FAO

Fifteen countries and territories are meeting in Noumea this week [8 June] to discuss how climate change will affect Pacific fisheries and how they can ensure fishing and aquaculture will continue contributing to their food security, livelihoods and community development. The meeting was organised by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) today welcomed Saudi Arabia's contribution of $66 million to implement its technical assistance projects in the country, which aim to benefit small-scale agricultural producers and fishermen.

to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (the Agreement) and draft TORs for an appropriate funding mechanism referred to in Article 21 of the Agreement to assist developing States implement the Agreement. Meeting location: FAO - Philippines Meeting Room (C277/281) Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00153 Rome Italy Report Note english | français | español Agenda and timetable Explanatory Memorandum on the establishment of the ad hoc Working Group under Part 6 of the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures Ad hoc Working Group under Part 6 of the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures Assistance Fund under Part 6 of the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures Information for Delegates to Meetings at FAO Headquarters

On the path to Rio+20, FAO calls for a future with both healthier people and healthier ecosystems. Sustainable development cannot be realized unless hunger and malnutrition are eradicated, FAO said in a policy document prepared for the Rio+20 Summit to be held in June in Rio de Janeiro. 'We cannot call development sustainable while this situation persists, while nearly one out of every seven men, women and children are left behind, victims of undernourishment,' said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

The overall purpose of the Workshop is to contribute to a first preliminary draft of the SSF Guidelines and to provide recommendations for possible considerations and actions needed to promote and support the implementation of the SSF Guidelines. Furthermore, the workshop offers advice to the FAO Secretariat with regard to the road map and next steps in the SSF Guidelines development process and what additional actions may be required to ensure that a negotiated document can be presented to COFI in 2014 for approval. Report Concept Note | Meeting documents

The present document compiles the scientific information collected by the experts for the Joint FAO/IOC/WHO ad hoc Expert Consultation on biotoxins in bivalve molluscs held in Oslo, Norway, 26–30 September 2004 to answer the request of scientific advice expressed by the Codex Committee for Fish and Fishery Products (CCFFP). In order to satisfy the many requests received by FAO to disseminate the information collected over these years since 2004, the data and information available were edited and updated in 2009. The document is organized in three main parts that present scientific and technical information necessary for risk assessment, monitoring and surveillance programmes and, in addition, illustrate how the CCFFP used international expertise to advance and finalize international standards for bivalve molluscs.

Historic international agreement on how tenure and access rights to natural resources key to food production should be handled. In a landmark decision the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) today endorsed a set of far-reaching global guidelines aimed at helping governments safeguard the rights of people to own or access land, forests and fisheries. The new Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security outline principles and practices that governments can refer to when making laws and administering land, fisheries and forests rights.

Meeting location: FAO - Mexico Meeting Room (D211) Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00100 Rome Italy Information for Delegates to Meetings at FAO Headquarters Report Meeting documents Webpage

Risk analysis is complex subject that is best learned by actual experience. This manual will assist national competent authorities and others involved in the assessment and management of risks associated with the international or domestic moment of live aquatic animals in training professional staff and raising awareness and understanding among other stakeholders of the principles and methodology of risk analysis. Using the training course manual and the recommended supplementary materials, responsible managers will be able to train staff in the planning and supervision of risk analyses. The training course will also assist specialists in the fields of disease, genetics or ecology of aquatic animals to successfully conduct risk analyses in a manner that incorporates best scientific knowledge, is transparent and includes adequate stakeholder consultation. Using a structured step-wise process, the training course guides trainees through the risk analysis process as applied in the analysis of ecological, genetic and pathogen risks. Through the use of a series of lectures (provided on an accompanying CD in the form of 11 PowerPoint presentations), and using case studies and a series of five linked working group exercises that should be adapted by trainers to reflect local situations and priorities, the course provides an in-depth look at risk analysis as currently applied for evaluation of risks due to pathogens (import risk analysis). Trainees are guided from the initial process of establishing a commodity description and scoping a risk analysis through to conducting the four risk analysis components of hazard identification, risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. They are also encouraged to evaluate their national experiences with introductions and transfers of live aquatic animals, and to assess their current capacity, and any policy, legislative or technical improvements needed to effectively implement risk analysis for the safe movements of live aquatic animals.

