Association Affairs

Activities

2007 Congress Planning Meetings

Because we were unable to convene a PSA Intercongress in 2005, we have decided to hold an Extraordinary Executive Board Meeting, in conjunction with the Science Council of Asia (SCA) Annual Conference in Hanoi on 11-13 May. The purpose of the PSA meeting will be to: (1) discuss and plan for the upcoming 21st PSA Congress to be held in Okinawa, Japan in June 2007; (2) seek the Board's input on a revised Strategic Plan for PSA; and (3) provide an update on PSA activities since the Bangkok Congress. Pursuant to the meeting in Hanoi, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, PSA President, and Nancy D. Lewis, PSA Secretary General, will be attending a planning meeting in Tokyo on February 25.

In early January 2005, Nancy Lewis, PSA Secretary General, Burke Burnett, PSA Executive Secretary, and Lu Eldredge, past PSA Executive Secretary met with Dr. Makoto Tsuchiya from University of the Ryukyus to discuss plans for the upcoming 2007 Pacific Science Congress to be held in Okinawa. The first circulars announcing the Congress will be sent in the first quarter of 2005. The PSA Secretariat is currently soliciting input from PSA Task Forces and committees on session themes and speakers.

PSA Website Update

The Pacific Science Association has continued to revise and improve the PSA website (www .pacificscience.org), with the goal of becoming primary information portal for information concerning science, technology, and sustainable development in and of the Asia and Pacific region. New features include an expanded links section which allows detailed searches by region or keyword. Each link contains short summaries of external sites of interest to researchers and other stakeholders. The PSA site also now includes a calendar of upcoming meetings in or concerning science in the Asia-Pacific region. We continue to add many past PSA publications previously available only in hardcopy, which are available as free Adobe PDF downloads. And finally, we soon expect to have a secure server system for individual membership sign-up.

We hope the new PSA website is useful for researchers involved in science of the Pacific, and welcome your comments, suggestions, and submissions for links and/or meetings. Please email them to Burke Burnett at burnett@bishopmuseum.org.

Living Archipelagos

The Living Archipelagos Program is launching a new website (www.livingarchipelagos.org). The site will include detailed profiles on specific sites identified in two workshops held in Honolulu and Apia, Samoa in 2004.

The Living Archipelago Program is organized by the Bishop Museum, Pacific Science Association, and Indo-Pacific Conservation Alliance (IPCA) in cooperation with the Marine Programs Division of Conservation International (CI), the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), and the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). The Living Archipelago Program is a new initiative to identify a small number of islands and coral reef ecosystems warranting some level of action and to move quickly forward to secure their future. The geographic areas covered by this program are the islands/atolls of Micronesia, Polynesia, and Fiji, collectively one of CI's Hotspots.

Publications

The first five chapters of the PABITRA manual, "Biodiversity Assessment in Tropical Island Ecosystems", part of their Interactive Ecology and Management Initiative, has been published and is available for download on their website (www.botany.hawaii.edu/pabitra). The remaining chapters 6-12 are still in review, but should also become available soon. PABITRA is a collaborative program involving a network of over 70 conservation scientists and professionals for investigating the function of biodiversity and the health of ecosystems in the tropical Pacific Islands. It is constituted as part of the Pacific Science Association's Division for Ecosystem Conservation in the PSA Task Force on Biodiversity. Currently, there are over 70 conservation professionals on the mailing list. PABITRA contributes to DIVERSITAS, the global program of biodiversity science, coordinated by IUBS (International Union of Biological Sciences) and the regional network of DIVERSITAS in Western Pacific and Asia, which is coordinated by the Center for Ecological Research at Kyoto University.

South Asian Tsunami Tragedy

The Pacific Science Association extends our sincere and deepest condolences to all those in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere who suffered...