MESA on the international scene
Harry Breidahl

MESA members have been involved in two significant international events in July 2010. The first was the very successful IPMEN conference in Fiji. IPMEN stands for the International Pacific Marine Educators Network and MESA members have played a significant role in the formation of this developing network. IPMEN 2010 in Fiji was especially productive because we now have quite a few concrete projects on the go and because some key non-government organisations, active in the Pacific, are now involved.

Australia was well represented at IPMEN 2010 and MESA and MTAQ members will be involved in ongoing IPMEN projects. The next two IPMEN conferences are scheduled for the fjords of southern Chile (December 2012) and Japan (2014, probably in Tokyo). For details go to www.ipmen.net or the international section of this web site (both will be updated by the end of August). Full IPMEN 2010, 2008 programs and the IPMEC 2007 program are also available for viewing at www.coexploration.org/ipmen/.

Participants at IPMEC 2010 Conference

MESA has also had a long association with our USA parallel organisation called NMEA. MESA member Harry Breidahl was recently honoured by this group and travelled to the NMEA conference in Tennessee to receive the NMEA National Marine Educator Award for 2010. Harry was nominated by a USA based colleague for the work that he has been doing on the international scene since 2000 (including IPMEN) and was honoured to be the first non USA citizen to receive this prestigious award.

The trip to Tennessee was also valuable because it is always useful to meet face to face to keep the international networks active. Following NMEA 2010 in Tennessee, there are now firm plans to repeat what we are doing in the Pacific with an Atlantic based network that we will develop over the next 12 months then be formalised at the next NMEA conference in Boston in June 2011.

More details on NMEA 2010 and the Boston conference in 2011 will soon be posted on the international section of this web site.