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4 Aug 2010 14:39:57
A leading environmental scientist at the University of Bedfordshire was a keynote speaker at a prestigious international conference in Bali.
Professor James Crabbe gave a keynote lecture at the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation conference on the Indonesian island. This week-long event attracted 900 people and was opened and closed by Indonesian Government ministers.
The conference, which is normally centred on issues such as rainforests and land animals, had a greater emphasis on marine life this year.
Professor Crabbe is Dean of the Faculty of Creative Arts, Technologies and Science (CATS) at the University.
He said: “It was very exciting and it’s obvious there are similarities between the biodiversity issues for both terrestrial and marine life.”
The world expert on coral reefs managed to fit in a dive to assess the coral in the area while he was in Bali.
Professor Crabbe said: “Most of my work is carried out in the Caribbean now and it’s been a couple of years since I dived in this area. There were vibrant reefs despite so many challenges facing them like pollution and climate change.”
The environmental campaigner also gave a radio interview to the BBC about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He said: “I’m sure BP has gained a lot of knowledge in the last few months and it will be enormously useful to them in the future. We really don’t know what the full impact will be and this is why it’s so important that research continues to take place.”
Professor Crabbe is off to China later this month for a major international conference on photosynthesis in Beijing. He will be giving another keynote lecture, this time about how his research in computational biology is helping work on photosynthesis.
He is then travelling to Hong Kong to act as an ambassador for the University of Bedfordshire.
The photo is one taken by Professor Crabbe during a dive to assess the coral in the area – it shows a sunfish (Mola mola), about one and half metres long, being cleaned by moorish idols.
Latest news» 2010» August» Bali's a ball for environmental scientist
