News from FSE
News from Olivier Vidal
Dear FriendsDespite the European cave protection declaration didn’t gather enough signatures to be presented as a law project at the EU Parliement, there has been a huge conscientization of the Euro-deputees about the protection of caves in Europe. For all the great job that has been done for the WD66, we would like to warmly congratulate Christiane Grebe and all the ECPC team, because with this project, Speleology has made a great step beyond among the European institutions. All the news about the WD66 are on :
http://www.cavedeclaration.eu/news.php
2009 will be also very active for the Cave Protection Commission of the FSE : The ECPC will held its official meeting during the Balkan Caver Camp 2009 from 24th-28th June near Antalia,Turkey. If you are interested to receive the news about it, please send an email to protection@eurospeleo.org
This year, the Commission is also developping new projects as the GIS project
(cf : http://fsue.ffspeleo.fr/forums/viewtopic.php?id=244 )
and the “European Cave Day”. More information are avaliable on :
http://www.zenas.gr/site/home/eng_detail.asp?iData=6318
The 15th International Congress of Speleology will be held from 19 to 26 July 2009 in the USA in Kerrville-Texas.
We encourage every European caver who can, to go there in order to represent European Speleology overthere.
It will be an important moment to meet with the cavers from the other continents.
All the information is available in 5 languages on : http://www.ics2009.us
In this frame, and for any other caving moments, the FSE has created a new type of T-shirts with on the back the mention “I’m a European Caver”. If you are interested we send you one, please send us an email at contact@eurospeleo.org with the size (XS to XL) and neck shape (round or V-neck). The cost is 10 euros for short sleeves and 15 euros for long sleeves (+3 euros for postage).
NEXT FSE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2009 :
As every second year, there is an ordinary FSE General Assembly Meeting (GAM) in 2009. The BCA kindly proposed to host it during next British congress “Hidden Earth” that will be held from the 25th to the 27th of September on the southern coast of England. So you can already mark on your agendas that the FSE GAM will take place there on the Saturday 26th of September at 2pm on the congress site. If you want to add any matters in the GAM agenda, please let us know at : contact@eurospeleo.org
NEW FSE WEBSITE :
Manuel Freire is working on the new FSE website in PHP language. He is looking for some cavers who know PHP and could help for this important job. If you can help us with that please let us know at : contact@eurospeleo.org
DELEGATES CORNER :
* The FSE Bureau will held its next meeting during the “4th EuroSpeleo Forum - Icnussa 2009″ in Sardinia on the Saturday 2nd of May 2009 afternoon. If, as a FSE delegate, you are interested to attend it as an observer, please send us an email at : contact@eurospeleo.org
* The FSE delegates and national federations will receive soon the validated report of last GAM in Vercors.
* Calls for the 2009 fees will be sent by our Treasurer in the coming days.
* Convocation for next GAM in September will be sent mid-May.
CONGRESSES IN EUROPE :
Several important congresses are to happen soon :
* The German congress will be held end of April in in Rauenstein (Thuringia).
More information on :
In German : http://www.hfc-hersfeld.de/vdhk/HV2009.pdf
In English : http://www.fsue.org//main4/events/TagungsprogrammVDHK.doc
* The Hyblean Centre for Speleo-Hydrogeological Researches organises the 3rd International Symposium on “Karst Evolution in the South Mediterranean Area”, which will be held in Ragusa, Italy, on 29-31 of May 2009. The goal of this symposium is to evaluate the state of art regarding karst and speleological researches carried out in the south Mediterranean areas. To know more : www.cirs-ragusa.org and the circular is on :
http://www.cirs-ragusa.org/downloads/simposio_ott_2008.pdf
* The 1st Scientific Speleological Congress in Tunisia will be held from 12 to 15 March 2009 in Bizerte.
More info on : http://fsue.ffspeleo.fr/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=469#p469
EXPLORATION :
* Brazilian caves are in danger. In the frame of the FSE-FEALC agreement, the FSE is supporting their struggle to Save the caves in Brazil.
More info to sign the petition on :
http://fsue.ffspeleo.fr/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=470#p470
* A new revolutionnary speleological information system available in 3 languages (EN, FR, ES), that has been presented during last European Congress, and called GrottoCenter has born. It can help speleological clubs and cavers to manage and share their exploration results in a safe way. All the explanation on :
http://fsue.ffspeleo.fr/forums/viewtopic.php?id=245
And the access to the English version :
http://www.grottocenter.org/index.php?lang=En
* For those who have interest in articificial caves, a new website full of nice pictures of sites under the Alps is available on :
http://souslesalpes.googlepages.com/
SOUVENIRS FROM VERCORS 2008 :
* Thank you to the European congress sessions responsibles to send us asap the reports of the round tables that have taken place in Vercors, so that we can publish them on the FSE website.
* So many souvenirs from what has been the biggest European Speleological Congress with more than 2050 participants. To remind all these rememberings, all the pictures that were sent to the Organization have been put on the following site. You will find there more than 600 pictures from a dozen of photographers including those of Serge Caillault from Spéléo Magazine, official partner of Vercors 2008 :
ftp://ftp2.ffspeleo.fr/ffspeleo/vercors2008/photos-vercors2008.zip
If you want to publish one of the photos for a non-commercial speleological use, please put the name of the photographer beside the photo. For any other use, please contact : contact.vercors2008@ffspeleo.fr
* A film on Vercors 2008 has also been directed by Arnaud Garlan and his team. It is available for watching on : ftp://ftp2.ffspeleo.fr/ffspeleo/vercors2008/vercors2008-15min01.dat (the link needs to copy-pasted manually in your browser to work)
* The bilingual proceedings of the 4th European Speleological Congress are available in CD-Rom (8 euros) and Spelunca Memoires reference book (29 euros) at Spelunca Librairy : In English : http://translate.google.fr/translate?prev=_t&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Flibrairie.ffspeleo.fr%2Fachat%2Fproduit_details.php%3Fid%3D186%26catid%3D19&sl=fr&tl=en&history_state0 In French : http://librairie.ffspeleo.fr/achat/produit_details.php?id=186&catid=19
EUROSPELEO PROJECTS FUNDINGS :
In 2008 seven projects have asked a EuroSpeleo Projects (ESP) financing.
Among which 3 European expeditions : Exploration of river caves Lao 2008, Remapping of Tabara Humpleu in Roumania and the Expedition Iran 2008;
the 4th International Cave Diving Congress and the special edition of International Journal of Speleology on Paleoclimate.
For 2009, if you know speleological projects that gather at least 5 European countries, we can help you to finance them.
All the information and the application form on :
http://fsue.ffspeleo.fr/main6/eurospeleo-projects.html
Direct link of the application form :
http://fsue.ffspeleo.fr/main6/eurospeleo-projects/eurospeleo-projects-funding-application-form-v0-5.rtf
In the frame of the FEALC-FSE agreement, it can now be included in the EuroSpeleo Projects funding the projects that includes 5 countries from Europe or Latin America (members of FSE or FEALC).
AGENDA :
In order to publish your speleological events (national or regional) on the FSE Agenda, please send us the detail including the website address at :
And if you want to insert information in the next issue of FSE’mail please send us an email to : contact@eurospelo.org
Have good speleological explorations,
For the Bureau FSE,
Olivier Vidal
Secr. General FSE
+33 - 6 81 61 16 70
Email : contact@eurospeleo.org
Forums : http://fsue.org/forums/