ACP-EU Training

  Newsletter: ACP-EU Project News 98/03

ACP-EU Fisheries and Biodiversity Project

Dear Colleagues

It has been a long time since you heard the last time from us. Of course, it was vacation season, but there were also a number of conferences attended by some of us and lots of travelling; thus, this issue of the News Letter was a bit slow to get off the ground. But finally, here it is. Hopefully with a bit of interesting news for everyone.

Best regards

The FishBase Team

Joseph Aitsi, (Researcher, University of Papua New Guinea) together with a Filipino colleague Dr. Ricardo Federizon, who is a lecturer at the said university, are collecting fisheries data from a variety of projects undertaken by post graduate students: species composition at various landing places and a fish nursery ground, as well as reproductive biology and growth parameters of snappers and groupers. To help them with the problem of taxonomic identification they came up with quite a neat idea: they bring along a digital camera to the field and take shots of species difficult to identify and then send the picture files per e-mail to experts for identification! They also have recently embarked on a project to raise mullets (Mugil cephalus) and Lates calcalifer in tanks of their research station. They would like to receive some technical advise on this mariculture project. Anybody out there who wants to contact them (R.Federizon@upng.ac.pg)? Joseph has made FishBase, ReefBase and EcoPath known to the staff in his institute and plans to give a demonstration of FishBase on the next regional Workshop on Coastal Fisheries Development in the South Pacific Region in November/December.

Eddie Oreihaka (DOF Solomon Islands) has survived a long period of administrative overload, after a new Government has taken over. He is currently establishing a checklist of fish species of the Solomon islands using museum records from Australia and Canada ( but then, four researchers trying to manage 10 research projects still doesn’t leave him with much time for other things). He is also trying to come up with a standardized list of common fish names and uses FishBase to validate the taxonomy for a new fish poster for the Solomon Islands.

Kalo Pakoa from the Fisheries Department, Port Villa, Vanuatu, had his paper on "Vital statistics of marine fishes of Vanuatu" published in the July – September 1998 issue of Naga (Naga 21(3), p. 27-29). It is a good example of how to summarize basic biological information for a large number of fish species on subjects such as distribution, spawning and growth. Congratulations from the team, Kalo!

Ms. Nerissa Nagassar. assistant regional training coordinator for the Caribbean was joined in May 1998 by Mr. Dwight Neal, who became the principal training coordinator for the region. Dwight is a Belize citizen who has gained lots of experience with fisheries through his previous work with the Department of Fisheries and the university in Belize. We are very pleased to have him on board. Both Dwight and Nerissa worked very hard to assist us in the preparation and realization of the second regional training course, which was held in Trinidad and Tobago, from 21 May to 3 June. The course was attended by 23 participants from 14 ACP countries in the Caribbean. The course included several modules, namely: traditional concepts in fisheries management, ecosystem modeling, biodiversity and its assessment, modern communication technologies, and regional concerns with respect to species biodiversity and conservation measures. ICLARM staff who participated in the training course were Rainer Froese, Michael Vakily, Maria "Deng" Palomares, Armie Torres, Grace Pablico and John Falcon. Other resource persons included Daniel Pauly (UBC Vancouver), John Randall (formerly of the Bernice Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Jack Sobel (World Conservation Monitoring Center, Washington DC, USA). 

The regional node for southern Africa in Swakopmund, Namibia, also has a regional coordinator: Mr. Nico Willemse! To him, too, a hearty welcome. Nico is presently finalizing the list of participants for our next training course, which will take place in Swakopmund from 30 November to 11 December 1998. Countries that will be invited to send participants are: Angola, Botswana Malawi, Mauritius Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

A milestone in September was the release of FishBase 98. Achievements of this new version are: more than 54,000 fish names, Eschmeyer’s classification of higher taxa now fully incorporated, updated FAO statistics, 3,000 more pictures, 1,000 more references, improved presentation of trophic ecology data, and, of course, new graphs and more data on more species.

FishBase showed its amazing capabilities when its data were used to investigate the trend of average trophic level in the world catches over the past four decades. For many heavily fished areas the analysis clearly demonstrated a gradual shifting in target species from large predators at the top of the food pyramid to smaller species residing a lower trophic level. The findings were published in Science, and the title says it all: "Fishing down the food webs" (Pauly, D., V. Christensen, J. Dalsgaard, R. Froese and F.Torres, Jr. Science 279: 860-863. 1989). During our course in Trinidad, the participants could apply the same principal to their national catch statistics (with often the same results!).

One of the highlights this year in the European calendar of events was EXPO 98 in Lisbon, Portugal, which focussed on issues related to the ocean. As part of this exposition the European Union Fisheries Research Initiative organized three conferences around the topic of sustainable use and management of the oceans’ resources. Villy Christensen (ICLARM) and Daniel Pauly were scientific co-convenors of the second conference on "Ocean Food Webs and Economic Productivity", while Rainer Froese and Roger Pullin (ICLARM) were the co-convenors of the third conference on "Sustainable Use of Aquatic Biodiversity: Data, Tools and Cooperation". The latter was also attended by Christine Casal (ICLARM), Maria "Deng" Palomares and Michael Vakily.

