EAF-Nansen Programme

Side event “Aboard the R/V Dr. Fridtjof Nansen: A month-long research voyage in the deep seas off South West Africa”

19/02/2015

On 19 February 2015, on the occasion of the Workshop on Linking Global and Regional Levels in the Management of Marine Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction”, a side event was jointly organized by the EAF-Nansen Project and the FAO Deep-sea Programme. The event was to present aspects of the survey carried out on the seamounts in the South East Atlantic Fisheries Organization (SEAFO) area by the R/V Dr. Fridtjof Nansen and share insights on capacity development for the sustainable management of fisheries and biodiversity conservation in ABNJ. The Side Event was opened and chaired by Merete Tandstad, Fishery Resources Officer at the FAO Marine and Inland Fisheries Branch. She welcomed participants and she introduced the side event, aimed, she said, to provide more insight into one of the knowledge generating and hands on capacity development activities that was recently undertaken to gain improved knowledge on Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems and key resources on selected seamounts in the Southeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission Convention Area. She said It is expected that the results of this survey will be used in the context of the work of the Scientific Committee of SEAFO in their analysis of VMEs and in their assessment work, as the basis for scientific advice to the Committee. Furthermore, an agreement has been reached with the Iziko Museum in South Africa to maintain/create the species collection from the survey. The EAF-Nansen Project Coordinator, Dr Kwame Koranteng presented then current achievements and future plans. Then Edoardo Mostarda, a Marine Biologist working for the FAO Marine and Inland Fisheries Branch provided a snapshot on the key results of the survey. The floor was opened for discussion and a number of questions were collected and addressed. Unfortunately, due to starting of the workshop session it has not been possible to listen to all the comments and questions from participants, but however we hope we provided all the requested information.