of a joint ICES–PICES Annual Meeting, with shared science activities and separate business meetings
(Decision 07/A/5(iii)). The U.S. delegation
reported that though the
idea of the joint meeting was supported
by both organizations, it cannot be implemented this time.
Council was also informed that dates and venue for
the 2010 PICES Annual Meeting will be suggested by the end of 2008 (currently
Portland, Honolulu and Seattle
are under consideration). The
proposed theme of the meeting, “North Pacific ecosystems today, and challenges in understanding
and forecasting change”
was supported in principle,
and Science Board was instructed to finalize the theme description (see
SB Endnote 5 for
the draft) by the 2009 inter-sessional Science Board meeting (Decision
08/A/5(ii)).
In keeping with the established 6-year rotation cycle
(Decision 94/A/6), the Russian
Federation was invited to explore the possibility of hosting the 2011 PICES Annual
Meeting and inform
the Secretariat on this matter by March 31, 2009 (Decision 08/A/5(iii)).
At the recommendation of Science
Board (see SB Agenda Item 14),
Council approved a new naming convention for future Annual Meetings
that includes the name of the Organization and the year of the meeting (PICES-2009,
PICES-2010, etc.). For consistency, a similar approach will be
used for inter-sessional meetings of Science Board and Council (ISB-2009,
IGC-2009).
Council confirmed that the practice
of charging a registration fee for
future PICES Annual Meetings should continue and, at the recommendation
of the F&A Committee, accepted the same registration fee structure
for 2009 as was maintained
for 2004–2008 (Decision 08/A/5(iv)).
Fees will be collected by the Secretariat and credited
to the Working Capital Fund
to support high priority projects and the Intern Program, and to cover
costs associated with Annual Meetings.
The allocation among these three purposes should be flexible
and decided by the Executive Secretary (Decision 04/A/5(iv)).
At
last year’s Annual Meeting, Council agreed that serious thought should
be given to the restructuring of the Annual Meeting
of the Organization. Following
this discussion, Dr. Wada introduced a proposal to form
a Study Group on Restructuring of the PICES Annual
Meeting (SG-RAM)
under the direction of Council. After
careful consideration, Council approved this proposal (Decision 08/A/5(vi)). The rationale for this decision
can be found in GC
Endnote 6. The terms of reference and membership for SG-RAM are described in GC Appendix B.
It is expected that initial recommendations
from SG-RAM will be discussed at the next
meeting of Council.
The practice of holding inter-sessional meetings of Science
Board and Governing Council is only 6 years old, but these meetings
have already become an integral part of PICES management, providing
an essential opportunity
for mid-term reviews of scientific activities and in-depth
discussions on administrative issues of the Organization. At the 2005 PICES Annual Meeting (Vladivostok, Russia), Council expressed its support for
the concept of inter-sessional meetings, but stressed that given meeting
costs (including time commitment of the members), the need for
such meetings should be evaluated each year.
This approach was confirmed in the following years.
Council supported
the request by Science Board for
their inter-sessional meeting
in 2009 to be convened in conjunction with a workshop to finalize the development of an Implementation Plan
for FUTURE. Dr. Wada indicated that several important
and urgent issues justify the holding of an inter-sessional Governing
Council meeting in 2009. These
include: (1) review and possible approval of the FUTURE
Implementation Plan; (2) consideration of changes in the Rules of Procedure
required to accommodate experts from non-member countries to PICES expert
groups; (3) report of the
Study Group on Restructuring of the PICES
Annual Meeting; and (4) discussion on
future collaboration with
a new North Pacific fisheries management organization currently under consideration. After extensive discussion Council found that
the agenda is substantive and approved this proposal.
Council accepted with gratitude
an offer from the State Oceanic Administration of China to host the
FUTURE workshop and both inter-sessional meetings in Qingdao in April 2009 (Decision
08/A/5(vii)).
Agenda Item 9
Improvement of
participation in PICES activities
The Executive Secretary reported
on the implementation of Council’s decisions to target the improvement
of the participation of scientists from Contracting Parties in the activities
of the Standing Committees and their subsidiary bodies, and in the Annual
Meetings of the Organization. He
presented background graphic material for
the last six Annual Meetings (2003–2008) to better assess problems existing
in various countries. Council
requested that these files be electronically circulated to all Contracting
Parties and updated prior to the 2009 PICES Annual Meeting. Canada suggested adding to the background
material information on the
number of presentations given by participating scientists from each
country as a measure of quality of their involvement.
China and
Korea
informed Council on some measures they are taking
to improve the inter-agency coordination
for PICES activities and
to review their national membership and make changes as appropriate.
Agenda Item 10
Report on the PICES project “Development of the prevention systems for
harmful organisms’ expansion
in the Pacific Rim” supported
by the Japanese Trust Fund
In 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan, through the
Fisheries Agency of Japan (JFA), approved funding for
a PICES project entitled “Development
of the prevention systems for
harmful organisms’ expansion in the Pacific Rim” to develop
international systems to collect, exchange and store
relevant data, and to foster partnerships with non-PICES member countries
and related international organizations. The anticipated duration of the project is 5
years (from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2012).
The project has two distinct components, one on harmful
algal blooms carried out by the Section on Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms in
the North Pacific (HAB-S),
and the other on marine non-indigenous species conducted by the Working Group on Non-indigenous
Aquatic Species (WG 21). Both
these PICES expert groups are under the Marine Environmental Quality
Committee (MEQ). The Chairman
of MEQ, Dr. Glen Jamieson, serves as the Project Scientific Coordinator and has to report
annually on the progress of the scientific implementation of the project. The Executive Secretary is responsible for the management of the fund and for reporting
annually on its disposition to Governing Council and JFA, within 120
days after the close of each project year ending March 31.
The Japanese Trust Fund (voluntary contribution) was
first announced at the April 2007 inter-sessional Governing Council
meeting in Yokohama, Japan. The Executive Secretary informed Council that the required set of documents requesting
funding for Year 1 was sent to JFA on June 20, 2007,
and funds ($184,980) were transferred to a special (PICES/MAFF) bank
account established by PICES on July 27, 2007.
The progress report
(summary of the activities carried out for
the year, with an evaluation on the progress made, and a workplan for
the following year) and the financial report
for Year 1 were submitted to JFA on July 19 and July 23, 2008, respectively.
The notice on acceptance of both reports
was received on July 30. The
financial report is appended as GC Endnote 7.
The scientific progress report
prepared by Dr. Jamieson is included in the 2008 MEQ report.
The required set of documents requesting funding for Year 2
was sent to JFA on April 3, 2008, and then again (following instructions
from JFA) to the Consulate General of Japan in Vancouver
(Canada)
on June 2. Funds ($161,466) were
transferred to the PICES/MAFF bank account on July 17, 2008.
Japan stated that JFA is satisfied
with the progress of the project. The
United States suggested that some efforts will be made to involve U.S. government
agencies in this activity. Council
thanked Japan
again for their generous
contribution.
Agenda Item 11
Report of Science Board
The Science Board met under the chairmanship of Dr. John
E. Stein, who presented the report
to Council on November 2. The
full report can be found elsewhere in this Annual Report. Decisions on scientific issues (S-Decisions)
are summarized in GC
Appendix A, and terms of reference
for new expert groups are included in GC Appendix B.
Several recommendations by Science Board were not supported:
§
For the proposed Study Group on Indicators of Human
Well-Being,
it was suggested that the
description and terms of reference should be better developed for consideration
at the 2009 inter-sessional Council meeting.
The important issue is to define the role of social science in
PICES and how this expert group will fit into FUTURE.
§
For the requested co-sponsorship of the ESSAS Open Science Meeting
(OSM), the decision is deferred until the next Annual Meeting. Though close links and the importance of future collaboration
with ESSAS were widely recognized, their OSM is not until 2011, and
there may be more important issues to consider in the meantime.
§
Travel support for a TCODE representative to attend the 2009 meeting of
the ICES Working Group on Data and Information Management and the 2009
ICES Annual Science Conference was not approved.
In the presentation, special
emphasis was placed on the workplan for the next version of the North Pacific Ecosystem Status Report (NPESR). After
receiving the final report
of the Study Group on Ecosystem Status Reporting
(SG-ESR) at the 2007 PICES Annual Meeting, Science Board and Council
approved the “incremental improvement” approach to the development of
the next NPESR, which builds on the experiences of the 2004 pilot report
on Marine Ecosystems of the North Pacific. This
document reported on the status and
trends in marine ecosystems of the North Pacific and its marginal seas,
covering approximately the 5-year period from 1998–2002, and addressing
system components from climate and hydrography to fish, birds and mammals. The new version will focus on the years from
2003–2008, and there will be modest revisions to the general organization
of the report. To facilitate
better comparisons among regions and a more comprehensive synthesis,
greater top-down control of the report was suggested.
Dr. Skip McKinnell (Deputy Executive Secretary) was endorsed
as the Editor of
NPESR, although it required some adjustment of his duties within the
PICES Secretariat. At a later date, Dr. Michael Dagg (BIO Chairman)
was added as a Co-Editor (his involvement in the project is supported
by a separate grant of US$15,700 from the North Pacific Research Board).
Currently three phases are envisioned in the preparation
of the report:
§
Phase 1 will consist
of regional chapters, each written for a scientific audience. Lead Authors for each chapter have
been identified and are in the process of putting their teams together.
All regional chapters will follow a common framework
provided by the Co-Editors and are planned to be completed by June
30, 2009. As the
primary focus of the Lead Authors is regional/geographic, an Advisory
Group has been established to provide disciplinary oversight of the
report’s development. Some financial
support for regional workshops or meetings is available.
§
Phase 2 will be a synthesis
and integration of all regions, also written for a scientific audience,
to develop a status report on issues that cross the entire North Pacific
basin, and to determine to what degree basin-wide climate and ocean
indices are affecting all regions simultaneously. Regional chapters will provide important information
for the synthesis and facilitate comparison among regions. The period from July 1–November 15, 2009, will
allow Lead Authors and their teams to undertake regional inter-comparisons
and synthesis studies in preparation for a synthesis workshop to be
held in late 2009. Co-Editors,
Lead Authors, members of the Advisory Group and additional scientific
experts familiar with ocean-scale processes will participate in the
synthesis workshop and prepare the synthesis chapter.
The deadline for publishing the chapter is March 2010.
§
Phase 3 will be a brochure
summarizing the major findings of the regional chapters and the synthesis
chapter. The target audience
for this brochure is non-scientific and includes policy makers, managers,
and other interested members of society.
Dr. McKinnell reported that Co-Editors,
Lead Authors and Advisory Group members met in Dalian
to comply
with the procedures accepted for the production of the NPESR
The Executive Secretary indicated that after getting
the remainder of the NPRB grant ($53,100) and a voluntary contribution
provided by Korea ($40,500), PICES has sufficient funding (~$212,000)
designated for
the preparation of the next NPESR.
Agenda Item 12
Report and recommendations of
the Finance and Administration Committee
The Finance and Administration (F&A) Committee met
under the chairmanship of Dr. Laura Richards, who presented the report to Council on November 1. The full report is included elsewhere in this
Annual Report. Some budgetary considerations can be found below.
Decisions on financial and administrative issues (A-Decisions)
are summarized in GC Appendix
A.
12.1 Audited accounts for
fiscal year 2007
At the recommendation of the F&A Committee, Council
accepted the audited accounts of FY 2007 (F&A Endnote 3, Decision 08/A/1(i)).
Council retained Flader & Hale as the external
auditor for FYs 2009–2011 (Decision 08/A/1(ii)).
12.2
Annual contributions
Council reviewed the payment schedule of annual fees
to the Organization (F&A Endnote 4), and noted that all Contracting Parties met their financial obligations
for FY 2008, except the United
States.
The United
States indicated that the arrears payment
of $8,525 for 2008 would
be made in conjunction with the 2009 annual contribution.
Even though only the Japanese
contribution arrived prior
to the due date (January 1, 2008), the timeliness of payment from other
Contracting Parties is either stable or
improved. China
and Korea’s
progress is especially notable, with the time of the payment moving
up one quarter in 2008.
Council instructed the Executive Secretary to send
a letter to Contracting Parties commending them for
their performance in submitting
annual contributions for
2008, and describing the difficulties that late and partial payment
causes the Organization (Decision 08/A/2(i)).
China explained that due to the national budgetary process
they are unable to meet the January 1 deadline and cannot pay the annual
contribution earlier than in April, but all efforts will be made to
facilitate the payment. Korea
indicated that their situation is similar, and the annual contribution
cannot be paid earlier than February.
Council re-iterated that for
planning purposes, Contracting Parties should continue to use the guideline
generally accepted at the 1999 PICES Annual Meeting (Decision 99/A/2(ii)),
which states that “the annual
contributions will increase at the rate of inflation in Canada”
(Decision 08/A/2(ii)).
12.3 Fund-raising activities
As current funding constraints from an increase in annual
contributions only at the rate of inflation in Canada can impede
improvement and development of the Organization, fund-raising continues
to be an important component
of PICES activities. External
funding and voluntary contributions received for
the period since the 2007 PICES Annual Meeting for
various activities of the Organization are reflected in F&A Endnote 5. The level of external funding has increased
significantly over the last several years, and
from 2004–2007, the amount of funds from voluntary contributions,
grants and partnerships was about 30–50% of the total annual contribution
by Contracting Parties. In 2008,
fund-raising efforts by the PICES scientific community, national
delegates, and the PICES Secretariat will result in even greater income.
It was confirmed that despite the current
global economic crisis, external funding committed for FY 2009
appeared secure.
12.4 Budget
Estimated
accounts for fiscal year
2008
At the recommendation of the F&A Committee, Council
approved the estimated accounts for
FY 2008 (Decision 08/A/3(i)). It was noted that the expenses for “foreign
exchange loss” are unknown at this time.
Relocation
and Home Leave Fund
The status of the Relocation and Home Leave Fund (RHLF)
was reviewed. This Fund is allowed
to fluctuate between $90,000 and $110,000 to minimize the need for small transfers between funds (Decision 07/A/3(iii)).
Given the estimated fund balance of $101,056 on January 1, 2009, no action was required.
