[Workshop]

The fifth meeting ran from 11st and 12nd 2021 and was as a zoom on-line meeting.
Mr. Wada Tomoaki, FNCA Coordinator of Japan, opened the on-line meeting.
The meeting started by giving all countries the opportunity to present the status of the research and progress against their national project plans. Mongolia was unavailable for this meeting.

After the member-country presentations there were discussions about progress in general, dependencies on equipment, analysis and facilities in other countries. An inventory was made by each country about the type and level of support needed to complete the national plans. An agreement was reached about plans, level of support and sharing of information.

[Discussion]

A couple of discussion were held:
There was a good discussion about information sharing between countries.
The following topics were shared with the group in the form of PDF protocols, instructions and or lists:

• Sampling guidelines -
  • "Practical guide on soil sampling, treatment, and carbon isotope analysis for carbon cycle studies" was published late 2020
  • Sampling archives of climate change to be delivered Q2/Q3 of 2021 (This action is no-longer valid as countries have received either physical assistance in sapmling (Indonesia & Thailand) or advice on sampling equipment procurement (Malaysia).
  • A possible new project on Food provenance was discussed and introduced by ANSTO's Dr. Debasish Mazumder. He will await the outcome of a questionnaire (Dec 2021) and will collate a response and a proposal for a new FNCA project.

Data interpretation - This was part of the final on-line meeting of November 2021. Presenters & lead scientists demonstrated step by step the scientific method used to move from data collection to data interpretation and final conclusions. Most countries are now in the process of finalising their full reports and will indicate outstanding analyses. It is anticipated that all countries are able to fully report by the end of 2022 (with a possible on-line overview of the final reports - to be chaired by ANSTO's Dr. Krystyna Saunders, Dr. Henk Heijnis has retired since the last meeting)

[Plans]

• Possible final overview meeting of the project (late 2022)
• On-line meeting
• Plans for a follow-up project on Climate Change and Food security (using nuclear techniques) will be further developed separately and if possible submitted as a proposal to the FNCA in March 2022.