[Coral-List] the passing of Charles Sheppard

[mark at mdspalding.co.uk]

It's so appropriate to acknowledge Charles on this list. Back in 1996, it
was on this list (or some simpler pre-cursor perhaps) I read a note from
Charles Sheppard inviting participants to join an expedition to the Chagos
Archipelago. Although I was getting into global mapping at the time, I'd
never heard of it so I ran to an Atlas. When I saw where it was I felt I had
no choice but to raise the funds and go there for my PhD fieldwork. Twenty
years later I nervously stepped into his shoes as the Chief Science Advisor
for Chagos.

Charles put the importance of this last great coral wilderness on the map,
and devoted much of his life to moving it from an unknown place of mystery
to it's current role as a hotbed of brilliant research (still on remote and
sometimes tough expeditions), fostering generations of new researchers and
cementing the great success of others. 

The human history of the Archipelago is shocking, but Charles was
instrumental in ensuring that both the British and the US military on Diego
Garcia didn't run amok, and so, even as reef health has declined everywhere,
Chagos remains remarkable. I'm sorry Charles won't see what happens next,
but I had a good chat with him a few weeks ago. Negotiations are underway
with Mauritius on the future sovereignty of the islands. Many Chagossians
and others are talking about resettlement. Whatever happens the rich
influence of Charles Sheppard will be there...as well as on the many other
aspects of coral reef science he pioneered or influenced.

RIP Charles

Mark

____________________________
Mark D Spalding, PhD
Chief Science Advisor
British Indian Ocean Territory Administration (Chagos Archipelago)
and
Honorary Research Fellow, University of Cambridge
Home office: Siena, Italy
E: mark at mdspalding.co.uk
T: +39 391 112 9373