Trust
Fund
In FY 2008, the total expenses from the Trust
Fund (TRF) to finance the Intern Program, and to support participation of early career scientists from all
Contracting Parties and scientists from countries with “economies in
transition” to scientific meetings organized
and co-sponsored by PICES
are estimated at $68,450. These expenses were only partly compensated
for by interest earned by the Fund, the voluntary contributions
for the Intern Program, and
travel grants from SCOR. The
estimated total income is $41,630. Council approved a transfer from the
Working Capital Fund to the Trust Fund to recover the
2008 expenses, and to restore
the Trust Fund to the level of $110,000 by the end of the fiscal year
(Decision 08/A/3(iii)).
Working Capital Fund
After all approved inter-fund transfers, the amount of
funds available in the Working
Capital Fund (WCF) on January 1, 2008, was $354,519. This includes $215,495 in encumbered funds and
$139,024 in “reserve operating” funds.
In FY 2008, the total WCF income and expenses are estimated
at a level of $496,665 ($173,975 are in voluntary contributions and
grants) and $268,504, respectively.
After the recommended inter-fund transfers, the amount of funds
available in WCF at the fiscal year end will be $457,860.
This includes $299,431 in encumbered funds held for
special and high-priority
PICES projects with completion in 2009–2010, and $158,429 in “reserve
operating” funds.
Council reviewed the
status of the encumbered funds designated for
high-priority PICES projects
and agreed that given current plans, sufficient funding is presently
earmarked for the development
of the new integrative scientific program, FUTURE, and for
the preparation of the next North Pacific Ecosystem Status
Report. At the recommendation of the F&A
Committee, Council allocated unspent funds from the 2006 CCCC
symposium on “Climate variability and ecosystem impacts on the North
Pacific: A basin-scale synthesis”
($3,593) to other high priority projects, including capacity building, which
were not specified at the time of the meeting (Decision 08/A/3(iv)).
Budget for FY 2009 and forecast
budget for FY 2010
Council approved the proposed FY 2009 budget of
$785,000 (F&A Endnote 8). The amount of $98,000 will be transferred from
the Working Capital Fund
to balance the budget, setting the total annual contribution at $687,000,
and the 2009 fees at $114,500 per Contracting Party (Decision 08/A/3(ii)).
The FY 2010
forecast budget of $803,000
was examined by the F&A Committee and presented to Council for information
only. It was noted though that
if the inflation rate in Canada
stays at the level of 2.5–3.0%, then the 2010 annual fee should be set
at the level of $117,500 per Contracting Party.
The total annual contribution would be $705,000, and a transfer
of $98,000 from the Working
Capital Fund would be required to balance the budget.
The FY 2010 budget will be further discussed at the 2009
PICES Annual Meeting.
Report on
PICES Publication Program
Council accepted the recommendation
of the F&A Committee to discontinue printing the Annual Report, and instead, distribute the report electronically
and deposit it in the electronic commons (Decision 08/A/7).
Agenda Item 13
Report of the Executive Committee for evaluating annual performance
of the Executive Secretary
At the recommendation of the United States
and in accordance with Financial
Regulations 12(i), an Executive Committee of Council for
evaluating the annual performance
of the Executive Secretary was established
at the 2007 PICES Annual Meeting (Decision 07/A/7(i)). Terms of reference and membership of
the Committee are listed in 2007
GC Appendix B.
It was also decided that in 2008, the Executive Committee
will review achievements of the current Executive Secretary for
the previous 3 years, in preparation for
his possible re-appointment (Decision 07/A/7(ii)). As decision on re-appointment shall be made
at least 12 months prior
to the end of the term, Council agreed, in compliance with Article VII of the Convention and Rule
4 of the Rules of Procedure, to vote on the results of the evaluation
by correspondence before
April
30, 2008.
Dr. Wada informed
Council that the Executive Committee evaluated the performance
report for
2004–2007 submitted by the Executive Secretary, Dr. Alexander Bychkov,
and strongly recommended his re-appointment for
a new 5-year term. This recommendation
was circulated by e-mail to all Contracting Parties on April 10, 2008. Responses were requested by April 30, 2008.
The result of voting–5 endorsements (Canada,
Japan, China, Russia
and U.S.A.) and 1
abstention (Korea)–was
announced on May 2, 2008. At
that time, it was indicated that the abstention occurred by a failure
to respond by the deadline rather than an explicit withdrawal from voting. In his e-mail of May 6, Mr. Doan Jeong (Korean National Delegate) indicated that Korea
had also intended to support
the re-appointment of Dr. Bychkov and sent an e-mail in this regard
on April 26, but for some
technical reasons the vote was not received.
According to Article
VII of the Convention, the result of voting constitutes consensus
of the Contracting Parties required for
the appointment of the Executive Secretary.
Dr. Bychkov’s 5-year term of office will begin at the completion
of his current term, on June 1, 2009 (Decision 08/A/8).
The Executive Committee also reviewed the detailed report for
2007 submitted by Dr. Bychkov and evaluated his annual performance as “met all” expectations not only for his ongoing commitments but also for his key commitments specifically requested by the
PICES Chairman. Following the
general guidelines for executive
positions in the Canadian public service, it was decided that a performance pay and bonus to total 8.3% of his salary would
be appropriate for this period.
The report on the
performance evaluation for 2007, that also includes tasks for the Executive Secretary for
2008, was circulated to all Contracting Parties on April 10, 2008.
Agenda Item 14
Election of Chairman
and Vice-Chairman
According to Rule 6 of the PICES Rules of Procedure, “The Chairman and the Vice-Chairman shall be
elected from amongst the Delegates for
a term of two years and each shall be eligible for
re-election only once for
a successive term. They shall
take office at the conclusion of the Annual Meeting at which elected.” In addition, Rule 5(ii) states that “Nominations
of candidates for elections
in the Council shall be sent in writing to the Executive Secretary at
least 60 days prior to the
start of the Annual Meeting at which the election will occur.” Drs. Tokio Wada (Japan)
and Lev Bocharov (Russia)
were elected as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of Council, respectively,
at the 2006 PICES Annual Meeting (Yokohama,
Japan), and their terms will end at the conclusion of
this year’s Annual Meeting. The
Executive Secretary reported
that he did not receive any nominations for
these positions.
Dr. Bocharov conducted the election
of the Chairman of Council in accordance
with the Rules of Procedure. Dr.
Wada was nominated and unanimously
elected as the Chairman for
a second 2-year term (Decision 08/A/9(i)).
Dr. Vera Alexander (U.S.A) remains past-Chairman, and will be
able to attend the meetings of Council in an ex-officio
advisory capacity.
Dr. Wada conducted the election
of the Vice-Chairman of Council in accordance
with the Rules of Procedure. Dr.
Bocharov was nominated and unanimously
elected as the Vice-Chairman for
a second 2-year term (Decision 08/A/9(ii)).
The Delegates congratulated Drs. Wada and Bocharov on
their election and expressed their gratitude for
their valuable contribution to Council
affairs over the years. Drs.
Wada and Bocharov thanked Council for
their support.
Agenda Item 15
Appointment of F&A Committee Chairman
According to Rule 19(iii) of
the PICES Rules of Procedure, “The Chairman of the Finance
and Administration Committee shall be appointed by the Council from
among the Committee’s members for
a period of two years and if re-appointed, total consecutive service
may not exceed four years”. Dr. Laura Richards (Canada)
was appointed as the F&A Committee Chairman at the 2004 PICES Annual
Meeting (Honolulu, U.S.A.)
and re-appointed for the next 2-year period at the 2006 PICES Annual
Meeting (Yokohama,
Japan). Her second term will end
at the conclusion of the 2008 Annual Meeting.
Council accepted the recommendation
of the F&A Committee and appointed Ms. Patricia Livingston (U.S.A.)
as the Chairman of this Committee for a 2-year term (Decision 08/A/10). Ms. Livingston thanked Council members for their support. Council also expressed its gratitude to Dr.
Richards for her leadership
of the F&A Committee over the past 4 years.
Agenda Item 16
Other business
– Procedure for
preparing the Council report
The
PICES Rules of Procedure contain the following two clauses dealing with
the development and circulation of the Governing Council report and
the Annual Report of the Organization:
§
The Executive
Secretary shall transmit to the Contracting Parties as soon as possible
after each meeting of the Council a report of the proceedings (Rule
10(vi));
§
The Executive
Secretary shall prepare an annual report of the activities of the Organization
and transmit it to the Contracting Parties (Rule 10(viii)).
The
Executive Secretary noted that even though he is responsible for the
development of the Council report
and overseeing
the preparation of the entire Annual Report of the Organization, it is the responsibility of the Co-Chairmen of temporary
expert groups and the Chairmen of Standing and Executive Committees
to prepare their annual reports to reflect the results achieved by their
group or Committee and the proposed and planned activities. Without these reports all issues cannot be reflected
accurately in the Council report, and any delays in getting group/Committee
reports will inevitably cause delays in the development of the Council
report.
Council
set January 15, 2009, as the deadline for circulation of the final draft
of the 2008 Council report.
Dr. Richards reminded Council
that it was decided that the printing of the Annual Report be discontinued, and instead, the report will be distributed electronically
(Decision 08/A/7), so the Council report will be placed on the PICES
website as soon as it is approved by Contracting Parties.
GC Endnote 1
Participation list
Canada
Serge Labonté (delegate)
Laura Richards (delegate) Japan
Yukimasa Ishida
(alternate delegate)
Harumi Yamada (advisor)
People’s Republic of China
Handi Guo (alternate delegate)
Yingren Li (advisor)
Gongke Tan (advisor)
Dongmei
Tang (advisor)
Zhanhai
Zhang (delegate)
Baoying
Zhu (advisor)
Republic of Korea
Sik Huh (advisor)
Doan Jeong (delegate)
Jeonghwa Kim (alternate delegate) |
Russia
Lev N. Bocharov (delegate)
Oleg Katugin (advisor)
Igor Shevchenko (advisor)
U.S.A.
George Boehlert (delegate)
Patricia Livingston (advisor)
Samuel Pooley (delegate)
Elizabeth Tirpak (advisor)
Other
Alexander Bychkov (Executive
Secretary)
Skip McKinnell (Deputy
Executive Secretary, Nov. 2 only)
John E. Stein (Science
Board Chairman, Nov. 2)
Tokio Wada (PICES Chairman) |
|
|
Governing
Council meeting agenda
1.
Opening remarks
2.
Adoption of agenda and meeting
procedures
3.
Report on administration
4.
Membership and observers from
other countries
5.
Relations with relevant international
and regional organizations/programs
6.
Future
integrative scientific program of PICES
7.
Capacity building activities and PICES Intern Program
8.
Schedule, structure and financing
of future Annual Meetings
9.
Improvement of participation
in PICES activities
10.
Report on the PICES project “Development of the prevention systems for harmful
organisms’ expansion in the Pacific Rim”
supported by the Japanese Trust Fund
11.
Report and recommendations of the Science
Board
12.
Report and recommendations of
the Finance and Administration Committee
13.
Report of the Executive Committee for evaluating
annual performance of the Executive Secretary
14.
Election of PICES Chairman and
Vice-Chairman
15.
Appointment of F&A Committee
Chairman
16.
Other business – Procedure for
preparing the Council report
GC
Endnote 3
Report
on Administration for 2008
I. Annual contributions
According
to Regulation 5 of the PICES
Financial Regulations, all national contributions to PICES are payable
by the first day of the financial year (January 1) to which they relate. Dues for 2008 were paid as follows:
Japan------------------------------- December
20, 2007
Russian Federation---------------- February 13, 2008
Republic of Korea----------------- February 15, 2008
People’s
Republic of China------- May
15, 2008
All Contracting Parties met their
financial obligations for FY
2008, except the United
States. The amount in
arrears is $8,525. Even though only the Japanese contribution
arrived prior to the due date, the timeliness of payment from other
Contracting Parties is either stable or improved.
China and Korea’s
progress is especially notable, with the time of the payment moving
up one quarter in 2008.
II. External and additional
funding
III. Inter-sessional
symposia/workshops/meetings and PICES Annual Meetings
Since
the 2007 PICES Annual Meeting (October 2007), the following inter-sessional
symposia, workshops and meetings were convened, for which financial,
travel and logistical arrangements were made:
§
inter-sessional meeting of
WG 19 on Ecosystem-based Management
Science and its Application to the North Pacific, February 21–22,
2008, Seattle, U.S.A.;
§
inter-sessional meeting of WG 21 on Non-indigenous Aquatic Species to evaluate the protocols and reach final agreement on standards, data
elements and data entry templates for the Marine/Estuarine Invasive
Species Database for the PICES project on “Development
of the prevention systems for harmful organisms’ expansion in the Pacific
Rim”, March 3–5, 2008, Busan, Korea;
§
ICES/PICES Workshop on “Environmental interactions of
mariculture”, April 14–15, 2008, Victoria, Canada;
§
Workshop of the CFAME (Climate
Forcing and Marine Ecosystem Response)
Task Team on “Linking and visualizing climate forcing and
marine ecosystem changes: A comparative
approach”, April 15–17, 2008, Honolulu, U.S.A.;
§
Workshop to develop an Implementation
Plan for FUTURE in conjunction with a 1-day inter-sessional Science
Board meeting, April 23–25, 2008, Seattle, U.S.A.;
§
Workshop on “Linking Global Climate Model output to (a)
trends in commercial species productivity and
(b) changes in broader biological communities in the world’s oceans”, May 18, 2008, Gijón, Spain;
§
International Symposium on
“Effects of climate change on the world’s oceans” (co-organized
by PICES, ICES and IOC, and co-sponsored by GLOBEC, SCOR and WCRP, with
additional support from DFO, KORDI, NASA, NOAA and several Spanish sources),
May 19–23, 2008, Gijón,
Spain;
§
International Symposium on
“Coping with global change in
marine social-ecological systems” (co-organized by GLOBEC, EUR-OCEANS
and FAO, and co-sponsored by IFREMER, IRD, ICES, IMBER, PICES, SCOR
and SSHRC), July 8–11, 2008, Rome,
Italy;
§
2nd PICES Summer
School on “Ecosystem-based management
and ecosystem approach”, August 23–26, 2008, Hakodate, Japan;
§
4th PICES Workshop on “The Okhotsk Sea
and adjacent areas”, August 27–29, 2008, Abashiri, Japan;
§
International Symposium on
“Herring: Linking biology, ecology and status of populations
in the context of changing environments” (co-sponsored by ICES, PICES and GLOBEC), August 26–29,
2008, Galway, Ireland;
§
ESSAS/PICES Workshops on “Model comparisons of the ESSAS regions”
and “IPCC modeling and downscaling
atmosphere to advection” at the ESSAS Annual Meeting, September 15–19, 2008, Halifax,
Canada;
§
ICES/PICES Theme Sessions
on “Coupled physical and biological
models: Parameterization, validation,
and applications”, “Marine
spatial planning in support of integrated management – tools, methods,
and approaches”, and “New
methodology for tracking fish, mammal, and seabird behaviour and migrations”
at the ICES Annual Science Conference, September 22–26, 2008, Halifax,
Canada;
§
PICES/ICES Theme Session on
“The effects of ocean acidification on fisheries and ecosystems” at the International Symposium on “The
ocean in a high CO2 world – II” (co-sponsored by SCOR,
IOC, IAEA and IGBP), October 6–8, 2008, Monaco;
§
ICES/PICES/GLOBEC workshop on “Changes in distribution and abundance of clupeiform small pelagic fish
in relation to climate variability and global change”, November
3–7, 2008, Kiel, Germany.
