The 80% budget cut in UNESCO regular programme funding for operational activities available for 2012-2013 will force us all to find ways to do more with less funding. The IODE Officers are leading the way in the cost-cutting exercise that also IODE needs to undergo. Rather than meeting live in Oostende, as was the custom since 2005, the Officers decided to meet fully virtually. The IODE Offcers Meeting 2012 is therefore meeting one hour/day during 4 days and using web-based multi-point video conferencing.

The services allows (practically) up to 10 participants to participate, at the same time and from different locations, in a group video conference. In addition to video conferencing the service also allows sharing of powerpoints, browser windows etc., chat windows (to all or one-to-one) making the experience as interactive as possible.

The Officers who participated were located in Miami (USA), Silver Springs (USA), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Oostende (Belgium), Athens (Greece), Sevastopol (Ukraine), Obninsk (Russia) and Sydney (Australia). In order to deal with the huge spread in time zones (16 hours difference between Miami and Sydney) it was agreed to have the meetings between 13h00 and 14h00 CET. The meeting was also recorded so participants could view it again at a later time.

Having this meeting fully virtually represents a cost saving of approx. US$ 20,000 (to UNESCO and Member States). Based upon the experience with this meeting, IODE will gradually start using this service for other small group (up to 10 participants) meetings planned in 2012-2013 to further cut costs.

It is with great sadness that we have to announce the passing away of Dr Jacob Van der Land (1935-2011). He spent many of his productive years - before and after his retirement - on the Unesco Register of Marine Species, the European Register of Marine Species, and indirectly also on WoRMS. He was curator of Worms (Vermes) and head of the dept. of Invertebrates of the former Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (RMNH), later National Museum of Natural History, which presently is known as the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis at Leiden, The Netherlands. Within the IODE community we will remember him as a member of our IODE Group of Experts on Biological and Chemical Data Management and Exchange Practices (GE-BICH) - he participated in the 2nd Session in 2004.

More information on Dr Van der Land's work is available here

We are pleased to inform you that Mr Mika Odido will be appointed as "IOC Coordinator in Africa". Mika will be based at the Secretariat of the newly created "IOC Sub-Commission for Africa and adjacent Island States" in Nairobi, Kenya. Mika was born in Kenya in 1958, is married and has 5 children. 

He started his professional career in 1981 when he joined the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI). It is there that he became involved in international work: first as the GLOSS regional coordinator for the IOCWIO region and later as the Scientific Manager and Local coordinator for the RECOSCIX-WIO project. Since the year 2000 Mika was fully employed by IOC/IODE as the ODINAFRICA project coordinator, first in Mombasa and as from 2004 in Nairobi.

On 6 August 2009 Mika moved to the IOC Project Office for IODE where he was in charge of coordination and implementation of the ODINAFRICA project (4th phase) and other IODE regional programmes (ODINs). The Project Office in Oostende will miss Mika but we all wish him a lot of success in his new position. In Nairobi Mika will continue to manage the ODINAFRICA-IV project so we will continue our friendship and collaboration.

The 2011-2012 scholars in the Nippon Foundation (NF) - Partnership for Observations of the Global Ocean (POGO) Centre of Excellence (CofE) at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) successfully completed the IODE-Ocean Teacher Academy (OTA) course "University Curriculum in Marine Data Management," on December 15, 2011. The course is provided annually by OTA in a special cooperation agreement with BIOS.  This is the third year of this activity, taught by Dr. Murray Brown.
 Shown here with their certificates are (left to right, top row) Gerry Giliant Salamena (Indonesia), Arvind Singh (India), Priscila Lange (Brazil), Anna Rumyantseva (Russia), Ousmane Diankha (Senegal), Chunli Liu (China) and (left to right, bottom row) Murray Brown (lecturer, USA), Mara Braverman (Argentina), Monika Orchowska (Poland), Elisee Toualy (Ivory Coast) and Yuna Zayasu (Japan).

The ten scholars for 2011-2012 were selected after an international competition, held every year for positions in the 10-month intensive educational program at BIOS.  Various subject-matter courses are offered, as well as at-sea experiences.  Further information is available at http://www.bios.edu/education/cofe.html.

The IOC Project Office for IODE will be closed for the Christmas holidays between Friday 23 December and Sunday 1 January (incl). We will be back at your service as from Monday 2 January 2012.

Claudia, Kristin, Lies, Adi, Mark, Mika and Peter take this occasion to wish you, your colleagues and family all the best for the new year.