PORSEC Newsletter 2
Dear PORSEC Association Members,
I can report some good news. During my visit to UNESCO Headquarters in Paris for the 23rd General Assembly of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) this past June, I presented a talk on “Capacity Building via Remote Sensing”. It was mostly about the courses taught in Concepcion before the PORSEC 2004 meeting last December. I also told about the courses that were held in GOA 2000 and Bali 2002, even though IOC did not support them. In 2004 there was altogether $10K contributed by IOC, although $7K came from the IOCARIBE office and only about $3K directly from the capacity building fund of IOC. I also told about the very successful courses at Ensenada, Mexico, which have been offered every two years since 1998. These courses are organized by Francisco J. Ocampo Torres, email address:ocampo at cicese.mx. The IOC presentation is available for viewing on our web page porsec.nwra.com under Capacity Building.
After the presentation I had a discussion with Dr. Ehrlich Desa, who is now in charge of Capacity Building at IOC, and we agreed to start working on a cooperative agreement between IOC and the PORSEC Association. This has been our goal, since our past president, Prof. Hiro Sugimori worked for and focused on capacity building. It is also included in our statutes as one of the PORSEC Association’s main reasons to exist. Therefore, I do not expect any objections from the membership, but I would appreciate any comments from the SOC. I expect that we could have such an agreement for discussion and vote at the SOC meeting in Korea. This would give increased legitimacy to PORSEC Association and may help us in fund raising.
I also ask that all of you assist us to fulfill our goal by furthering the objective of Capacity Building through your own participation and by organizing courses that benefit developing countries. It was clear during the Assembly discussions that Capacity Building is a cross-cutting issue that benefits almost anything else that IOC undertakes. The focus is now very much on global and coastal observing systems (GOOS, Coastal GOOS, JCOMM, all of which need educated local participants and users. Remote Sensing, which is our domain, is readily accessible, if the local operators have been trained and educated in using such data and the internet. Having a personal computer may be all that is required.
Via these PORSEC Newsletters, I hope we can distribute invitations to such workshops and courses and continue to aid PORSEC in obtaining funds for scholarships and visiting scientists support. It was often mentioned by the African Delegates to the IOC that their countries are left out. The PORSEC Association has not done well — yet — in including African members in PORSEC, but with all of us working on that, we may bring that long coastline around Africa into the global observing system and African scientists into the PORSEC family.
All of the Executive Officers of PORSEC are willing to assist our PORSEC members in proposal writing and organizing of workshops or courses for Capacity Building via Remote Sensing.
The Executive Board consists of:
Vice President: Anthony Liu
Treasurer: W. Timothy Liu
Executive Secretary: Gad Levy
Committee Members:
Publications: Robert A. brown
Awards: Mal Heron
Elections: Jose Stuardo Barria
Local Organizing Committee for PORSEC 2006, Busan, Korea is lead by:
Dr Yeong-Sup Kim and Dr. Young- Cheul Suh (both of Pukyung National University (details about this meeting will be posted on the PORSEC web page in the near future).
Dr. Hong-Joo Yoon is the person behind the invitation to Korea for PORSEC 2006.
E-mail Address(es):
yoonhj@pknu.ac.kr
kimys@metr.re.kr
assuh@kma.go.kr
Past President: Yasuhiro Sugimori
Past Vice Presidents include : Min-Xia He, Z S. Liu, James Gower
(The past president and vice presidents remain active for at least the period until the next election cycle. We need to make these aspects clearer for the next round of elections.)
For PORSEC 2006 a training cruise following immediately after the meeting, to take place onboard a Russian ship (Nov. 10-14, 2006) is under discussion. It is proposed by Leonid Mitnik, a long-time PORSEC member. Funding for such an undertaking is a main obstacle, which we are currently trying to remove. Look for more information about this course in a coming Newsletter.
Best regards,
Kristina Katsaros,
President of the PORSEC Association