The following workshops and scientific sessions were
convened at the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting:
§
1-day BIO Workshop on “Oceanic ecodynamics comparison of subarctic Pacific”;
§
1-day MEQ Workshop on “Review
of selected harmful algae in the PICES Region:
IV. Karenia and
Prorocentrum”, proceeded by a ½-day laboratory demonstration;
§
1-day MONITOR/ESSAS Workshop
on “Status of marine ecosystems
in the sub-arctic and arctic seas – Preliminary results of IPY field
monitoring in 2007 and 2008”;
§
1½-day CCCC/POC/FIS Workshop
on “Climate scenarios for ecosystem
modeling (II)”;
§
1-day CCCC/ESSAS Workshop
on “Marine ecosystem model inter-comparisons”;
§
¾-day Science Board Symposium
on “Beyond observations to achieving
understanding and forecasting in a changing North Pacific: Forward to the FUTURE”;
§
1-day BIO Contributed Paper
Session;
§
1½-day BIO Topic Session on
“End-to-end foodwebs:
Impacts of a changing ocean”;
§
1-day FIS Contributed Paper
Session;
§
¾-day FIS Topic Session on
“Institutions and ecosystem-based
approaches for sustainable fisheries under fluctuating marine resources”;
§
½-day FIS Topic Session on
“Effects of fisheries bycatch
and discards on marine ecosystems and methods to mitigate the effects”;
§
¾-day MEQ/FIS Topic Session
on “Mariculture technology and
husbandry for alternate and developing culture species”;
§
½-day MEQ Topic Session on
“Connecting the human and natural
dimensions of marine ecosystems and marine management in the PICES context”;
§
1-day MEQ Topic Session on
“Consequences of non-indigenous
species introductions”;
§
½-day MEQ Topic Session on
“Species succession and long-term
data set analysis pertaining to harmful algal blooms”;
§
1-day MONITOR/TCODE/BIO Topic
Session on “Linking biology, chemistry,
and physics in our observational systems – present status and FUTURE
needs”;
§
1-day POC Contributed Paper
Session
§
¾-day POC Topic Session on
“Coastal upwelling processes and
their ecological effects”;
§
1-day CCCC/POC Topic Session
on “Marine system forecast models:
Moving forward to the FUTURE”.
Preparations, arrangements or planning are
in progress for:
§
ICES/PICES/GLOBEC workshop on “Changes in distribution and abundance of clupeiform small pelagic fish
in relation to climate variability and global change”, November
3–7, 2008, Kiel, Germany;
§
3rd GLOBEC Open Science Meeting (co-sponsored by PICES) and associated workshops, June 22–26, 2009, Victoria, Canada;
§
3rd PICES Summer
School on “Satellite oceanography” (co-sponsored by SCOR and several Korean
agencies/organizations), August 25–28, 2009, Seoul, Korea;
§
6th
International Conference on “Marine
bioinvasions” (co-sponsored by ICES, PICES, U.S. National Sea Grant
College Program, Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and Portland
State University), August 24–27, 2009, Portland, U.S.A.;
§
International Symposium on
“Rebuilding depleted fish stocks:
Biology, ecology, social science and management strategies”
(primary sponsors: ICES, PICES and UNCOVER; co-sponsoring organizations:
NAFO, DFO and IMR), November 3–6, 2009, Warnemünde, Germany;
§
5th International Zooplankton
Production Symposium (co-sponsored by PICES
and ICES),
spring 2011, Pucon,
Chile (not formally approved yet).
IV. Publications
Publications produced
after the 2007 PICES Annual Meeting, in progress or just initiated include:
Primary
journals
§
Selected papers from the 2005 ESSAS Symposium
on “Climate
variability and sub-arctic marine ecosystems” in a special
issue of Deep-Sea Research II (Guest
Editors: G.L. Hunt, K. Drinkwater,
S. McKinnell and D.L. Mackas)
– published in December 2007, Vol.
54, Nos. 23–26;
§
Selected papers from
the 4th International Zooplankton Production Symposium
on “Human and climate forcing of zooplankton populations” (2007) in a special issue
of ICES Journal of Marine Science (Guest Editors:
M. Dagg, R. Harris, L. Valdés and S.-I. Uye) –
published in April 2008, Vol. 65, No. 3;
§
Selected papers from the PICES-2006 Topic
Session on “The human dimension of jellyfish blooms” in Plankton
and Benthos Research (Guest Editors:
H. Iizumi and K. Ishii) – published in May 2008, Vol. 3 (supplement);
§
Selected papers from the
2006 PICES/GLOBEC Symposium on “Climate variability
and ecosystem impacts on the North Pacific: A basin-scale synthesis” in a special issue
of Progress in Oceanography (Guest Editors: H. Batchelder and S. Kim) – published in June 2008, Vol. 77, Nos. 2–3;
§
Selected papers from
the 5th International Conference on “Marine bioinvasions”
(2007) in a special issue of ICES Journal of Marine Science (Guest Editors: J.A. Pederson and A.M.H.
Blakeslee) – published in July 2008, Vol. 65,
No. 5;
§
Special issue of
Progress in Oceanography on
“The Northern Humboldt Current System:
Ocean dynamics, ecosystem processes, and fisheries” (Guest Editors: A. Bertrand, R. Guevara-Carrasco,
P. Soler, J. Csirke and F.P. Chavez) –
published in December 2008, Vol. 79, Nos. 2–4;
§
Selected papers from the 2007 NAFO/PICES/ICES
Symposium on “Reproductive and recruitment processes of exploited marine fish stocks”
in a special issue of on-line Journal
of Northwest Atlantic Fishery Science (Guest Editors: R.D. Brodeur, M. Dickey-Collas and E. Trippel);
a hard-copy run of
this issue is expected in April 2009;
§
Special issue of Journal of Marine Systems
on “Observation and modeling of the ocean circulation and marine
ecosystem for CREAMS/PICES” (Guest Editors: K.-I. Chang, S.-I. Ito, C. Mooers and
J.-H. Yoon) – expected to be
published in early 2009;
§
Selected papers from the 2007 ICES/PICES Early Career
Scientists Conference on “New frontiers in marine science” as a section in a regular issue of ICES Journal of Marine
Science (Guest Editors:
F. Mueter, E. North) – expected to be published in early
2009;
§
Selected papers from the PICES-2007 Topic Session on “Decadal changes in carbon biogeochemistry
in the North Pacific” as
a section in a regular issue of Journal
of Oceanography
(Guest Editor:
T. Saino) –
expected to be published in August 2009;
§
Selected papers on krill from the 4th International
Zooplankton Production Symposium on “Human and climate forcing of zooplankton
populations” in a special volume of Deep Sea Research II (Guest Editors: S. Kawaguchi and W. Peterson) – expected to be published
in 2009;
§
Selected papers from the SEEDS-II
experiment in a special issue of Deep-Sea Research II (Guest editors: A. Tsuda, M. Wells, M. Uematsu and H. Saito)
– expected to be published in 2009;
§
Selected papers from the ICES/PICES
Theme Session on “Comparative marine ecosystem structure and function: Descriptors and characteristics” at the
2007 ICES Annual Science Conference in a special issue of Progress in Oceanography (Guest
Editors: B.A. Megrey, J.S. Link
and E. Moksness) – expected to be published in 2009;
§
Selected papers from the 2007
Topic Session on “Ecosystem approach
to fisheries: Improvements on traditional management for declining and
depleted stocks” in a special issue of Fisheries
Research (Guest
Editors: G.H. Kruse, Y.
Ishida, T. Perry, V.I. Radchenko and C.-I. Zhang) – expected to be published
in 2009;
§
Selected papers from
the 2008 PICES/ICES/IOC International Symposium on “Effects of climate
change on the world’s oceans” in a special issue of ICES Journal of Marine
Science (Guest Editors:
K. Brander, J. Church, M. Marcos, W. Peterson and L. Valdés)
– expected to be published
in 2009;
§
Selected papers from
the OECOS (Oceanic
Ecosystem Comparison in the Subarctic Pacific) experiment in a special
issue of Deep-Sea Research II
(Guest Editors: C. Miller and
A. Yamaguchi) – expected to be published in late 2009
or early 2010;
§
Special issue on “Tides in Marginal Seas” dedicated to Prof.
Alexei Nekrasov (Guest Editors:
J. Cherniawsky, M. Foreman, B. Kagan and A. Rabinovich) – expected to be published in early 2010;
§
Selected papers from the Topic
Session on “Phenology and climate
change in the North Pacific: Implications
of variability in timing of zooplankton production to fish, seabirds,
marine mammals and fisheries (humans)” at the 2007 PICES Annual Meeting
in a special issue of Deep-Sea
Research II (Guest Editors: W.
Sydeman, S. McKinnell and S. Minobe) – cancelled.
PICES
Special Publications
§
Dickson, A.G., Sabine, C.L. and Christian, J.R. (Eds.). Guide
to Best Practices for Ocean CO2 Measurements. PICES Special
Publication No. 3 (IOCCP Report No. 8), 191 pp. – published in October 2007.
PICES
Scientific Report Series
§
Hollowed, A.B., Beamish, R.J.,
Okey, T.A. and Schirripa, M.J. (Eds.). Forecasting
Climate Impacts on Future Production on Commercially Exploited Fish
and Shellfish. PICES Scientific
Rep. No. 34, 101 pp. – published in August 2008;
§
Beamish R.J. (Ed.).
Impacts of Climate and Climate Change on the Key species in the Fisheries
in the North Pacific (Final report of WG 16 on Climate Change,
Shifts in Fish Production, and Fisheries Management). PICES Scientific Rep. No. 35, 217 pp. – published in December 2008;
§
Kashiwai, M. and Kantakov,
G.A. (Eds.). Proceedings of the
4th PICES Workshop on “The Okhotsk Sea
and adjacent areas” (August 27–29, 2008, Abashiri, Japan)
–
expected to be published in 2009.
PICES
Press – newsletter
§
Two regular issues: Vol. 16,
No. 1 (January 2008) and Vol. 16, No. 2 (July 2008).
Other
publications
§
PICES 2007 Annual Report;
§
Book of Abstracts for the
International Symposium on “Effects of climate change on the world’s
oceans” (May 19–23, 2008, Gijón,
Spain);
§
Announcement and Book of Abstracts
for the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting (October 24–November 2, 2008, Dalian,
China).
Significant progress had been made in the implementation
of the Action Plan resulting from the 2007 PICES Publications Review. Details can be found in F&A Endnote 6. The plan, once completed, will
allow a smooth transition to more
on-line access for PICES
publications.
V. Representation
at other organization meetings and travel by PICES officers
§
Drs. Alexander Bychkov (Executive
Secretary) and Skip McKinnell (Deputy Executive Secretary) travelled
to Anchorage, U.S.A., to attend the 2008 Marine Science in Alaska Symposium
and discuss joint activities with the North Pacific Research Board (January
2008);
§
Dr. Sinjae Yoo (Science Board Vice-Chairman) represented
PICES at the 1st NOWPAP CEARAC (Special Monitoring and
Coastal Environment Assessment Regional Analysis Center) Coastal Environmental
Assessment Workshops to develop common procedures for coastal environmental
assessment in the region, including nutrient enrichment, eutrophication
and HAB occurrence (March 2008, Toyama, Japan);
§
Dr. McKinnell served as a PICES member on the Scientific
Steering Committee for the Northeast
Pacific Coastal Ecosystem Workshop and Forecasting Forum (April 2008,
Nanaimo, Canada);
§
Dr. Young-Jae Ro (MONITOR member) represented PICES at the
11th Session of the GOOS Scientific Steering Committee (April 2008, Paris, France);
§
Dr. Tokio Wada (PICES Chairman),
Dr. Vera Alexander (PICES Past-Chairman) and members of the Secretariat
attended the workshop to develop an Implementation Plan for FUTURE and
the inter-sessional Science Board meeting (April 2008, Seattle, U.S.A.);
§
Dr. Fei Chai (WG 22 Co-Chairman)
represented PICES at the 31st meeting of the Scientific Group
under the London Convention, and the 2nd meeting of the Scientific Group under the London
Protocol (May 2008,
Guayaquil, Ecuador);
§
Dr. Toru Suzuki (TCODE
member) represented PICES at the 7th NOWPAP’ DINRAC (Data and Information Network
Regional Analysis
Center) Focal Points Meeting to discuss approaches on exchange
of marine environmental data and information in
the region (May 2008, Bejing,
China);
§
Dr. Harold Batchelder (PICES
affiliate member of SCOR Working Group 125 on Global Zooplankton Comparisons) attended the Working
Group meeting and the associated workshop on “Zooplankton and climate: Response modes and linkages among regions, regimes,
and trophic levels” (May 2008, Gijón,
Spain);
§
Dr. William Peterson (BIO member)
served as the PICES
convenor, and Drs. Richard Feely (CC-S member), Michael Foreman (POC
Chairman) and Akihiko Yatsu (FIS member) represented PICES on the Scientific
Steering Committee, for the PICES/ICES/IOC Symposium on “Effects
of climate change on the world’s oceans” (May 2008, Gijón, Spain);
§
Members of the Secretariat served as organizers for the PICES/ICES/IOC Symposium on “Effects of
climate change on the world’s oceans
(May 2008, Gijón, Spain);
§
Dr. Bychkov represented PICES at the 41st Session of the Executive Council of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
(June 2008, Paris,
France);
§
Dr. Mitsutaku Makino (WG 19 member)
attended the International Symposium on “Coping with global change in marine
social-ecological systems”
as a PICES member of the Symposium Discussion Panel (July 2008, Rome, Italy);
§
Drs. Douglas Hay (Canada),
Brenda Norcross and Yoshiro Watanabe (CFAME members) represented PICES
on the Scientific Steering Committee for the International Symposium
on “Herring: Linking biology, ecology and
status of populations in the context of changing environments” (August 2008, Galway, Ireland);
§
Dr. McKinnell travelled in
August 2008 to Hakodate and Abashiri, Japan, to represent PICES at the
4th PICES Workshop on “The Okhotsk Sea
and adjacent areas”, and the 2nd PICES Summer School
on “Ecosystem-based management and ecosystem approach”;
§
Drs. Angelica Peña (BIO member),
Glen Jamieson (MEQ Chairman) and Kevin Weng (U.S.A.) served as PICES convenors for joint
ICES/PICES Theme Sessions
on “Coupled physical and biological
models: Parameterization, validation,
and applications”, “Marine
spatial planning in support of integrated management – tools, methods,
and approaches”, and “New
methodology for tracking fish, mammal, and seabird behaviour and migrations”,
respectively, and Dr. McKinnell represented PICES at the Standing Committee
meetings held at the ICES Annual Science Conference (September 2008,
Halifax, Canada);
§
Dr. McKinnell
attended the
International Symposium on “The
ocean in a high CO2 world – II” as an organizer of the
PICES/ICES Theme Session on “The effects of ocean acidification on fisheries and ecosystems” and gave a talk on issues associated with ocean acidification and Pacific
salmon (October 2008,
Monaco);
§
Drs. Bychkov and McKinnell represented
PICES at the 5th World Fisheries Congress (October 2008,
Yokohama, Japan);
§
Drs. Wada, John Stein (Science
Board Chairman) and members of the Secretariat travelled in October
2008, to Dalian,
China,
for the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting;
§
Dr. Bychkov represented PICES at the NPAFC Sixteenth Annual Meeting, and Dr.
