Quezon City, Philippines — In an effort to foster synergy and collaboration among implementers of nutrient loading and ecosystem modeling efforts in the Manila Bay watershed, a technical workshop to discuss the scope, expected outputs, challenges and way forward was held on 10 April 2014 at the PEMSEA Resource Facility with representation from various research and computer modeling projects in the Bay.
Preliminary results from existing nutrient, pollutant and ecosystem modeling efforts in Manila Bay were presented. These included:

 

 

Germany and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) raised the bar on their cooperation on biodiversity conservation when Mr. Hans-Joachim Fuchtel, German Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), visited the headquarters of the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) at the foot of Mt. Makiling in Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines.

 

 

 

 

Batangas, Philippines — In an effort to establish and operationalize the Province's integrated information management system (IIMS), a decision-support system for coastal and marine and river basin management, the Province of Batangas through the Provincial Government-Environment and Natural Resources (PG-ENRO) entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with De La Salle Lipa and PEMSEA in March 2014, coinciding with the Batangas Environment Summit (BEST) 2014. The signing of the MOA was graced by Hon. Vilma Santos-Recto, Governor of the Province of Batangas, Bro.

Seoul, RO Korea —  The Korea Maritime Institute (KMI) and PEMSEA have successfully organized the International Training Program and the 2nd Workshop on Marine Ecosystem Valuation and Spatial Management Tools in Seoul, RO Korea on September 1-6 at the Seoul National University.

Chonburi, Thailand — A training workshop on Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) for the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem (BOBLME) Project was co-organized by the BOBLME Project Office and the PEMSEA Resource Facility from October 20-24, 2014 in Chonburi, Thailand.  The training was aimed to upgrade ICM knowledge and understanding of 25 middle level and junior level personnel from BOBLME countries, namely: Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand.