As part of its on-going sea turtle conservation programme, the Anguilla National Trust (ANT) sent two Anguilla country representatives to the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) Annual General Meeting, held at the Hotel Reef Yucatán inYucatán,Mexicofrom 10 through 11 March 2012.
Janeczka Richardson, Marine and Coastal Conservation Officer at the ANT and Coordinator of the Anguilla Sea Turtle Conservation Group, along with Randall Richardson, Research Officer at the Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources, attended the two day General Meeting.
The purpose of the meeting was to feature updated information on national and regional-level sea turtle conservation and research programmes as well as to learn from shared experiences, to facilitate networking and partnerships, and to strengthen science-based conservation programmes at the national and local levels. Twenty-six countries were represented at the Meeting. Anguilla was one of the ten that had been chosen to present on the status of the island’s sea turtle foraging and nesting populations.
The General Meeting was followed by a forensics workshop, held from 12 to 17 March. The workshop involved training reef resource managers, environmental assessment specialists, forensic investigators, and litigators on conducting coastal habitat and species protection enforcement and natural resource field investigations. This hands-on training workshop sought to develop regional rapid response investigative capabilities. It also aimed to support the conducting of defensible investigations of marine natural resource impacts on coral reefs and sea turtles to determine responsible parties, mitigative strategies and to gather evidence for decision-making specially tailored to national and regional coral reef and sea turtle issues and concerns.
Anguilla’s representation at the meeting and workshop was sponsored by WIDECAST, the Government of Anguilla, and the Anguilla National Trust.
– Press Release
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper.)