McKinnell represented PICES at the NPAFC International Symposium on
Bering-Aleutian Salmon International Survey (November 2008, Seattle,
U.S.A.);
§
Dr. Sinjae Yoo represented
PICES at the 5th meeting of the Regional Scientific and Technical
Panel of the UNDP/GEF Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (YSLME) project
(November 2008, Shanghai, China);
§
Dr. McKinnell attended the
annual CalCOFI Conference as editor of the North Pacific Ecosystem Status
Report (November 2008, La Jolla,
U.S.A.);
§
Dr. Jin-Yeong Kim (FIS member)
served as a PICES convenor for the ICES/PICES workshop on “Changes
in distribution and abundance of clupeiform small pelagic fish in relation
to climate variability and global change” (November 2008, Kiel,
Germany).
VI. Relations with international scientific organizations
and programs
The following reflects
relationships with international scientific organizations and programs
of regional and global scale, and with regional scientific and monitoring
efforts in the North Pacific:
International Program for Deployment
of profiling floats (Argo)
§
Dr. Dake Chen (Argo Science
Team member) attended the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting as an observer,
and addressed POC and MONITOR on potential areas for collaboration between
Argo and PICES. Argo also had a poster at this meeting outlining general information
and highlighting scientific objectives and recent activities of the
project.
§
PICES agreed to co-sponsor the Third Argo Science Workshop (March 25–27, 2009, Hangzhou, China) by taking responsibility for compiling and printing
the Abstract Book for this meeting. PICES’ assistance will be given full exposure
and credit in all advertisements for the workshop, at the workshop itself
and on any subsequent
reports that emerge.
International Research Programme on Climate Variability
and Predictability (CLIVAR)
§
PICES Working Group (WG 20) on Evaluation of Climate
Change Projections is the appropriate
avenue to enhance
collaboration with CLIVAR through its Pacific Panel. Currently, Dr. William Crawford (Canada) serves
as a liaison between the two groups.
§
Dr. Dongxiao Wang (Pacific CLIVAR Panel member) attended the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting as
an observer and updated POC on CLIVAR
activities relevant to PICES.
§
CLIVAR will be approached to co-sponsor the POC/FUTURE Topic
Session on “Outlooks and forecasts of marine
ecosystems from an earth system science perspective: Challenges and
opportunities”, and the
POC Workshop
on “Exploring
the predictability and mechanisms of Pacific low frequency variability
beyond inter-annual time scales” to be convened at the 2009 PICES Annual Meeting.
Ecosystem Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas
(ESSAS)
§
PICES co-sponsored and served as the local organizer for
the 2005 GLOBEC Symposium on “Climate variability and sub-arctic
marine ecosystems” held in Victoria,
Canada. Selected
papers from the symposium were published in December 2007 as a special issue of Deep-Sea Research
II, Vol. 54, Nos. 23–26
(Guest Editors: G.L. Hunt, K. Drinkwater, S. McKinnell and D.L.
Mackas).
§
PICES co-sponsored workshops
on “Model comparisons
of the ESSAS regions” and “IPCC
modeling and downscaling atmosphere to advection” at the ESSAS Annual Meeting (September 15–19, 2008, Halifax, Canada).
§
Two joint PICES/ESSAS workshops
on “Status of marine ecosystems
in the sub-arctic and arctic seas – Preliminary results of IPY field
monitoring in 2007 and 2008” and “Marine ecosystem model inter-comparisons” were convened at the 2008
PICES Annual Meeting.
§
Drs. Kenneth Drinkwater and George Hunt (ESSAS
SSC Co-Chairmen) attended the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting as observers,
and briefed PICES Standing Committees on ESSAS activities for the past year
and those planned for 2009–2010. ESSAS and its U.S. component
for the Bering Sea (BEST) also had posters
at this meeting outlining general information and highlighting scientific
objectives and recent activities of both projects.
§
PICES agreed to send a member of Working Group (WG 20) on Evaluation of Climate
Change Projections to attend the 2009 ESSAS Annual Meeting (June 15–21, 2009, Seattle, U.S.A.).
Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics project (GLOBEC)
§
The PICES Climate Change and
Carrying Capacity (CCCC) Program provides a mechanism for integrating
national GLOBEC research programs in the North Pacific, and is a regional
component of the international GLOBEC effort.
§
The PICES/GLOBEC Symposium
on “Climate variability and ecosystem impacts on the North Pacific:
A basin-scale synthesis” was held April 19–21, 2006, in Honolulu,
U.S.A. Selected papers from the symposium were published in June 2008, as a special issue of Progress
in Oceanography, Vol.
77, Nos. 2–3 (Guest Editors
H. Batchelder and S. Kim). This
volume is considered as a part of GLOBEC synthesis efforts.
§
Results from the CCCC Program
will be included in several chapters of the GLOBEC Synthesis Book to
be published in 2009 or 2010.
§
PICES and GLOBEC worked with
ICES to organize the 4th
International Zooplankton Production Symposium on “Human and climate forcing of zooplankton populations”
held May 28–June
1, 2007, in Hiroshima,
Japan. Selected
papers from the symposium
were published in April 2008, as a special issue of ICES Journal of Marine Science, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Guest Editors: M.
Dagg, R. Harris, L. Valdés and S.-I. Uye).
§
GLOBEC co-sponsored the PICES/ICES/IOC
Symposium on “Effects of climate change on the world’s oceans”
(May 19–23, 2008, in Gijón, Spain)
by compiling the Book of Abstracts.
§
PICES co-sponsored the International
Symposium on “Coping with global change in marine social-ecological systems” led
by GLOBEC (July 8–11, 2008, in Rome,
Italy).
§
PICES agreed to co-sponsor
the 3rd GLOBEC Open Science Meeting (June 22–26, 2009, Victoria,
Canada) by providing travel support for invited speakers from the Pacific
(up to $10,000) and early career
scientists from PICES member countries (up to $5,000), and by assisting
with local arrangements.
§
Dr. Manuel Barange (Executive Director
of GLOBEC) attended the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting as an observer, and briefed the Executive Committee of the CCCC Implementation
Panel on:
(1) discussions within a GLOBEC-IMBER Transition
Task Team on a
way forward for
international marine ecosystem science after the completion of GLOBEC,
and (2) plans for
the 3rd GLOBEC Open Science Meeting.
Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS)
§
PICES was represented at the
11th Session of the GOOS Scientific Steering Committee (April
2008, Paris, France).
§
The Topic Session on “Linking
biology, chemistry, and physics in our observational systems – present
status and FUTURE needs” and the workshop on “Status
of marine ecosystems in the sub-arctic and arctic seas – Preliminary
results of IPY field monitoring in 2007 and 2008”, both highly relevant
to GOOS, were convened at the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting.
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
(ICES)
§
Publication from the 4th
International Zooplankton Production Symposium (see under GLOBEC).
§
ICES and PICES worked with the U.S. National Sea Grant
College Program and the MIT Sea Grant College Program to organize the
5th International Conference on “Marine bioinvasions”
(May 21–24, 2007, in Cambridge, U.S.A.). Selected papers from the conference were published in July 2008, as a special
issue of ICES Journal of Marine Science, Vol.
65, No. 5 (Guest Editors: J.A. Pederson and A.M.H. Blakeslee).
§
PICES and ICES initiated the organization and took part as major international
sponsors (with IOC) of the International Symposium on “Effects of
climate change on the world’s oceans” (May 19–23, 2008, Gijón, Spain).
§
PICES co-sponsored the International
Symposium on “Herring: Linking
biology, ecology and status of populations in the context of changing
environments” led
by ICES (August 26–29, 2008, Galway,
Ireland).
§
Three joint Theme Sessions
on “Coupled physical and biological
models: Parameterization, validation,
and applications”, “Marine
spatial planning in support of integrated management – tools, methods,
and approaches”, and “New
methodology for tracking fish, mammal, and seabird behaviour and migrations”
were convened at the ICES Annual Science Conference (September 22–26,
2008, Halifax, Canada).
§
The PICES/ICES Theme Session on “The effects
of ocean acidification on fisheries and ecosystems” was held at the International Symposium on “The Ocean in a high CO2 world – II” (October 6–8, 2008,
Monaco).
§
Dr. McKinnell (Deputy Executive
Secretary) represented PICES at the Standing Committee meetings held
at the ICES Annual Science Conference (September 2008, Halifax, Canada).
§
Dr. Adolf Kellermann (Head of ICES Science Programme) attended the 2008
PICES Annual Meeting as an observer, and participated in the Science
Board meeting to present an update on the continuing science reform in ICES and discuss joint activities of the two
Organizations in 2009 and beyond.
§
PICES and ICES are working
together as major international sponsors for the 6th International
Conference on “Marine bioinvasions”
(August 24–27, 2009,
Portland, U.S.A) and the International Symposium on “Rebuilding depleted fish stocks: Biology, ecology, social science and management
strategies” (November 3–6, 2009,
Warnemünde, Germany).
§
PICES and ICES agreed to initiate
planning and serve as major international sponsors of the 5th
International Zooplankton Production Symposium (March 14–18, 2011, Pucon,
Chile).
§
At the invitation by ICES, PICES agreed
to co-sponsor the International Symposia on “The effects of environmental variability on cephalopod populations”
(September 3–11, 2009,
Vigo, Spain),
and “Carrying capacity: What does it mean in a changing ocean?”
(2010, Lisbon, Portugal).
§
ICES’ experts on marine bioinvasions
are involved in the PICES project on “Development of the prevention systems for harmful
organisms’ expansion in the Pacific Rim” supported by the Japanese
Ministry
of Agriculture, Forestry
and Fisheries (project
duration is from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2012).
§
PICES and ICES established
a joint Working Group on Forecasting Climate Change Impacts on Fish
and Shellfish and agreed
that this Working Group will convene the International Symposium on
“Climate change
effects on fish and fisheries: Forecasting impacts, assessing ecosystem
responses, and evaluating management strategies” (April 26–29, 2010,
Sendai, Japan).
Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Eco-system Research
(IMBER)
§
IMBER co-sponsored the Topic
Session on “End-to-end foodwebs:
Impacts of a changing ocean” at the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting.
§
Dr. Hiroaki Saito (IMBER SSC
member) represented IMBER at the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting.
IMBER also had a poster
at this meeting outlining general information and highlighting scientific
objectives and recent activities of the project.
§
There is a strong interest
in including issues of marine biogeochemistry
and food webs that would link PICES with IMBER in a new integrative
scientific program of PICES, FUTURE.
§
IMBER will be approached to co-sponsor the POC/FUTURE Topic
Session on “Outlooks and forecasts of marine
ecosystems from an earth system science perspective: Challenges and
opportunities” to be convened at the 2009 PICES Annual Meeting.
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO
(IOC)
§
IOC teamed with PICES and
ICES in organizing the International Symposium on “Effects of climate
change on the world’s oceans” (May 19–23, 2008, Gijón, Spain).
§
PICES was represented at the 41st Session of the Executive Council of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
(June 2008, Paris,
France).
§
Dr. Patricio Bernal (General Secretary of IOC) attended the 2008 PICES
Annual Meeting as an observer, and shared his views on potential areas of collaboration
between IOC and PICES at meetings
of several expert groups.
§
PICES and IOC agreed to cooperate
on several fronts:
–
developing understanding of the vulnerability of fisheries to climate variability
and change as a potential input to the 5th IPCC Assessment
Report;
–
monitoring, including PICES
involvement at the level of the Scientific Program Committee in the
OceanObs’09 Conference (September 21–25, 2009,
Venice, Italy) led by IOC (see also under
GOOS);
–
data integration and synthesis,
including an information
network on ocean acidification
and a common database on natural iron
(see also under IOCCP);
–
harmful algal blooms (see
below).
§
In June 2005, IOC and PICES
signed a formal agreement to establish a partnership in systematically
compiling, storing and presenting on-line, records on harmful algal
events. Event records are to
be compiled and stored annually in the format specified in the HAE-DAT
database. HAE-DAT is hosted by
IOC, with equal credit to the partner organizations (PICES and ICES). Building a common data resource allows inter-comparison
of HAB species composition and magnitude of environmental and economic
impacts. Discussion on this joint
work proceeds at each PICES Annual Meeting.
§
IOC experts on harmful algal
blooms are involved in the PICES project on “Development of the prevention systems for harmful
organisms’ expansion in the Pacific Rim” supported by the Japanese
Ministry
of Agriculture, Forestry
and Fisheries (project
duration is from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2012).