Michael Vakily traveled in June to Ethiopia to negotiate the modalities of an MoU with the University of Addis Ababa for the establishment of a training node for eastern Africa. He was very well received by Dr. Masresha Fetene, the Head of the Biology Department at the university. The MoU is presently being evaluated by the university’s administration and is expected to be signed by the end of October 98. Michael continued his trip to West Africa to visit the "Centre de Recherche Océanographique de Dakar-Thiaroye" (CRODT) in Dakar, Senegal. The purpose of this visit, again, was to establish a regional node, which would serve the West African region. Thanks to the great support given to this project by Dr. Diafara Touré, Director of CRODT, details of the MoU were quickly agreed upon, approved by CRODT’s administration, and already signed by the two parties. CRODT was also quick to assign two coordinators for the project, and we, thus, can welcome amidst our ranks two new colleagues: Mr. Taib Diouf, and Mr. Birane Samb, both fisheries scientists at CRODT. Both have started preparing the first training course in 1999, which will take place in April in Dakar.

In early August, Michael was still on the move, when he attended a 5-day training course on ecosystem modeling (Ecopath) in Hirtshals, Denmark. This course was jointly organized by Villy Christensen (ICLARM) and Daniel Pauly (UBC). The course was mainly attended by colleagues from West Africa and Latin America. In September Michael paid a visit to IUCN in Bonn, Germany to discuss possible cooperation with IUCN in order to obtain regular updates to the information on international legal instruments contained in the new FishBase.

Rainer Froese traveled in June to Reading, UK, to participate in the Species 2000 Project Management Meeting. This project aims at developing a database that eventually will become a reference for the taxonomy of all animal species. FishBase plays a prominent role in this project, both as an example of how to design such a database and in terms of its coverage of the taxonomy of fish.

Translation progress: Nicolas Bailly of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle has worked for a month here at ICLARM with Deng Palomares on the translation of the FishBase 98 book into French. It is expected to have a published version available early next year.

Steering Committee

The project’s Steering Committee convened from April 3 to 5 in Trinidad and Tobago subsequent to our training course. We presented them with a review of planned and actual project achievements of the past year and discussed possible concepts for project implementation during the second part of the present project phase. The Committee recognized that the concept of fisheries management must be significantly widened to relate to the entire range of users of aquatic resources, including those who are often involved in allocation decisions. This "new governance" network can be visualized as being informed and nurtured by FishBase in terms of management information needs.

The Committee made a number of recommendations regarding project implementation, selection of candidates for the training courses, and the use of hitherto uncommitted funds for additional project activities.

As usual, we have been monitoring the constant flow of information coming in through the Internet for things that might be more specifically of interest to the readers of this Circular.

Bio-Safety: The ICGEB Biosafety Web Page (http://www.icgeb.trieste.it/biosafety/) is now available, with free access, an updated scientific bibliographic database on "Biosafety and risk assessment for the environmental release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)". The database is monthly updated and contains, to date, more than 1700 scientific articles (full reference + abstract), published on international scientific journals since 1990, selected and classified by ICGEB scientists for the main "topics of concern" for the environmental release of GMOs.

Internet based Biodiversity Resources: The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity has launched the Biodiversity Clearing-House Mechanism URL Database on Scientific and Technical Cooperation. All entries relate to biodiversity information management or scientific and technical cooperation in biodiversity. You can search the database at: http://www.biodiv.org:8080/relinks/search.htm and even enter data at: http://www.biodiv.org:8080/relinks/add.htm.

Check the "RESOLUTION ON BIODIVERSITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT" as adopted by the ACP-EU Joint Assembly on 24 September 1998 in Brussels: http://www.europarl.eu.int/dg2/acp/brux98/en/default.htm

A session of the Global Biodiversity Forum will be convened in San José, Costa Rica, on 7-9 May 1999, immediately prior to the 7th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Ramsar Convention. Themes proposed include:

1) Defining a "vision" for the Ramsar List;

2) Responding to the threat of invasive species to wetland ecosystems;

3) The private sector and wetlands;

4) Restoration of wetlands, protect or repair?

5) Global action to conserve peatlands and mires

More detailed information is available at http://ramsar.org/mtg_gbf_announce.htm).

Message from Villy Christensen Program Leader, ICLARM: A new Ecopath with Ecosim, Version 4.0 has been placed on www.ecopath.org for downloading. The new version fixes a number of bugs from previous version and should install on most PCs.

If you come across an interesting address on the Internet (or would like us to check its information content for you), just provide us with the full Internet address.

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