6 October 2010: Held from 4-6 October 2010, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the first meeting of the Signatory States of the Memorandum of Understanding on dugongs, developed under the auspices of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), concluded that the species conservation strategy should address the need for greater protection of marine biodiversity by combining different conservation tools.

A newly developed innovative toolbox to mitigate threats to dugongs includes incentives to replace harmful gillnets with alternative fishing gear to reduce bycatch and minimize mortality rates. Governments represented at the meeting noted that different conservation tools are necessary for reducing the entanglement in fishing gear of other marine species such as whales and dolphins, turtles and coastal sharks. Pilot projects are expected to be developed, to implement the new incentive based tools. At the meeting, Bahrain, Palau, Seychelles, Vanuatu and Yemen also signed the memorandum, bringing the number of signatories to 18. [UNEP/CMS press release]