International Ocean Carbon Coordinated Project (IOCCP)
§
IOCCP is working on establishing
international agreements on observation methods, best practices, data
management, and data sharing that will lead to the joint development
of global data products and synthesis activities documenting the ocean
carbon cycle. PICES, through
its Working Groups on CO2 in the North Pacific (WG
13, 1998–2001) and Biogeochemical Data Integration and Synthesis
(WG 17, 2002–2005), and the Section on Carbon and Climate (2006–present),
has been long acting as a regional coordinator for these activities. The Section on Carbon and Climate
provides clear channels
of communication to IOCCP, and to large-scale IGBP programs such as
SOLAS and IMBER.
§
IOCCP and PICES co-sponsored
the publishing of the “Guide to best practices for ocean CO2
measurements”, as PICES Special Publication
No. 3 and IOCCP Report No. 8 (Eds. A.G. Dickson. C.L. Sabine and J.R. Christian), in December
2007. The guide is available
on-line from the CDIAC (Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center) Ocean CO2 Program website
in individual chapters or as a whole electronic document, and hard copies
are also available upon request from PICES and CDIAC. To increase the use of the Guide, volunteers
are being sought to assist with translations of the Guide to languages
other than English.
§
IOCCP maintains the ocean acidification network website and assisted
with the implementation of the SCOR/IOC/IAEA/IGBP International
Symposium on “The ocean in a high
CO2 world – II” (October 6–8, 2008, Monaco). By the invitation of the organizers, PICES agreed to convene, jointly
with ICES, a Theme Session on “The effects of ocean acidification
on fisheries and ecosystems” at this symposium.
North Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO)
§
NAFO and PICES (with ICES
as the other sponsor) partnered to organize the International Symposium on “Reproductive and recruitment processes in exploited marine fish stocks”
(October 1–3, 2007, Lisbon, Portugal). Selected
papers from the symposium were published on-line as a special issue of Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fishery Science (Guest Editors: R.D.
Brodeur, M. Dickey-Collas and E. Trippel). A hard-copy run of this issue is expected
in April 2009.
North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC)
§
Dr. Yukimasa Ishida (CSRS
Chairman) represented NPAFC at the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting.
§
Dr. Alexander Bychkov (Executive Secretary) represented
PICES at the
NPAFC Sixteenth Annual Meeting (November 17–21, 2009, Seattle, U.S.A.)
and Dr. Skip McKinnell (Deputy Executive Secretary) represented PICES
at the NPAFC International Symposium on Bering–Aleutian Salmon International
Survey (November 2008, Seattle, U.S.A.).
§
NPAFC
was invited to (1) participate in the development of the second PICES
North Pacific Ecosystem Status Report; (2) co-sponsor the PICES/ICES
Symposium on “Climate
change effects on fish and fisheries: Forecasting impacts, assessing
ecosystem responses, and evaluating management strategies”, and
(3) contribution to the Implementation Plan for FUTURE.
North Pacific Research Board (NPRB)
§
In 2007, NPRB and PICES co-sponsored
a series of workshops on “Forecasting climate impacts on future production
of commercially exploited fish and shellfish”. PICES Scientific Report No. 34 (August 2008)
provides a summary of these workshops.
§
In addition to the grant of
$90,000 for the development of the second PICES North Pacific Ecosystem
Status Report, NPRB committed US$15,700 to support the involvement of
Dr. Michael Dagg (BIO Chairman) in this project as a Co-Editor (this
grant will be handled through LUMCON–Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium).
§
NPRB approved a contribution of US$50,000 per year for the
next 5 years of the North
Pacific Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) project.
Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP)
§
PICES was involved in the 1st (March 7,
2008) and 2nd (September 11, 2008) NOWPAP/CEARAC Coastal
Environmental Assessment Workshops held in Toyama (Japan), to develop
common procedures for coastal environmental assessment in the NOWPAP
region, including nutrient enrichment, eutrophication and HAB occurrence.
§
PICES was present as an observer at the 7th
NOWPAP/DINRAC Focal
Points Meeting (May 13–14, 2008, Beijing,
China)
to discuss approaches on exchange of marine environmental data and information in the region.
§
A statement on “NOWPAP and
PICES: Potential areas for collaboration
from PICES perspective” was sent to the 13th Intergovernmental Meeting of NOWPAP (October
20–21, 2008, Busan,
Korea).
§
Dr. Jeung Sook Park (NOWPAP
Scientific Affairs Officer) attended the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting as
an observer, and addressed MEQ on
potential areas for collaboration between NOWPAP and PICES. NOWPAP also had a poster at this meeting outlining general information
and highlighting scientific objectives and recent activities of the
project.
§
A presentation on HAB-related activities of NOWPAP was made
by a representative of CEARAC at the 2008 meeting of PICES Section on
Ecology
of Harmful Algal Blooms in the North Pacific.
An article on activities of this section was published in the
NOWPAP/CEARAC newsletter.
§
PICES was one of
the supporters for the
2nd NOWPAP Training Course on “Remote
Sensing Data Analysis” (November 1–5, 2008, Jeju,
Korea).
Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for
Ocean Science (SAHFOS)
§
PICES Advisory Panel on Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey in the
North Pacific (CRP-AP) review and advise on the most appropriate locations,
timing and frequency of CPR routes for the North Pacific CPR project managed
by SAHFOS and endorsed by PICES. The
CPR is now recognized as the only long-term indicator of global change
in the North Pacific providing biological information on this large
geographic scale. This information
is being widely used by the North Pacific scientific community as an
indicator of biological responses to annual changes in climate.
Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR)
Relationships with SCOR-sponsored large-scale ocean research
programs such as GLOBEC, SOLAS and IMBER, and with IOCCP are reflected
separately. Other collaborations
are listed below.
§
PICES strongly supported the formation of SCOR Working Group
(WG 125) on Global Comparisons of Zooplankton Time Series and
agreed to provide funding for an associate member from the North Pacific
(Dr. Harold P. Batchelder, Oregon
State University, U.S.A.)
to participate in its activities. The
most recent meeting of SCOR WG 125 and the associated workshop
on “Zooplankton and climate: Response
modes and linkages among regions, regimes, and trophic levels” were held in conjunction with the PICES/ICES/IOC Symposium
on “Effects of climate change
on the world’s oceans” (May 2008, Gijón,
Spain).
§
Activities of PICES Working Group (WG 22) on Iron
Supply and its Impact on Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems in the North
Pacific Ocean are
closely linked to the mandate of SCOR Working Group
(WG 131) on The Legacy of in
situ Iron Enrichment: Data Compilation and Modeling to compile a database for open access of the completed iron-enrichment experiments.
PICES is prepared to consider co-sponsoring a joint meeting
of these groups to work out the details
of bringing together the data sets in a way that will make preparation
of the database possible.
§
Since 2005, PICES Section
on Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms
in the North Pacific has been convening an annual series of workshops,
“Review of selected harmful algae
in the PICES region”, to document the existing knowledge on the
eco-physiology of HAB species that impact all, or most, countries in
the North Pacific. The previous
workshops, held in conjunction with PICES Annual Meetings, focused on
Pseudo-nitzschia and Alexandrium (2005), Dinophysis
and Cochlodinium (2006), Heterosigma akashiwo and other harmful
raphidophytes (2007), and Karenia
and Prorocentrum (2008). These workshops are normally preceded by a laboratory
demonstration on cell and toxin identification and detection methods/technique.
We intend to continue this series, and the SCOR Global Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms Program
(GEOHAB) was invited to play an active role in the future workshops.
§
SCOR continues to provide
travel support for scientists from countries with “economies in transition”
to attend SCOR-relevant sessions/workshops
at PICES Annual Meetings and international symposia co-organized by
PICES. In 2008, SCOR allocated
US$7,500 for the PICES/ICES/IOC
Symposium on “Effects of climate
change on the world’s oceans” (May 19–23, 2008, Gijón, Spain)
and US$5,000 for the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting.
SCOR also committed US$5000 for the 3rd PICES Summer
School on “Satellite Oceanography”
(August 25–28, 2009, Seoul,
Korea) and $2500 for SCOR-relevant
sessions at the 2009 PICES Annual Meeting.
Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS)
§
The PICES Working Group (WG 22) on Iron
Supply and its Impact on Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems in the North
Pacific Ocean is the appropriate avenue to maintain and enhance
collaboration with SOLAS. Currently,
Dr. Shigenobu Takeda
(WG 22 Co-Chairman and SOLAS SSC member) serves
as a liaison between the two groups.
§
SOLAS was represented as an
observer at the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting and had a poster outlining general information and highlighting scientific objectives
and recent activities of the project.
§
SOLAS will be approached to co-sponsor the BIO Workshop
on “Natural
supplies of iron to the North
Pacific and linkages between iron supply and ecosystem responses” to be convened at the 2009 PICES Annual Meeting.
§
Selected papers from the SEEDS-II
(Subarctic Pacific Iron Experiment for Ecosystem
Dynamics Study II) experiment
are expected to be published in 2009 as a special issue of Progress
in Oceanography (Guest Editors:
A. Tsuda, M. Wells, M. Uematsu and H. Saito).
GC
Endnote 4
Comments on the affiliate status system and draft Affiliate Member Policy
(as received, with minor language editing)
Japanese comments (E-mail of
September 29, 2008):
Dear Dr. Wada, PICES Chairman, and Dr. Bychkov, Executive Secretary,
We read the document of
PICES AFFILIATE MEMBER POLICY. We
understand that the scientific cooperation with scientists of non-member
countries is very important
for PICES activities. For
example, the Ecosystem Based Management Working
Group (WG 19) had a lot of input from not only scientists of member
countries, but also from a scientist of non-member country such as Australia who
was invited by PICES. Like this,
the current PICES system can achieve the scientific cooperation between
PICES and non-member countries. So,
it is not necessary to introduce an additional system such as affiliate
member policy for scientific cooperation with non-member countries.
Also, even if non-member country
contributes to approximately 10% of the current annual contribution
per Contracting Party to PICES, we have concerns about a heavy burden
in man power and financial aspect, if we introduce this system. Therefore,
Japan
makes an objection to introduce the affiliate member policy for scientific cooperation with non-member countries
to PICES system.
Best regards,
Takaji Iida, Representative of Japanese delegates
Fisheries
Agency of Japan
U.S. comments (E-mail of September 29, 2008):
Consistent with discussions in Victoria, the US delegation has the following comments
on the affiliate status system:
(1) Policy and procedure for selecting
an Affiliate Member: Since affiliates
are to represent a non-member country, it would be preferable if the
Secretariat undertook the consultation with the foreign
ministry of the government in which the organization
is located automatically, perhaps even requesting a letter to the effect
that the government supports
an organization as the affiliate. The concern is that some organization could apply for
affiliate status and be granted that status without that government’s
support, possibly leading to later disagreements within
the country.
(2) Influence of the Affiliate Status System on the current practices of PICES:
Sufficient safeguards, such as inability to serve as committee
chairs, have been instituted in the guidelines to avoid problems here.
Furthermore, the rules of procedure will have to be reviewed
carefully so as to define precisely what actions affiliates may or may not take, e.g.,
affiliates cannot participate in decisions of the Contracting Parties
under Article VII.
(3) We believe that appropriate revisions should be made to the PICES policy
document to provide more
clarity on the responsibilities and rights of affiliate members. The policy should avoid legally binding language
in the context of a policy document like this. Some suggested editorial
changes are provided on the attached file.*
George
Boehlert, U.S.
National Delegate
Hatfield Marine Science Center, Oregon State University
_________________
* Circulated to the
delegates but not included in this report.
GC Endnote
5
List
of organizations and programs
present as observers at the 2008 PICES Annual Meeting
| Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS) |
Dr. Phillip R. Mundy |
| APEC’s Marine Resources Conservation WG (APEC-MRC) |
Mr. Gongke Tan |
| International Program for deployment
of profiling floats (Argo) |
Dr. Dake Chen |
| Bering Sea Ecosystem Study (BEST) |
Dr. George
L. Hunt, Jr. |
| Climate Variability and Predictability Program (CLIVAR) |
Dr. Dongxiao Wang |
| Ecosystem Study of Sub-Arctic
Seas (ESSAS) |
Dr. Kenneth Drinkwater |
| Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) |
Dr. Manuel Barange |
| Group of Experts on Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP) |
Dr. Rudolf Wu |
| Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) |
Dr. Hiroaki Saito |
| Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
(IOC) of UNESCO |
Dr. Patricio Bernal |
| International Association of Marine Science Libraries (IAMSLIC) |
Mr. Brian Voss |
| International Council for the
Exploration of the Sea
(ICES) |
Dr. Adolf Kellermann |
| International Whaling Commission (IWC) |
Dr. Hidehiro Kato |
| North
Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC) |
Dr. Yukimasa Ishida |
| Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS) |
Dr. Jack Barth |
| Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP) |
Dr. Jeung Sook Park |
| Pacific Coast Observing System (PaCOOS) |
Dr. John Stein |
| Pacific Arctic Group (PAG) |
Dr. Jianfeng He |
| |
Mr. Sandy
Shan |
| Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for
Ocean Science (SAHFOS) |
Dr. Sonia Batten |
| Surface Ocean Low Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) |
Dr. Shigenobu Takeda |
| World Climate Research Programme
(WCRP) |
Dr. Dongxiao Wang |
Study
Group on Restructuring the PICES
Annual Meeting
Background
With the expansion of activities
of PICES, its Annual Meeting* has also expanded in scale and duration.
This is evidence that PICES has become an internationally renowned
scientific organization. The expansion of the Annual Meeting, however,
compresses the time for deliberations by the Governing Council, Science
Board, Finance and Administration Committee, and Scientific/Technical
Committees, even though their responsibilities also increase.
Such discussions are very important for planning and coordinating
relevant activities among Contracting Parties to achieve the Organization’s
objectives and facilitate international cooperation in the North
Pacific Ocean. The
increasing scale and duration of the Annual Meeting is also a burden
for the host countries, participants and the PICES Secretariat.
Therefore, a Study Group should
be established, under the direction of Council, to review the present
structure of the Annual Meeting, and to consider options to allocate
time and order among various events in the Annual Meeting, while also
shortening the meeting duration. Clarifying
the responsibilities of the Science Board, Financial and Administration
Committee, and Scientific/Technical Committees in the PICES decision-making
process should also be considered as part of the restructuring of the
Annual Meeting, as a secondary task of the Study Group.
* Annual Meeting means not only
the plenary and subsequent scientific sessions, but also the meetings
of the Governing Council, Science Board, Financial and Administration
Committee, Scientific and Technical Committees and their subsidiary
bodies, as well as workshops and other pre-annual meeting obligations.
