Words by WCA Partner Pippa Lee

It was absolutely thrilling to attend the World Marine Mammal Conference in Barcelona Last November. It was such an honour to represent the WCA Secretariat and see how much respect and interest there is for WCA, its partners and their work. 2700 people from 95 countries came together for the conference. There were over 600 talks presenting research of all kinds as well as plenary sessions and halls of posters detailing research projects. It was wonderful to see so many people passionate about marine mammals and working to understand them, their environments and needs and the challenges they face and how we can mitigate those. I have never learned so much on such a wide range of topics or had so much food for thought in such a short period of time!

Many WCA partners were in attendance and many presented brilliantly on their projects.  We managed to squeeze in a meeting for partners and prospective partners and you can see the lively discussions that took place from the photos. Having just returned from the WCA World Whale Conference in Australia, it was good to see many WCA partners and presenters again in Barcelona. The message I took away was one of hope, realising there is so much research going on and understanding being gained all over the world, that we will be able to protect our oceans and the amazing mammals that live in them.