Dear Colleagues, We would like to draw your attention to the following session at the 11th International Paleolimnology Symposium, to be held 23-26 June 2009 in Guadalajara, Mexico: "Paleolimnological applications in estuarine and coastal environments". Abstracts will be accepted until May 20, but please note that early registration ends March 20. For further details on the conference, see .Best regards, Kathryn Taffs (kathryn.taffs@scu.edu.au) Krystyna Saunders (saunderk@utas.edu.au) Kaarina Weckstrom (kaarina.weckstrom@helsinki.fi) Session description: Increasing population and concentration of urban development in coastal zones has resulted in environmental degradation of estuarine environments globally. Establishing benchmarks and ranges of natural variability to improve the management of estuaries is now critical, whether the aim is for conservation, restoration or 'sustainable wise use'. Paleolimnological techniques have rapidly improved during the past decade, particularly with advances in methods that allow high-resolution quantitative assessments of environmental change. This allows pre-impact conditions, the rate, extent and direction of changes, and range of natural variability to be determined. These techniques have been applied very effectively in freshwater environments, but their use in estuaries has been more limited. There is an urgent need to share studies that have been conducted successfully in estuaries, examine the use of techniques in estuarine environments and discuss options for the modification of methods to be more applicable within estuarine environments. We invite submissions that deal with paleolimnological studies in estuarine environments, particularly those that have assisted environmental management strategies. ----- Dr Krystyna Saunders Institute of Antarctic & Southern Ocean Studies University of Tasmania Private Bag 77 Hobart TAS 7001 Australia email: saunderk@utas.edu.au