Terms of Reference
1. To review the current practice
and structure of the PICES Annual Meeting to (a) consider ways of improving
the time balance and order among various events of the Annual Meeting,
(b) shorten the duration of the Annual Meeting, and (c) assess other
issues related to the Annual Meeting.
2. To develop recommendations on
the Annual Meeting and report to the Governing Council by March 31,
200
Membership
The Study Group will include one representative from
each Contracting Party, as well as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of
PICES, the Chairmen of Science Board and Finance and Administration
Committee, and the Executive Secretary and Deputy Executive Secretary. The Study Group will be led by the Chairman
of PICES.
GC
Endnote 7
PICES project
on “Development of the prevention systems for
harmful organisms’ expansion in the Pacific Rim” Financial
report for Year 1 (April 1,
2007 – March 31, 2008)
Background
In
April 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF)
of Japan, through the Fisheries Agency (JFA) of Japan, provided a voluntary contribution to PICES
for a project entitled “Development
of the prevention systems for harmful organisms’ expansion in the Pacific Rim”. The
anticipated duration of the project is 5 years (from April 1, 2007 to
March 31, 2012), and its goals are to develop international systems
to collect, exchange and store relevant data, and to foster partnerships
with non-PICES member countries and related international organizations. The contribution is from the Official Development
Assistance (ODA) fund and thus, involvement of developing Pacific Rim countries is required in activities under this
project.
The
project has two distinct components, one on harmful algal blooms (HABs)
and the other on marine non-indigenous species (MNIS), and is conducted
by two PICES expert groups under the Marine Environmental Quality Committee
(MEQ), Section on Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms in the North Pacific (HAB Section) and
Working Group on Non-indigenous
Aquatic Species (WG 21). Each
group oversees a specific sub-project.
The HAB sub-project, with Dr. Vera L. Trainer (Northwest Fisheries
Science Center, Seattle, WA, U.S.A., E-mail:
Vera.L.Trainer@noaa.gov) as the principle investigator (PI),
focuses on preparing and teaching country-specific training courses
most needed to ensure seafood safety in developing countries.
Within the MNIS sub-project, two specific initiatives have been
identified. The first is the development of a comprehensive
MNIS database, with Dr. Henry Lee II (U.S. Environment and Protection
Agency, Newport,
OR, U.S.A.,
E-mail: lee.henry@epa.gov)
as the PI. The second is a taxonomy
initiative that includes rapid assessment surveys and associated collector
surveys in PICES member countries, with Dr. Thomas Therriault (Fisheries
and Oceans Canada, Nanaimo, BC, Canada, E-mail:
thomas.therriault@dfo-mpo.gc.ca) as the PI. The Chairman of MEQ, Dr. Glen Jamieson (Fisheries
and Oceans Canada, Nanaimo,
BC, Canada,
E-mail: glen.jamieson@dfo-mpo.gc.ca)
serves as the Project Scientific Coordinator and is responsible for
reporting annually on the progress of the scientific implementation
of the project. This scientific report, to be submitted as a
separate document simultaneously with the financial report, will include
a summary of the activities carried out for the year, with an evaluation
on the progress made, and a workplan for the following year.
Financial principles
and budget categories
The following financial principles, agreed to by JFA
and PICES, apply to the project:
§
A separate bank account shall
be established to deposit the remitted funds;
§
The interest earned by the
fund shall be credited to the project and used in consultation with
JFA;
§
Any funds remaining after
the completion of every fiscal year of the project shall be reported
and disposed of in consultation with JFA;
§
Transfers of up to 10%
of allocations between the budget categories are allowed, based solely
on the decision by the PICES Executive Secretary.
In special cases, transfers up to 20% between the budget categories
can be authorized by JFA. All
transfers shall be reported at the end of the fiscal year;
§
A 10% overhead on the annual
budget shall be retained by PICES to offset expenses related to the
Secretariat’s involvement in the project;
§
The PICES Executive Secretary
is responsible for the management of the fund and for reporting annually
on its disposition to PICES Governing Council and JFA, within 120 days
after the close of each project year ending March 31.
The main elements of the budget are organized into the
following categories:
§
Travel and meetings
This category covers travel costs associated
with project activities (organizational trips, field studies, etc.) and organization of project workshops
and meetings.
§
Contracts
This category covers fees to be paid to consultants
and experts employed to implement the project. Tasks and deliverables for contractors have
to be determined by the Scientific Coordinator (Chairman of PICES MEQ),
based on recommendations from a PI of a specific sub-project or initiative. The Executive Secretary, in consultation with
the Scientific Coordinator, is responsible for selecting contractors. To support the objectives of the project and
to ensure that its activities have a minimal impact on the workload
of the existing staff of the PICES Secretariat, the Executive Secretary
can employ additional staff (e.g.,
Project Assistant) as required.
§
Equipment
This category covers purchases of equipment
for laboratory/field sampling/data processing/analysis, computer hardware
and software for development of database(s) and the project website.
§
Miscellaneous
This category covers minor expenses associated
with the project (mail and phone charges, bank charges, etc.) and includes contingencies such as
fluctuations in currency exchange rates.
Project bank account
The following special account for the project was established
at the bank used by PICES:
Bank name: TD Canada Trust
Bank number: 004
SWIFT Code: TDOMCATTTOR
Branch name: Sidney
Branch number: 00721
Bank Address: 2406 Beacon Avenue, Sidney, BC, Canada V8L 1X4
Account number: 07210 004 8479 5209963
Account holder:
North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES)
Funds for
the first year of the project (April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008) were
transferred to this account on July 27, 2007.
Budget execution for fiscal
Year 1
The budget allocated for Year 1 was $184,980. The initially
proposed budget breakdown is shown in Table 1. Work plans for both sub-projects were discussed
and revised at the PICES Sixteenth Annual Meeting held from October
26 to November 5, 2007, in Victoria,
BC, Canada. Consequently, allocations between the budget categories were adjusted: $5,800 (10%) from the travel and meetings category
and $7,200 (8%) from the contracts were moved to the equipment category
as indicated in Table 1. This
table also includes actual expenses and remaining funds for each of
the budget categories, and the project account balance as of March 31,
2008. There is a surplus of $10,668 at the fiscal
year end. Table 2 provides more details on actual expenses for
the major categories.
Table 1 Allocations
and expenses for Year 1 of
the PICES MAFF project.
| Category |
Initial Allocations |
Final Allocations |
Actual Expenses |
Remainder |
| Travel & meetings |
58,000 |
52,200 |
48,652 |
3,548 |
| Contracts |
90,000 |
82,800 |
81,822 |
978 |
| Equipment |
16,500 |
29,500 |
29,162 |
338 |
| Miscellaneous |
1,980 |
1,980 |
223 |
1,757 |
| Overhead |
18,500 |
18,500 |
18,500 |
– |
| Total |
184,980 |
184,980 |
178,359 |
6,621 |
| |
|
|
|
|
| Interest earned |
|
|
|
4,047 |
| Account Balance |
|
|
|
10,668 |
Table
2 Breakdown of expenses for various budget categories for
Year 1 of the PICES MAFF project.
| Category/Activity |
Expenses |
| Travel & meetings |
48,652 |
| Joint meeting of PICES and ICES experts
on MNIS (May 25–26, 2007, Cambridge, U.S.A.) in conjunction with the 5th International Conference on “Marine bioinvasions”
(May 21–24) to discuss possible directions for the MNIS sub-project
and potential for collaboration between the two
organizations to better implement this sub-project |
8,304 |
| Travel
of MNIS experts to PICES XVI to test the first version of the database and to discuss
the proposed taxonomy initiative, including the rapid assessment
surveys and associated
collector surveys, under the MNIS sub-project |
4,673 |
| Meetings
of PICES and IOC/WESTPAC HAB experts (Oct. 24–25, 2007, Seattle,
U.S.A. and Nov. 25–27, 2007, Tokyo, Japan) to discuss possible
directions for the HAB sub-project, what might be learned from
past IOC/WESTPAC training classes, and potential for collaboration
with these organizations to enhance the effectiveness of a HAB
training program |
6,718 |
| Participation
of PICES and WESTPAC experts in the 2nd Asian GEOHAB
meeting (Jan. 28–Feb. 1, 2008, Nha Trang, Vietnam) to
introduce activities of the PICES HAB Section and the MAFF project,
and to obtain information about research and monitoring needs
pertaining to HABs and seafood safety
in southeast Asian countries in order to determine an immediate
and long-term Action Plan for a HAB training program |
9,532 |
| Inter-sessional WG 21 meeting (March 3–5, 2008, Busan, Korea)
to evaluate the protocols and reach
final agreement on standards, data elements and data entry templates
for the MNIS database |
19,425 |
| Contracts |
81,822 |
| To develop a prototype
MNIS database to support the scientific information to
be provided by participating scientists (Ms. Deborah Reusser,
U.S. Geological Survey) |
40,730 |
| To select, order and test equipment/materials to be
used for a HAB training program in developing countries (Mr.
Julian Herndon, San Francisco State
University) |
20,012 |
| To provide assistance to project Coordinators and sub-project
Principle Investigators (Ms. Rosalie Rutka, Stranby Technical
Services) |
21,080 |
| Equipment and materials for a HAB training program
in developing countries |
28,000 |
| Access database software for China,
Japan, Korea and Russia |
1,162 |
| Miscellaneous |
223 |
| Cheque and bank charges |
194 |
| Mail charges |
29 |
Recommendation
on the use of Year 1 surplus
As indicated above, the first year of the project ended with a surplus of
$10,668, generated partly by the unused funds and partly by bank interest.
One of the tasks under the MNIS sub-project is entering species distributions at the eco-regional
scale for all taxa, to the extent practical, into a MNIS database. It is recommended that an equivalent of $6,000
US be used from the surplus to support data entry of species distribution
in Japanese waters. This task
is expected to be completed by August 31, 2008, through the contract
with Marine Ecological Institute Inc., supervised
by the member of WG 21, Dr. Hisashi Yokoyama (National Research Institute
of Aquaculture).
It is also recommended that the remaining funds (approximately $4,000) be
used to support participation of scientists from Pacific Rim countries
in a rapid assessment survey at two port locations
in China (one on the Yellow Sea and one on the Bohai Sea) immediately
prior to PICES XVII to be held in October 2008, in Dalian, China. This rapid assessment survey and an associated
collector survey are being planned under a taxonomy initiative of the
MNIS sub-project.
Audit of
the account
According to the PICES Financial Regulations (http://www.pices.int/about/financial_regulations.aspx;
Regulations 11 and 13),
all our accounts and financial statements are subject of an external
audit. The auditing firm, Flader
& Hale, was selected as the PICES external auditor for FYs
2003–2005 at the 2003 inter-sessional Governing Council meeting in Victoria,
Canada (Decision 03/A/1(ii)), and retained as the auditor for FYs
2006–2008 at the 2005 Annual Meeting in Vladivostok, Russia (Decision
05/A/1(ii)).
The status of the PICES/MAFF account, for the period
from April 1 to December 31, 2007, was assessed during the regular PICES audit for FY 2007.
The financial statements were submitted to Flader & Hale on March 21, 2008, and the audit was
completed on April 21, 2007. In
the auditor’s opinion, the financial statements are an accurate representation of the MAFF account as of
December 31, 2008, and changes in the fund balance are in accordance
with Canadian generally accepted accounting principles. The financial statements for the rest of Year 1 of the MAFF project (January 1 to
March 31, 2008) will be evaluated during the regular PICES audit for FY 2008.
GC Appendix A
2008 Governing
Council decisions
08/A/1: Auditor
| i. |
Council accepted the audited accounts of FY 2007. |
| ii. |
Council
retained Flader & Hale as the external auditor
for FYs 2009-2011. |
08/A/2: Annual contributions
| i. |
Council
instructed the Executive Secretary to send a letter to Contracting
Parties commending them for
improved performance
in submitting annual contributions for
FY 2008, and describing the difficulties
that late and/or partial
payment causes the Organization. |
| ii. |
For
planning of their funding requests for
annual contributions, Contracting Parties should continue to use
the guideline generally accepted at the PICES Eighth Annual Meeting
(Decision 99/A/2(ii)), which states that the annual contributions
will increase at the rate of inflation in Canada. |
| i. |
Council
accepted the estimated accounts for FY 2008. |
| ii. |
Council approved the 2009 budget of $785,000. The amount of $98,000 will be transferred from
the Working Capital
Fund to balance the budget, setting the total annual contribution
at $687,000, and the 2009 annual fee at $114,500 per Contracting
Party. |
| iii. |
Council
approved a transfer from the Working Capital Fund to the Trust Fund to recover the
2008 expenses, and to restore
the Trust Fund to the level of $110,000 by the end of the fiscal
year. |
| iv. |
Council
approved that the amount of $3,593 in unspent funds from
the 2006 CCCC symposium on “Climate variability and ecosystem
impacts on the North
Pacific: A basin-scale
synthesis” be earmarked for
high-priority projects
other than the development of the new integrative scientific
program, FUTURE, and the preparation of the next North
Pacific Ecosystem Status Report. |
08/A/4: Scientific cooperation with non-member countries
Council agreed that changing the PICES Rules of Procedures
in order to accommodate scientists
from non-member countries or other organizations to PICES’ expert groups
(ex-officio membership) is a viable alternative
approach to the affiliate status system, and requested Dr. Laura Richards,
former Chairman of the Study Group on Scientific Cooperation between PICES and Non-member Countries, to
work with the Secretariat to prepare actual amendments
for consideration at the
next meeting of Council.
08/A/5: Future PICES Annual Meetings and inter-sessional Science Board and
Governing Council meetings
i.
Council agreed to provide $40,000 to Korea
to partially cover costs for
the 2009 PICES Annual Meeting to be held October 23–November 1, in Jeju,
with the Ministry of Land, Transport
and Maritime Affairs (MLTL), the Korea
Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI) and the National Fisheries
Research and Development Institute (NFRDI) as the local organizers.
ii.
Council approved in principle
the theme of the 2010 PICES Annual Meeting, “North
Pacific ecosystems today, and challenges in understanding and forecasting change”, and instructed Science Board
to finalize the theme description by the 2009 inter-sessional Science
Board meeting.
iii.
Following the established 6-year rotation cycle, Council requested the
Russia Federation to explore
the feasibility of hosting the 2011
PICES Annual Meeting, and inform
the Secretariat on this matter by March 31, 2009.
iv.
