Representatives of NOWPAP RCU and RACs participated in the 2014 PICES annual meeting held in Yeosu, Korea. The joint Study Group was established in 2013 to explore possibilities of enhancing future collaboration between NOWPAP and PICES and members of the Study Group have met in Yeosu on 15-16 October 2014. At the meeting, several potential areas of interest were discussed in detail and priorities of both organizations were assigned to each area. After scoring those priorities and considering practical possibilities of joint actions (e.g., organizing joint workshops/sessions, preparing joint reports, having capacity building workshops and training courses, etc.), five areas of collaboration were chosen as priority ones for the next five years: harmful algal blooms; marine pollution; invasive species; biodiversity conservation; and ecosystem status reporting. All four NOWPAP RACs will be involved in such collaborative activities in the coming years. Using this opportunity, NOWPAP representatives also attended several sessions which NOWPAP is interested in including the one on the sources, transport and effects of micro/macro plastics in the ocean which was co-sponsored by NOWPAP.
Recently, PICES and NOWPAP jointly published the proceedings of the workshop on economic impacts of harmful algal blooms on fisheries and aquaculture.
