This year’s International Day of the Baltic Harbour Porpoise (IDBHP) will be celebrated on the weekend of 14 and 15 May 2016. So why does a little whale have its own special day, celebrated this year for the 14th time?

At the kind invitation of the Ministry of the Environment of Poland, the ASCOBANS Jastarnia Group held its 12th Meeting at the Hel Marine Station in Poland on 12-14 April 2016.
The Jastarnia Group, made up of experts from the environmental and fisheries sectors of their countries, as well as invited experts, civil society and the ASCOBANS Secretariat, has been established to discuss progress in the implementation of the two action plans adopted for harbour porpoises in the wider Baltic Sea region: the Recovery Plan for Baltic Harbour Porpoises and the Conservation Plan for the Harbour Porpoise Population in the Western Baltic, the Belt Sea and the Kattegat.

At the recent European Cetacean Society Annual Meeting in Madeira, Portugal, the Mandy McMath ECS Conservation Award was presented to Professor Hal Whitehead of Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The First Global Integrated Marine Assessment – also known as the First World Ocean Assessment - has been published by the United Nations. Following a recommendation of the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, that there should be a regular process for the global reporting and assessment of the state of the marine environment, the assessment has been in the making since 2010.