Council approved a new naming convention for future
Annual Meetings that includes the name of the Organization
and the year of the meeting (PICES-2009, PICES-2010, etc.). For consistency, a similar
approach will be used for inter-sessional meetings of Science Board
and Council (ISB-2009, IGC-2009).
v. Council accepted the same registration fee structure for 2009 as was maintained for
2004–2008:
| Type of registration fee |
CDN $ |
| Regular |
225 |
|
Early |
150 |
|
Student |
50 |
| Spousal/guest |
50 |
vi. A Study Group on Restructuring the PICES Annual Meeting has been established under
the direction of Council, to review the current practice and structure
of the PICES Annual Meeting. The
terms of reference and membership of the Study Group are listed in
GC Appendix B.
vii. Council approved inter-sessional Science Board
and Council meetings to be held in conjunction with a workshop to finalize
the development of an Implementation Plan for
FUTURE, and accepted an offer from
the State Oceanic Administration of China to host these events in Qingdao, in April 2009.
08/A/6: Intern Program
i. Council accepted changes in the background documentation for the Intern
Program (F&A Endnote 7).
ii. Council extended the deadline of nominations
for the 2010 PICES Internship
until the Governing Council meeting at the 2009 PICES Annual Meeting.
iii. Council instructed the Executive Secretary to
invite Contracting Parties to provide voluntary contributions to support the Intern Program in 2009 and beyond.
iv. Council confirmed that the stipend should be
kept at the current level of $2,000 per month.
The nominating Contracting Party could consider supplementing
this modest stipend, depending on the intern’s personal circumstances.
08/A/7: PICES Annual Report
Council decided to discontinue printing the Annual
Report, and instead, distribute it electronically and deposit it in
the electronic commons.
08/A/8: Executive Secretary position
Council approved the re-appointment of Dr. Alexander
Bychkov, Executive Secretary, for
a new 5-year term to start June 1, 2009.
08/A/9: Election of Chairman and Vice-Chairman
i. Council unanimously elected Dr. Tokio Wada
(Japan) as the
Chairman of PICES for a second
2-year term (2008–2010). Accordingly, Dr. Vera Alexander (U.S.A.)
remains the Past-Chairman.
ii. Council unanimously elected Dr.
Lev N. Bocharov (Russia)
as the Vice-Chairman of PICES for
a second 2-year term (2008–2010).
08/A/10: Appointment of F&A Committee Chairman
Council appointed Ms. Patricia Livingston (U.S.A.) as the Chairman of the
Finance
and Administration Committee for a 2-year term (2008–2010).
08/S/1: 2009
PICES Annual Meeting
The following scientific sessions are to be convened
(a List of Acronyms can be found at the end of the Annual Report):
§
¾-day Science Board Symposium on “Understanding
ecosystem dynamics and pursuing ecosystem approaches to management”;
§
1-day BIO Contributed Paper Session;
§
1-day FIS Topic Session on “Ecosystem-based
approaches for the assessment
of fisheries under data-limited situations”;
§
1-day FIS Contributed Paper Session;
§
½-day FIS/BIO Topic Session on “Early
life stages of marine resources as indicators
of climate variability and ecosystem resilience”;
§
½-day MEQ Topic Session on “Mitigation of harmful algal blooms”;
§
½-day MEQ Topic Session on “The role of submerged
aquatic vegetation in the context of climate change”;
§
1-day MEQ/FIS Topic Session on “Marine
spatial planning in support
of integrated management – tools, methods, and approaches”;
§
1-day MONITOR Topic Session on “State
of the art of real-time monitoring
and its implication for the
FUTURE oceanographic study”;
§
1-day POC Contributed Paper Session;
§
1-day POC/BIO Topic Session on “Anthropogenic
perturbations of the carbon cycle and their impacts in the North Pacific”;
§
1½-day POC/FUTURE Topic Session on “Outlooks and forecasts of marine ecosystems from an earth system
science perspective: Challenges and opportunities”.
The following workshops
are to be convened (a List of Acronyms can be found at the end of the
Annual Report):
§
¾-day BIO
Workshop on “Natural
supplies of iron to the North
Pacific and linkages between iron supply and ecosystem responses”;
§
½-day BIO Workshop on “Standardizing methods for
estimating jellyfish concentration and development of an international
monitoring network”;
§
½-day BIO Workshop on “Integrating
marine mammal populations and rates of prey consumption in models of
climate change-ecosystem change in the North
Pacific”;
[After
ICES agreed to co-sponsor this workshop,
its title was changed to “Integrating marine mammal populations and
rates of prey consumption in models and forecasts
of climate change-ecosystem change in the North
Pacific and North Atlantic
Oceans”.]
§
2-day BIO Workshop on “Marine
ecosystem model inter-comparisons (II)”;
§
1-day FIS Workshop on “Understanding
the links between fishing technology, bycatch, marine ecosystems and
ecosystem-based management”;
§
1½-day MEQ Workshop on “Review
of selected harmful algae in the PICES region: V. Cyst forming
HAB species”
(includes 1-day laboratory demonstration);
§
1½-day MEQ/FIS Workshop on “Interactions between
aquaculture activity and environment” (includes ½-day field trip)”;
§
1-day POC Workshop on “Exploring the predictability and mechanisms of Pacific
low frequency variability beyond inter-annual time scales”;
§
1-day POC/BIO Workshop on “Mesoscale
eddies and their roles in North
Pacific ecosystems”;
§
1½-day POC/BIO Workshop on “Carbon
data synthesis”.
The following business meetings are to be held (a List of Acronyms can be found at the end
of the Annual Report):
§
1-day Science Board meeting;
§
½-day meetings of Scientific (BIO, FIS, MEQ and POC) and Technical (MONITOR
and TCODE) Committees to be run concurrently;
§
½-day meetings of the POC/BIO Section on Carbon and Climate, immediately after the POC/BIO Workshop on “Carbon data synthesis”;
§
1-day meeting of the MEQ Section on Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms
in the North Pacific;
§
1-day meeting of the POC Working
Group 20 on Evaluations of Climate Change Projections;
§
2-day meeting of the MEQ Working Group 21 on Non-indigenous Aquatic Species;
§
¹/3-day meeting
of the BIO Working Group 22 on Iron Supply and its Impact on Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems in the
North Pacific Ocean, immediately
after the BIO Workshop
on “Natural supplies of iron to the North Pacific and linkages between iron supply and ecosystem
responses”;
§
1-day meeting of the BIO Working Group 23 on Comparative Ecology
of Krill in Coastal and Oceanic Waters around the Pacific Rim;
§
½-day meetings of the MEQ/FIS Working Group 24 on Environmental Interactions of Marine Aquaculture, immediately after the MEQ/FIS Workshop
on “Interactions between aquaculture activity
and environment”;
§
1-day meeting of the Study Group on Communications.
08/S/2: Inter-sessional symposia/workshops/meetings
The following inter-sessional
meetings and workshops are
to be convened/co-sponsored
in 2009 and beyond (a List of Acronyms can be found at the end of the
Annual Report):
§
PICES Harmful Algal Bloom
training course, January 15–23, 2009, Manila,
Philippines;
§
Third Argo Science Workshop:
The future of Argo (co-sponsored by PICES and several Chinese
agencies/organizations), March 25–27, 2009, Hangzhou, China;
§
11th Salmon Ecology Workshop
(related to the development of the North Pacific Ecosystem Status Report for the Alaska Current, California Current
and the Bering Sea),
April 7–8, 2009, Juneau, U.S.A.;
§
North Pacific Ecosystem Status
Report Workshop on “Status and trends in East Asian
marginal seas”, April 21–22,
2009, Busan, Korea, in conjunction with the 15th Pacific-Asian Marginal
Seas (PAMS) meeting on “Observations,
understanding, and prediction of climate variability in PAMS”, April
23–25;
§
Workshop to develop an Implementation
Plan for the new PICES integrative scientific program, FUTURE (April
26–27, 2009), in conjunction
with inter-sessional Science Board (April 28) and Governing Council
(April 29) meetings, Qingdao,
China;
§
Meeting of the PICES-ICES
Working Group on Forecasting Climate
Change Impacts on Fish and Shellfish, June 21, 2009, Victoria, Canada;
§
3rd GLOBEC Open
Science Meeting (co-sponsored by PICES), June 22–26, 2009, Victoria, Canada;
§
3rd PICES Summer
School on “Satellite oceanography” (co-sponsored by SCOR and several Korean
agencies/organizations), August 25–28, 2009, Seoul, Korea;
§
6th
International Conference on “Marine
Bioinvasions” (co-sponsored by ICES, PICES, U.S. National Sea Grant
College Program, Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and Portland
State University), August 24–27, 2009, Portland, U.S.A.;
§
CIAC’09 Symposium on “The
effects of environmental variability on cephalopod populations”
(co-sponsored by ICES and PICES),
September 3–11, 2009, Vigo,
Spain;
§
OceanObs’09 Conference–Ocean
information for society: Sustaining benefits, realizing the potential
(PICES is endorsing organization and is present on the Program Committee),
September 21–25, 2009, Venice, Italy;
§
ICES/PICES Theme Sessions
on “Climate impacts on marine
fishes: Discovering centennial
patterns and disentangling current processes” and “Global Ocean Observing Systems” at the ICES Annual Science Conference,
September 21–25, 2009, Berlin,
Germany
(the second session was postponed until 2010);
§
PICES Rapid Assessment Survey
(RAS-2009) for non-indigenous aquatic species, October 19–22, 2009, several ports in Korea
§
International Symposium on
“Rebuilding depleted fish stocks: Biology, ecology, social science and management
strategies” (primary sponsors: ICES,
PICES and UNCOVER; co-sponsoring organizations:
NAFO, DFO and IMR), November
3–6, 2009, Warnemünde, Germany;
§
North Pacific Ecosystem Status
Report Synthesis Workshop, December 1–3, 2009, Honolulu,
U.S.A.
(by invitation);
§
PICES/ICES Symposium on “Climate change effects on fish and fisheries: Forecasting impacts, assessing
ecosystem responses, and evaluating management strategies”, April
26–29, 2010, Sendai,
Japan;
§
26th Lowell Wakefield Symposium on
“Ecosystems 2010: Global progress on ecosystem-based fisheries
management” (primary sponsor: Alaska
Sea Grant; co-sponsored by PICES), spring or fall 2010, Anchorage, U.S.A.;
§
ICES/PICES Symposium on “Carrying
capacity: What does it mean in a changing ocean?”,
2010, Lisbon, Portugal;
§
5th International
Zooplankton Production Symposium (primary sponsors: PICES
and ICES), March 14–18, 2011, Pucon,
Chile.
08/S/3: Travel support
PICES will provide travel support for:
2009 PICES Annual Meeting
§
Invited speakers for Science
Board Symposium and Topic Sessions, with the normal
allocation of approximately $5,000 per Committee; additional requests are subject to fund availability;
§
Two invited speakers for each
of the following BIO Workshops:
“Natural
supplies of iron to the North
Pacific and linkages between iron supply and ecosystem responses” and
“Marine
ecosystem model inter-comparisons (II)”; and 1 invited speaker for
each of the following BIO Workshops: “Standardizing
methods for estimating jellyfish
concentration and development of an international monitoring
network” and “Integrating
marine mammal populations and rates of prey consumption in models of
climate change-ecosystem change in the North
Pacific”;
§
One invited speaker for the FIS Workshop on “Understanding the links between
fishing technology, bycatch, marine ecosystems and ecosystem-based management”;
§
One invited speaker for the MEQ Workshop
on “Review of selected harmful algae in the PICES region:
V. Cyst forming HAB species”;
§
One invited speaker for the MEQ/FIS Workshop
on “Interactions between aquaculture activity and environment”;
§
Two invited speakers for the POC Workshop
on “Exploring
the predictability and mechanisms of Pacific low frequency variability
beyond inter-annual time scales”;
§
One invited speaker for each of the following POC/BIO Workshops: “Mesoscale
eddies and their roles in North
Pacific ecosystems” and “Carbon data synthesis”.
Inter-sessional meetings
§
Dr. Sonia Batten, Principle Investigator of the PICES North Pacific Continuous Plankton Recorder
(CPR) project, to visit Japan
to introduce CPR activities to the Asian scientific community and develop
joint scientific projects, spring 2009, Yokohama,
Japan;
§
A representative of MONITOR to attend the 9th Session of the
IOC-WMO-UNEP Intergovernmental Committee for GOOS (I-GOOS-IX), June
10–12, 2009, Paris, France;
§
A PICES representative to attend the 25th Session of the IOC
Assembly, June 16–25, 2009, Paris,
France;
§
A member of WG 20 to attend the 2009 ESSAS Annual Meeting, June 15–21, 2009, Seattle,
U.S.A.;
§
Two PICES scientists to attend the workshop on “Krill biology and ecology in the world’s oceans”, June 22–23, 2009, Victoria, Canada
(in conjunction with the Third GLOBEC Open Science Meeting);
§
Invited speakers from the
Pacific (up to $10,000) and early career scientists from PICES member
countries (up to $5,000) to attend the Third GLOBEC Open Science Meeting,
June 22–26, 2009, Victoria,
Canada;
§
Invited speakers from the
Pacific (up to $10,000) and early career scientists from PICES member
countries (up to $5,000) to attend the 6th International Conference on “Marine Bioinvasions”, August 24–27, 2009, Portland,
U.S.A.;
§
A guest lecturer and 5 non-Korean early career scientists to attend the
Third PICES Summer School on “Satellite
oceanography”, August 25–28, 2009, Seoul, Korea;
§
A PICES convenor for the CIAC’09 Symposium on “The effects of environmental variability on
cephalopod populations”,
September 3–11, 2009, Vigo,
Spain;
§
A PICES convenor for the joint
ICES/PICES Theme Session on “Climate impacts on marine fishes:
Discovering centennial patterns and disentangling current processes”
at the ICES Annual Science Conference, September 21–25, 2009, Berlin, Germany;
§
A PICES member of the Program Committee for the OceanObs’09 Conference, September 21–25, 2009, Venice, Italy;
§
A PICES representative to attend the SCOR Executive Committee Meeting,
October 20–22, 2009, Beijing,
China;
§
A PICES representative to attend the NPAFC Seventeenth Annual Meeting,
November 2–6, 2009, Niigata,
Japan;
§
A Pacific plenary speaker, PICES convenor
and PICES SSC member for the symposium on “Rebuilding
depleted fish stocks: Biology,
ecology, social science and management strategies”, November 3–6,
2009, Warnemünde, Germany;
§
Two non-American invited speakers from the Pacific for the 26th
Lowell Wakefield Symposium on “Ecosystems
2010: Global progress on ecosystem-based
fisheries management”, spring or fall 2010, Anchorage, U.S.A.;
§
A Pacific invited speaker for the ICES/PICES Symposium on “Carrying capacity: What does it
mean in a changing ocean?”, 2010, Lisbon,
Portugal.
