At the request of the Government of Suriname, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations organized the First Regional Conference on the Sustainability of Fisheries Resources in the Brazil-Guianas Shelf under the guidance and support of the Secretariat of the Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission (WECAFC). The Conference was held in Paramaribo, Suriname from 5-7 March 2002.
With the support of two interregional FAO/Trust Fund Projects, viz. the FAO/DANIDA project on “Training in Fish Stock Assessment and Fishery Research Planning” (GCP/INT/575/DEN) and the FAO/NORWAY “Management for Responsible Fisheries Project” (GCP/INT/648/NOR), the WECAFC Ad Hoc Working Group on Shrimp and Groundfish Fisheries in the Brazil-Guianas shelf held four stock assessment workshops (1996-2000) that focused on the status and management of major commercial species of shrimp and groundfish. The results of these workshops were published as FAO Fisheries Report No. 600 (1997), FAO Fisheries Report No. 628 (1999), and FAO Fisheries Report No. 651 (2001). A meeting of fisheries ministers and managers, held in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago from 26-29 March 2001, reviewed the outcomes and implications of the assessments and recommended that they be discussed with the fishing industry. The resulting First Regional Conference was a very important step in the process of promoting regional cooperation for the management and conservation of the shared and straddling fish stocks of the Brazil-Guianas Shelf.
The Conference was organized by FAO with the support of the Government of Suriname and the fishing industry of Suriname. This report was drafted at the Conference and edited by Bisessar Chakalall, Angel Gumy and Kevern Cochrane. The assistance of Ms Françoise Schatto with final publication preparation is gratefully acknowledged.
The Conference report is published as a contribution of the Management for Responsible Fisheries (MRF) Project, which aims at improving the quality of scientific advice for fisheries management and facilitating a major involvement of all stakeholders. MRF is a component of the FAO Fisheries Department’s FishCode Programme, the “Interregional Programme of Assistance to Developing Countries for the Implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.”
J. Eric Reynolds
Programme Coordinator,
FishCode
Fishery Policy and Planning Division
FAO Fisheries Department,
Rome
www.fao.org/fi/fishcode
