Volume 6, No. 2

Promoting Cooperation to Maintain and Enhance
Environmental Quality in the Gulf of Maine

The 2002 Mercury Conference sponsored by the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 1 (New England) will take place June 12 through 13 at the Nonantum Resort in Kennebunkport, Maine. The conference will provide the northeast states and Atlantic provinces environmental and public health agencies an update on the state-of-the-science and regulatory programs that address mercury impacts in the northeast U.S. and the Atlantic provinces. Topics will include new mercury health information, a status report on power plant controls, impacts on wildlife, new mercury sources to consider: indoor air, landfills, cultural uses and regional research in the northeast. For registration information contact Jeri Weiss at EPA (617) 918-1568 or Margaret Round at NESCAUM (617) 367-8540, ext. 212.

The Science and Local Knowledge: Making the Linkages Work in Canada's MPAs Workshop is scheduled for June 19 through 21 at the Université de Moncton in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. The objective of the workshop is to examine the challenges and issues regarding public access to information to improve the linkages between science and local knowledge in Canada's marine protected areas. For information, e-mail Marise Robichaud. http://www.umoncton.ca/chairedd/mee/english.html.

Coastal Zone Canada 2002 is scheduled for June 24 to 28 in Hamilton, Ontario. The theme of the conference is Managing Shared Waters: Towards Sustainable Transboundary Coastal Ecosystems. The main goal is to address the capacity needs of the international community to implement sustainable water resource management practices in real situations. To register go to www.pollutionprobe.org/managing.shared.waters/index.htm.

The Wetlands Health Assessment Toolbox (WHAT) team, a partnership between the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management, Massachusetts Bays Program and Salem Sound 2000, is holding a series of workshops throughout the summer. The workshops will train volunteers on salt marsh monitoring techniques focusing on vegetation, fish, aquatic macroinvertebrates, land use, water chemistry, tidal influence, and birds. For more information on the WHAT training workshops, e-mail info@salemsound.org or click or call Britta Magnuson at (978) 741-7900.

The impacts of fishing gear will be the topic for a major national symposium sponsored by the American Fisheries Society on November 12 to 14 in Tampa, Florida. The symposium is co-sponsored by the Ecological Society of America, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For more information see http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/bh2002/index.html.