08/S/4: Publications
The following publications are to be produced:
Primary journals (2009–2010)
§
Journal of Marine Systems (2009) – special issue on “Observation and modeling of the ocean circulation
and marine ecosystem for CREAMS/PICES” (Guest Editors: K.-I. Chang, S.-I. Ito, C. Mooers and
J.-H. Yoon);
§
ICES
Journal of Marine Science (2009) – special section in a regular issue based
on selected papers from the ICES/PICES Early Career Scientists
Conference on “New frontiers in marine science” (Guest Editors: F. Mueter
and E. North);
§
Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fishery Science (2009) – special issue based
on selected papers from the NAFO/PICES/ICES Symposium on “Reproductive and recruitment
processes of exploited marine fish stocks” (Guest
Editors: R. Brodeur, M. Dickey-Collas
and E. Trippel). JNAFS is primarily an electronic journal, but a hard-copy run of
this issue is expected in April 2009;
§
Journal of Oceanography (2009)
– special section
in a regular issue based on selected papers from
the PICES-2007 Topic Session on “Decadal changes in carbon biogeochemistry in the North
Pacific” (Guest
Editor: T. Saino);
§
Deep-Sea Research II (2009) – special issue
based on selected papers on krill from the 4th International
Zooplankton Production Symposium on “Human and climate forcing of zooplankton populations” (Guest Editors: W. Peterson and S. Kawaguchi);
§
Deep-Sea Research II (2009) – special
issue based on papers from the SEEDS-II experiment (Guest Editors: A. Tsuda, M. Wells, M. Uematsu and H.
Saito);
§
Progress in Oceanography (2009) – special issue based
on selected papers from the ICES/PICES Theme Session on “Comparative marine ecosystem structure and function: Descriptors
and characteristics” at the 2007 ICES Annual Science Conference
(Guest Editors: B.A. Megrey, J.S. Link and E. Moksness);
§
Fisheries Research (2009) – special issue based
on selected papers from the PICES-2007 Topic Session on “Ecosystem approach to fisheries: Improvements on traditional management
for declining and depleted stocks” (Guest
Editors: G.H. Kruse,
Y. Ishida, T. Perry, V.I. Radchenko and C.-I. Zhang);
§
Deep-Sea Research II (2009 or early 2010) – special issue based on selected
papers from the OECOS (Oceanic Ecosystem Comparison in the Subarctic
Pacific) experiment (Guest Editors:
C. Miller and A. Yamaguchi);
§
Progress in Oceanography (2010) – special issue based on selected
papers from SCOR Working Group on Zooplankton Time Series. (Guest Editors: P. Pepin, D. Mackas
and H. Verheye)
§
Continental Shelf Research (early 2010) – special issue
on “Tides
in Marginal Seas” dedicated to Prof. Alexei Nekrasov (Guest Editors: J. Cherniawsky, M. Foreman, B. Kagan and A.
Rabinovich);
§
Marine Ecology Progress Series
(2010)
special issue on “Phenology and climate change in the North Pacific”
(Guest
Editor: W. Sydeman).
PICES Scientific Report series (2009)
§
Proceedings of the Fourth PICES Workshop on “The Okhotsk
Sea and adjacent
areas” (Editors:
M. Kashiwai and G. Kantakov);
§
Final report of WG19 on Ecosystem-based Management Science and its
Application to the North
Pacific (Editors: G. Jamieson,
P. Livingston and C.-I. Zhang);
§
Final report for the Climate Change and Carrying Capacity Program
(Editor: M. Kishi);
§
Final report of the Advisory Panel on Micronekton
Sampling Inter-calibration Experiment
(Editors:
E. Pakhomov and O. Yamamura).
PICES
Special Publications (2010)
§
Second North Pacific Ecosystem Status Report.
Other publications (2009–2010)
§
Brochure on “Ecosystem-based management
science and its application to the North
Pacific” (2009);
§
Brochure on “The status and trends
of the North Pacific Ocean” –
summary of the Second North Pacific Ecosystem Status Report for policy
makers, managers, commercial stakeholders and other interested members
of society (2010).
08/S/5: Future of current groups
i.
To comply with procedures accepted for the production
of the next North Pacific Ecosystem Status Report, the revised term
of reference (3) for MONITOR was approved to read “Contribute to the development of the North Pacific
Ecosystem Status Report, advising editors and lead authors
on monitoring issues, identifying the need for particular time series
and their continuities, the period on which they need to be updated
for the FUTURE
forecast products, and recommend to Science Board that they endorse
the need to establish or maintain a particular time series.”
ii.
The lifespan of the POC Working Group (WG 20) on Evaluations of Climate Change Projections was extended until
October 2010, so it can provide the new PICES-ICES Working Group on Forecasting Climate Change Impacts on Fish and Shellfish with the
climate projection information they requested to complete the majority
of their analysis during 2009–2010.
iii.
The lifespan of the MEQ Working Group (WG 21) on Non-indigenous Aquatic Species
was extended until October 2012, and its revised terms of reference were
approved (GC Appendix B). These changes reflect involvement of WG 21 in
a project on “Development of the prevention systems for harmful organisms’
expansion in the Pacific Rim” supported by the Ministry
of Agriculture, Forestry
and Fisheries of Japan.
iv.
Responsibility for the project on “Marine ecosystem model inter-comparisons” (approved in 2007) was moved from the CCCC Program to BIO. The goal of this project is quantitative comparison of different structures
and parameterizations of ecosystem models using identical physical forcing
(2007 MODEL Endnote 4), and the work will be integrated into
FUTURE when the program is operational.
08/S/6: New PICES groups
i.
A Working
Group (WG 24) on Environmental
Interactions of Marine Aquaculture
(WG-EIMA) was established
under the direction of FIS and MEQ, with terms of reference as described
in GC Appendix B.
ii.
A joint PICES-ICES Working Group on Forecasting Climate
Change Impacts on Fish and Shellfish (WG-FCCIFS) received approval-in-principle
for its formation, under condition that the proposed terms of reference are revised to the satisfaction of Science Board. The revised
terms of reference approved by the PICES Science Board (in December
2008) and the ICES Scientific Committee (January 2009) are included
in GC Appendix B. Parent committees for WG-FCCIFS are FIS and
POC in PICES, and OOC (Oceanography Committee) in ICES.
08/S/7: Chairmen
and Vice-Chairmen for permanent
Committees and expert groups
The following
reflects changes and continuations in Chairmanship/Vice-Chairmanship
for Scientific and Technical
Committees and expert groups:
§
Dr. Mikhail Stepanenko (Russia) to replace
Dr. Gordon H. Kruse as FIS Chairman;
§
Dr. Phillip R. Mundy (U.S.A.) to replace Dr. Charles
B. Miller as CPR-AP Chairman.
08/S/8: Relations with other organizations
and programs
Council confirmed
keeping the 2007 Standing List
of International and Regional Organizations and Programs (SB Endnote 3) and agreed with the identified priorities for
interaction in 2008–2009.
GC
Appendix B
Study
Group on Restructuring the PICES
Annual Meeting
Terms of Reference
1. To review the current practice
and structure of the PICES Annual Meeting to:
§
consider ways of improving the time
balance and order among various events of the Annual Meeting;
§
shorten the duration of the Annual Meeting; and
§
assess other issues related to the Annual Meeting.
2. To develop recommendations on
the Annual Meeting and report to the Governing Council by March 31,
2009.
Membership
The Study Group will include one representative from
each Contracting Party, as well as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of
PICES, the Chairmen of Science Board and Finance and Administration
Committee, and the Executive Secretary and Deputy Executive Secretary. The Study Group will be led by the Chairman
of PICES.
MEQ Working Group (WG 21) on Non-indigenous Aquatic Species
(WG-NIAS)
Terms of Reference (revised)
1.
Assesses the status of non-indigenous aquatic species
in the PICES area by:
§
completing an inventory
of currently reported estuarine and marine aquatic non-indigenous species
in PICES member countries;
§
compiling definitions
of terms and making recommendations on use of terms;
§
summarizing the situation
on bioinvasions in the North Pacific; and
§
comparing and contrasting
this situation to other regions.
2.
Assemble an inventory of expertise and programs related
to non-indigenous aquatic species in PICES member countries by:
- compiling a list of existing databases of
non-indigenous aquatic species experts; and
- compiling sources of information on relevant
national research and monitoring programs in PICES member countries.
3.
Summarize initiatives on prevention and mitigation measures
(e.g., ICES Code of Practice
for the Introduction and Transfer of Marine Organisms; IMO Ballast Water
Management Convention and national policies of PICES member countries),
and develop recommendations for best practices for prevention and mitigation.
4.
Promote collaboration between ICES and PICES Working
Groups on non-indigenous species by:
- holding joint meetings of the related ICES
Working Groups and PICES WG-21 as conveniently and as practical; and
- developing and recommending an approach for
enhanced linkages between ICES and PICES on non-indigenous aquatic
species.
5.
Develop a comprehensive
Non-Indigenous Aquatic Database.
6.
Establish a North Pacific
Marine Non-Indigenous Aquatic Species taxonomy initiative.
7.
Publish
an interim report in 2010 and a final report in 2012, summarizing results
and recommendations.
MEQ/FIS Working Group (WG 24) on Environmental Interactions of Marine Aquaculture
(WG-EIMA)
Mission Statement
Develop standard methods and tools
to assess and compare the environmental interactions and characteristics
of existing and planned marine aquaculture activities in PICES member
countries.
Strategy
Statement
The Working Group should contain
expertise corresponding to the three terms of reference (TORs) outlined
below. Working sessions on environmental interaction
models of marine aquaculture, risk assessment case studies and infectious
diseases will be held at PICES Annual Meetings (AMs) and when possible,
at other times as needed. A symposium
(likely in the third year) will highlight models and information generated
by all three TORs to evaluate environmental interactions associated
with aquaculture. Final results
will be reported as a PICES publication and, hopefully, also in the
peer-reviewed literature. The
Working Group will maintain contacts and linkages with PICES Working
Groups on Ecosystem-based Management
Science and its Application to the North Pacific (WG 19)
and on Non-indigenous
Aquatic Species (WG 21), and two ICES Working Groups on Environmental Interactions of Marine Aquaculture
and on Pathology and Diseases
of Marine Organisms.
Goals
and Actions (Terms of Reference)
1. Evaluate approaches currently being used in
the different PICES countries to assess and model the interactions of
aquaculture operations with surrounding environments. This will involve conducting a comparative assessment
of the methodologies, applications, and outputs of different approaches
to assess finfish, shellfish, seaweed, and/or integrated multi-trophic
aquaculture. Assessments of the
approaches will include case studies of their application. As the possibilities for different types of
aquaculture and their interactions to be assessed are so vast, it is
suggested that a process be developed that prioritize and limits the
options. A possible process would:
(a)
List types of aquaculture and identify major
culture technologies and related species of highest interest to member
states. Select three or four
important culture technologies and associated species and assess their
environmental effects and associated interactions;
(b)
Review the scientific literature to ascertain
if these possible interactions have been determined to be significant;
(c)
Identify methodologies used to predict the
effects of these interactions and the history/uncertainty associated
with these predictions;
(d)
Examine a variety of institutional decision-making
models that are used to limit the effects and associated monitoring
and mitigation protocols.
2. Review and assess current risk assessment methods
used to assess environmental interactions of aquaculture and determine
what, if anything, should be changed for application in PICES countries
to reflect ecosystem-specific aspects.
Following the review and assessment, identify appropriate case
studies to compare results among countries in the PICES region. This will be achieved by holding a workshop
in the second year to compare and discuss possible standardization of
methodologies and the selection of potential case studies for assessment
with a standardized approach. Much
of the information for this exercise can be derived from “item c” in
TOR 1 above. Case studies may then be developed. Responsibilities and functions will be similar
to the ICES Working Group on Environmental
Interactions of Mariculture (WGEIM), so the feasibility of holding
a joint meeting with this group will be explored.
3. Assess methods to detect, identify, evaluate
and report on infectious disease events and potential interactions between
wild and farmed marine animals. If
appropriate, develop a recommended standardized approach for detection/evaluation/reporting
from wild and cultured populations. The focus of this activity will be on OIE-notifiable
diseases and other infectious diseases of regional/economic importance.
Discuss and document new and emerging infectious diseases in
the PICES region, methods for their detection, and develop models to
conduct risk assessments of their potential impacts on both endemic
wild and farmed species. If resources
are available it would be advisable to test these models by conducting
risk assessments on a few (2–3) emerging pathogens. Responsibilities and functions will be similar
to the ICES Working Group on Pathology
and Diseases of Marine Organisms (WGPDMO), so the possibility of
a joint meeting will be explored.
4. As a conclusion to all the above,
we propose to hold
a PICES session or separate symposium in the third year to present case
studies and results, and submit for publication as a PICES document, in an appropriate
scientific journal, a summary paper that examines development and application
of aquaculture–environment interaction models.
PICES-ICES Working Group on Forecasting Climate Change Impacts on Fish
and Shellfish (WG-FCCIFS)
Terms of Reference
1.
Promote research on climate change impacts
on marine ecosystems by scientists in ICES and PICES member nations
through coordinated communication, exchange of methodology, and organization
of meetings to discuss and publish results;
2.
In collaboration with relevant expert groups
in PICES and ICES, develop frameworks and methodologies for forecasting
the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems, with particular
emphasis on the distribution, abundance and production of commercial
fish and shellfish;
3.
Review the results of designated case studies
to test methods;
4.
Explore techniques for estimating and communicating
uncertainty in forecasts;
5.
Explore strategies for research and management
under climate change scenarios, given the limitations of our forecasts;
6.
Plan for a science symposium in early 2010 to present, discuss
and publish forecasts of climate change impacts on the world’s marine
ecosystems, with particular emphasis on commercial fish and shellfish
resources;
7.
Produce publications that are relevant to
the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change;
8.
Publish report(s) summarizing work.
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