The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) organized the “Fourth Workshop on the Assessment and Management of Shrimp and Groundfish Fisheries on the Brazil-Guianas Shelf” in Cumaná, Venezuela from 2 to 13 October 2000 through the FAO/FISHCODE Project (GCP/INT/648/NOR), funded by Norway, in collaboration with the CARICOM Fisheries Resource Assessment and Management Program (CFRAMP), funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
The work was accomplished with support of the secretariat of the FAO/Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission (WECAFC). The FISHCODE project aims at improving the quality of scientific advice for fisheries management and a major involvement of all stakeholders.
This Workshop was a follow-up to similar workshops jointly organised and funded by CFRAMP and either the FAO/DANIDA Project GCP/INT/575/DEN “Training in fish stock assessment and fishery research planning” (Port of Spain, 1997, see FAO Fisheries Report No. 600 and Georgetown, 1998, see GCP/INT/575/DEN Report on Activity 46 and its two supplements) or the FISHCODE Project (Belém, 1999, see FAO Fisheries Report No. 628) and a number of earlier workshops of the “WECAFC Ad Hoc Working Group on Shrimp and Groundfish Resources in the Brazil-Guianas Shelf”, notably the one held in Port of Spain in 1996 (see FAO Fisheries Reports Nos. 418, 526 and 544 and their supplements).
This document contains four Review Papers on shrimp and groundfish resources and environmental aspects, which were in part produced prior to the Workshop, and ten Management Reports, containing short reviews of selected resources, fisheries and advice for their management based on scientific data. The Management Reports are based on technical papers prepared prior to the Workshop by a larger number of authors than the actual number of participants at the Workshop. The Workshop participants first revised those technical papers, with the assistance of several consultants and then prepared the Management Reports. The completed technical reports may be published later.
A list of participants at the Workshop is presented in Annex 1, while Annex 2 contains a full list of reports on earlier workshops and meetings and of references in the most recent reports as far as they are directly related to the area and the groundfish and shrimp species of the Brazil-Guianas shelf. Many references cited in reports of earlier workshops were updated to reflect published reports.
This document was edited by Paul Medley, Kevern Cochrane and Siebren Venema, in close cooperation with the various authors.
The documents contained in this report served as Working Papers at the “Meeting of Fisheries Managers and Ministers of the WECAFC Ad Hoc Working Group on Shrimp and Groundfish Resources in the Brazil-Guianas Shelf”, which was held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago from 26-29 March 2001 (FAO Fisheries Report No. 650).
George Hanek
Project Manager FISHCODE
GCP/INT/648/NOR
Distribution:
CFRAMP
Donor Agencies
FAO Fisheries Department
FAO Offices in the Region
FAO Regional Fisheries Officers
Participants to this Workshop and Follow-up Workshops
WECAFC Distribution List
WECAFC National Correspondents
