Local sponsorship from Four Seasons Resort, Thrifty Car Hire, Helicopter Seychelles, Dive Resort Seychelles, Underwater Centre Seychelles and Cousine Island made it possible for Elke to attend the Sixth WIOMSA Scientific Symposium. 
The symposium brought together experts from 26 countries who specialise in marine research and conservation. A total of 160 power point presentations were on offer and over 200 poster were on display for the 450 delegates to peruse. The organising committee did a fantastic job, with a wide range of subject being explored through the presentations and posters. There was also a wide variety of free books and DVD’s and the abundance of food made Elke wish she had packed trousers with an elastic waistband!
Food, food and more food, photo Elke TalmaThrough these discussion, participants were introduced to the various Turtle programmes in the region ranging from monitoring turtle fisheries in Madagascar, counting turtle nests in South Africa to tracking turtles with satellite tags in Seychelles.
Through these sessions, it became clear that while we all have a passion for turtles, the effort put into our respective monitoring programmes, while commendable, would do little to protect these animals if we did not work together to create a standard monitoring protocol for basic data collection to allow for regional comparisons to be made.
A quick test on basic carapace length measurement reveals large variation in methods used within the region, photo Elke Talma.