Marine fisheries are very important to the economy and well-being of coastal communities, providing food security, job opportunities, income and livelihoods as well as traditional cultural identity. Maintaining the long-term prosperity and sustainability of marine fisheries is not only of political and social significance but also of economic and ecological importance. FAO has just published the Review of the state of world marine fishery resources, a comprehensive, objective and global review of the state of the living marine resources of the oceans. It is based mainly on official catch statistics up until 2009 and relevant stock assessment and other complementary information available until 2010. The document summarizes the information available for each FAO Statistical Area; discusses the major trends and changes that have occurred with the main fishery resources exploited in each area; and reviews the stock assessment work undertaken in support of fisheries management in each region. The total production of marine fishery resources has declined gradually after reaching a peak in landings in 1996. The world’s fisheries and aquaculture sectors have gone through a dramatic development in the last 60 years with large increases in production: total world fish production was only 19.3 million tonnes in 1950 and by 2009 reached 163 million tonnes.

The fishery statistics reported to FAO by countries and maintained in the FishStat database are analysed for trends in quantity and composition of catches from 1950 to 2009. Catches have been increasing at a steady rate throughout the period. Fish from inland water capture fisheries are an important source of animal protein, especially in landlocked countries and for populations riparian to lakes and rivers. Finfish contribute about 90 percent of the catch together with some crustaceans and molluscs. The accuracy of reporting of catches by taxonomic group has improved with time and more groups are being reported in 2009 than in 1950. At the same time, the percentage of catches assigned to the generic “freshwater fishes NEI” category has declined. Trends in catches and taxonomic groups are analysed for subcontinental regions under a more general continental heading. The regions are divided mainly by geography, although in some cases economic and political considerations are used. Catches in the various regions of Africa, Asia and South and Central America have risen steadily over the period of the review, although there are local exceptions to the general trend. There is clear evidence that such increases are real in some individual fisheries, but generally the increases are attributed to improvements in reporting, whereby catches that were already there but previously ignored are now being incorporated into the reports. Catches in North America, and most of Europe, have declined in the same period, which is attributed to shifts in economic conditions that make fishing not longer financially viable, and a greater public demand for recreational fishing. Catches from eastern Europe and the Russian Federation declined from a maximum in the 1980s, but have shown some signs of recovery in the last decade. In general, the world’s inland fisheries still appear viable although environmental pressures, such as damming, water abstraction and overexploitation, pose a potential threat to the maintenance of present levels of reproduction and recruitment, and hence, ultimately catch.

Freshwaters contribute 15 percent of the world’s reported fish catch, or about 10.1 million tonnes in 2006, most of which comes from tropical systems. The true contribution of tropical inland fisheries is likely to be higher, as less than half of the inland capture production is actually reported. While reservoir fisheries are already an essential component of this production, the potential of most of them may even exceed their current catch levels. Opportunities exist to increase productivity, provided that environmentally and socially sustainable management systems can be adopted. To realize this untapped potential, it is necessary to improve understanding of the processes influencing reservoir productivity in such a way as to involve both biological principles and stakeholder participation, as each reservoir has different properties and different research and management institutions. Seen in isolation, catch and productivity data of individual reservoirs may be difficult to interpret. The present technical paper attempts to address this issue by reviewing the knowledge accumulated in reservoirs in some very different tropical river basins: the Indus and Ganges/Brahmaputra Basin in India, the Nile River Basin in Eastern Africa and the Volta River Basin in West Africa. In particular, it focuses on many of the reservoirs of northern India and Pakistan in the Indus and Ganges systems, Lake Nasser in the Nile River and Lake Volta in the Volta River. Information collated from grey and published literature on the three basins is synthesized and standardized with reference to wider knowledge and up-to-date information on tropical reservoir fisheries. A considerable quantity of data and information were collected on many aspects of the systems of the three reservoirs, including hydrological, biophysical and limnological features, primary production, and fish and fisheries data. This information was condensed and synthesized with the aim of providing a baseline against which the ecological changes that have taken place since impoundment can be described and analysed. Efforts are made to explain changes in fish catch in relation to climatic variations, ecological succession and fishing effort. The review shows that biological data and information are generally available. However, as is also common elsewhere, all three cases suffer from the general tendency to isolate and compartmentalize research into separate disciplines. Usually, there is very limited cross-disciplinary flow of information or recognition of how results of various disciplines can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the behaviour of fish populations, human communities and ecosystems and the productive activities that depend on them. This uniform tendency severely hampered the identification of relevant management actions. A more pragmatic and holistic understanding of reservoir ecosystems is needed in order to guide the choice of indicators and the development of monitoring systems that can inform management of changes in reservoir productivity and, hence, the potential catch. The next step would be to devise a hierarchy of indicators describing the different ecological and economic processes influencing fisheries catches and to organize monitoring systems around those indicators. Only by combining information across sectoral disciplines will it be possible to reach a better understanding of the processes that drive fish stocks, fisheries and reservoir productivity.

