5 July 2012 -The latest newsletter of the SAMBAH (Static Acoustic Monitoring of the Baltic Sea Harbour Porpoise) project contains some updates relevant to ASCOBANS. Several SAMBAH partners organized events for the celebration of the International Day of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise. Work towards realizing the SAMBAH add-on project in the Russian Kaliningrad region (RUMBAH), which had been recommended by ASCOBANS AC19, is progressing well.

SAMBAH is an international LIFE+ funded project involving all EU countries around the Baltic Sea, with the ultimate goal of securing the conservation of the Baltic Sea harbour porpoise. The lack of knowledge on the number of animals and their habitat preferences makes effective conservation difficult. Therefore there is an urgent need for collecting data on the size and range of the population and the fluctuation over time. SAMBAH seeks to address this. The project thus serves to fulfil recommendations made in the Jastarnia Plan (Recovery Plan for Baltic Harbour Porpoises).