Mr. V. Deepak, Senior Research Fellow, engaged in the project "Ecology of endemic turtles of India" attended the 8th Annual Symposium on the Conservation and Biology of Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles held in Orlando, Florida, USA during August 16-19, 2010. He received funding support from Turtle Survival Alliance to attend the conference. Mr. Deepak made one oral presentation and one poster presentation at the conference. His oral presentation was chosen for the best presentation award in 'Biology' category. A cash prize and certificate was awarded to him.

Mr. V. Deepak, with his award certificate, flanked by Dr. Anders G.J. Rhodin, Chair TFTSG, Co-Chair TCF, Director Chelonian Research Foundation on the left, and Dr. Peter Pitchard on the right.

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat (GBIFs) in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute (WII) of India organized the GBIF –  Asian Nodes Regional Meeting and Biodiversity Informatics Workshop in Dehradun, India from 28th – 30th June 2010. The meeting was chaired by Pando Francisco (GBIF NODES Chair). Representatives from University of Tokyo (Japan), Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (South Korea), Wildlife Institute of India (India), Asian Centre for Biodiversity (Philippines), Biodiversity Research Center (Chinese Taipei), ICIMOD (Nepal) and BioNet‐EASIANET (Mongolia) participated in the meeting. The GBIF secretariat was represented by Mr. Juan Bello and Dr. Vishwas Chavan.

The participants discussed the following:

1. Regional priorities and targets,
2. Requirements / opportunities for the implementation of the Regional Action Plan,
3. Mechanisms to improve the regional coordination, communication, collaboration, and participation,
4. Suggestions on how to streamline the structure and functioning of the Nodes Committee,
5. Recommendations on how to advance the implementation and uptake of the GBIF Work Programme within each region,
6. Regional, national, or thematic priorities for the 2011 Work Programme,
7. Regional, national, or thematic priorities for the 2012-2017 Strategic Plans.

The recommendations of the meeting will be discussed in the GBIF Governing Board Meeting in October 2010 in Seoul, Korea.

Marine ecosystem such as estuaries, coral reefs, marshes, lagoon, sandy and rocky beaches, mangrove forests and seagrass beds are all known for their high biological productivity and provide a wide range of habitat for many aquatic flora and fauna. It also provides important food resources and critically major services to human beings. Therefore, sustainability of these fragile ecosystems should be our primary concern. So far, we have largely looked the marine biodiversity as a source of commercial products instead of appreciating their ecological values which has resulted to over exploitation and several species are in the verge of extinction. Moreover, human activities such as destructive fishing, shipping, coastal developments, discharge of untreated effluent from industries have caused considerable damage and pose a severe threat to the coastal and marine biodiversity. In addition to that global warming and climate change also pose major challenges to marine biodiversity. In view of the dangers faced by various anthropogenic activities in recent past, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India is committed to protect and conserve these endangered ecosystems.

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