For further information and documentation click here

FAO Aquaculture Newsletter (FAN) is issued three times a year in the form of printed newsletter by the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. It presents articles and views from the FAO aquaculture programme and highlights various aspects of aquaculture as seen from the perspective of both headquarters and the field programme. Articles are contributed by FAO staff from within and outside the Department, from FAO regional offices and field projects, by FAO consultants and, occasionally, by invitation from other sources. FAN is distributed free of charge to all FAO member countries and has a current circulation of about 1 500 copies. It is also available online at: http://www.fao.org/fishery/publications/fan/

The Aquaculture Service of the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department has updated its biennual publications collection. FAO aquaculture information products 2010-2011, available on CD-ROM, contains all the aquaculture publications produced in 2010-11 in PDF format.

Meeting location: Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00153 Rome Italy Prospectus Arabic | Chinese | English | Español | Français | Russian Chairperson’s report Resumed sesion (5-9 March 2012) Chairperson’s draft text Text as at 9 March 2012 Chairperson’s report First session (2-6 May 2011) Chairperson’s draft text Text as at 9 May 2011 Meeting documents Documents contributed by Members Documents can be provided electronically to the Secretary ( david.doulman@fao.org ) at any time. In keeping with FAO practice they will be posted in the original language. Under exceptional circumstances, and depending on the availability of extrabudgetary funds, efforts will be made to translate documents. Registration/ Inscription / Inscripción Registration Form for International Organizations / Formulaire d’inscription pour Organisations Internationales / Formulario de inscripción para Organizaciones Internacionales Visas Information for Delegates to Meetings at FAO Headquarters

ONLINE Registration (Hotel-Meeting) and Meeting documents: GFCM 36 | CoC 6 | CAF 3 | Task Force

Los tres estudios técnicos presentados y discutidos en el Taller de expertos sobre las consecuencias del cambio climático para la pesca y la acuicultura (Roma, 7-9 de abril de 2008) exponen una visión de conjunto del estado actual de los conocimientos científicos sobre las consecuencias del cambio climático en la pesca y la acuicultura. La Introducción de documento técnico presenta un resumen de los resultados del taller y las conclusiones sobre los efectos del cambio climático en los ecosistemas acuáticos y en los medios de vida relacionados con la pesca y la acuicultura. . El primer estudio examina las repercusiones físicas y ecológicas del cambio climático en las pesquerías de captura marina y continental y en la acuicultura. El estudio comienza con una revisión de los efectos físicos del cambio climático en los sistemas marinos y de aguas dulces para luego relacionar estos cambios con los efectos observados en los procesos de producción pesquera. Partiendo de estudios de casos realizados en diferentes regiones y ecosistemas, se bosquejan diversas hipótesis referidas a las consecuencias del cambio climático para la producción pesquera y los ecosistemas. El segundo estudio se ocupa de los efectos del cambio climático en las pesquerías y comunidades pesqueras analizando la exposición, susceptibilidad y vulnerabilidad de las pesquerías y proponiendo algunos ejemplos de mecanismos de adaptación actuales a que se ha recurrido en el sector. Se examina la contribución de las actividades pesqueras a las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y se sugieren ejemplos de estrategias de mitigación. También se investiga el papel de la política pública y de las instituciones en la promoción de las medidas de adaptación al cambio climático y de mitigación de sus efectos. Por último, el tercer estudio se ocupa de los efectos del cambio climático en la acuicultura. El estudio entrega una visión general de la producción de peces mediante la acuicultura y una síntesis de los trabajos hasta ahora realizados sobre los efectos del cambio climático en la acuicultura y en las pesquerías. El trabajo está enfocado en las repercusiones directas e indirectas –en términos de biodiversidad, enfermedades de los peces y producción de harina de pescado– del cambio climático en la acuicultura. Asimismo, se estudia la contribución de la acuicultura al cambio climático (emisiones y absorción de carbono) y las posibles medidas de adaptación y mitigación que se podrían aplicar.

A collection of over 1600 high-resolution aquaculture images is now available online. The FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department's Aquaculture Service published this vast library using photos that focus on global aquaculture practices from the FAO historical archive and Aquaculture Service staff. Users are invited to submit their photos.