By Michel Gauthier, Member, IOA Core Group
Several members of the Core Group met in Singapore on January 19, 1996 to discuss the IOA'97 Symposium and general IOA policy.
As decided during the IOA meeting in June 95 IOA will participate in Oceanology International OI'97. It will be the first time OI is held outside the United Kingdom and the IOA Core group agreed it would benefit IOA to participate on an equal status basis with COSU'97 and OI'97. The conferences will be held at the World Trade Center which is located close to the harbor. OI'97 exhibition will be held in parallel with the conferences. Several oceanographic vessels are expected to be in port during the exhibition.
IOA members will receive a conference announcement directly from Spearhead, the organizing company. More information can be obtained through email: oiasia @ spearhead.co.uk and on the World Wide Web. at: http://www.acro.ns ca/spearhead/. More details will be published in coming issues of the IOA Newsletter.
Several items on IOA policy and IOA stragety were also discussed during the meeting. The Core group emphasized the dual aspect of DOW as it is not only a potential resource for DOWA but also plays an important role in the natural processes which drive the fluxes of energy and matter of the planet's ecosystem. The Core group agreed that it is of the responsibility of IOA to foster initiatives that could help provide better knowledge of these processes and then anticipate all the consequences of intensive DOWA development. The consequences will include perturbations of natural processes and possibly a threat to the environment.
The Core group also recognized the need to increase IOA core group members in number and also in profile diversity.