CECAM Project Meeting held in Akkeshi, Japan

With the main goal of establishing more integrated approaches to achieving the CECAM project prospective final outputs and planning in detail the project activities ahead, a meeting between CECAM Philippine experts and Japanese counterparts was held in Akkeshi, Japan last July 3-10, 2011. The specific objectives of the meeting were: (1) finalizing the details of the next intensive survey; (2) improving coordination between research components; (3) revisiting the project’s plan of operation; (4) putting into action major decisions from the conference/workshop and the JCC. The meeting was attended by the following CECAM members: Prof. Nadaoka, Prof. Nakaoka, Dr. Miyajima, Dr. Umezawa, Dr. Nakamura, Dr. Tanaka, Dr. Lian, Dr. Honda, Tsukamoto-san, Prof. Fortes, Dr. McGlone, Dr. Villanoy, Dr. Campos, Dr. Uy, Dr. Blanco and Dr. Herrera. Aside from the series of meetings, facilities orientation and field excursions were also carried-out to familiarize participants of the available instruments/equipment under the project for their respective researches, and to gain insights in coastal ecosystem monitoring (seagrass beds and tidal flats) and conservation efforts abroad.

The series of meetings held at the Akkeshi Marine Station tackled specifically, integrated approaches to achieving the project goals, coordinated plans for the next September intensive survey, development and implementation of IDSS, CCMS planning and implementation, and research component-specific discussions and coordinations. Laboratory visits were made at the Atmospheric and Ocean Research Institute and Asian Natural Environmental Science Center of the University of Tokyo, Nadaoka Laboratory of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Akkeshi Marine Station of the Hokkaido University. Field excursions (river cannoeng, seagrass monitoring, forest reserve orientation, environmental office visit, and others) were conducted in Akkeshi through the facilitation of Prof. Nakaoka and Dr. Honda.

More importantly, because this project activity was held in a less formal atmosphere, trust and friendship between the participants were developed on top of their professional relationship to each other.

For a glimpse of the images during the CECAM Project Meeting in Akkeshi, Japan, see CECAM Project Meeting in Akkeshi, Japan Pictures under Database.