This award is to support a "U.S.- Oman Workshop on Marine Sciences for Living Resources Development, Muscat, Oman, February 7-11, 2004." The workshop will bring together a group of U.S. and Omani marine scientists who have expertise and knowledge on a variety of topic areas to explore issues and for suggesting a plan of action for future research. The topics will include: benthic biology; zooplankton; coral reefs; mangroves; cetaceans; marine turtles; fish and fisheries; bioactive materials; marine biotechnology; and protected areas and species. Four working groups will address: marine invertebrates; marine vertebrates; extraction and manipulation; and conservation and education. Each participant will look at one component of the ecosystem from a different perspective. Bringing the participants all together and encouraging them to exchange ideas and approaches will help identify problem areas and lacunae in the knowledge base as well as new ways of dealing with them in this part of the Indian Ocean. The workshop results will be documented in a printed report as well as in a web site discussing suggested research approaches. It is expected that this intellectual ferment will not only benefit the Omani scientists but the US scientists, as well.
Scope: The Omani coastline is a rich field of research that has interested marine biologists scientists in the United States and other countries because of its geographic location, the warm climate and the merging of several water bodies. In addition Oman has been a much more open country for foreign scientists than many in the turbulent Middle East. Oman presently has a large part of its gross domestic product from petroleum production. Because this is a finite resource, in the future, Oman will have to depend on other sustainable income. Having a long coastline on the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea suggests that living marine resources may make a significant contribution to the country's income. However, in order to develop these resources in a sustainable rather than exploitable way, marine research in a variety of areas will need to be conducted before serious development takes place. Besides resulting in an action plan for future research on Oman's living marine resources, a number of other impacts are expected. The contacts and interaction engendered by this workshop will encourage greater collaboration between U.S. and Omani marine scientists. This will also provide US marine scientists with access to Oman's marine environment, a rich but poorly understood area. The success of this workshop will encourage the Omani government to consider hosting similar conferences on a biennial basis. These would be multilateral rather than bilateral, with participants from the neighboring countries and might focus on specific marine topics that are particularly timely or pertinent. US participation in these would benefit US marine science as well as that in the other participating scientists.
