The two Research Program Directors and the leader of the Fisheries Co-management project were asked to provide brief summaries of the contributions and impact of their respective research programs. The Director of the Information Division also supplied information on science process assessments (publications and citation analyses) which ICLARM has conducted. Following are extracts of their submissions.
The Panel had no time to make an independent appraisal and input but notes that ICLARM plans to conduct some detailed impact assessment work over the next two years. ICLARM pointed out that much of its natural resource management research is not amenable to the standard research impact assessment methods of agricultural research and that new ground must be broken in the impact studies to be done.
Genetic Improvement of Farmed Tilapia (the GIFT project)
The GIFT project (ICLARM-Philippine NARS-Norway) has demonstrated that selective breeding is a rapid and cost-effective route to genetic enhancement of farmed freshwater tropical fish. After one generation of selection applied to a synthetic strain, bred from farmed and new wild-collected founder stocks, the selected fish outperformed currently farmed strains by up to 75% and grew 23% faster than the previous generation. On-farm trials showed almost 50% improved survival and 60% improved growth. Further improvements of about 10% per generation are expected. These successes stimulated the initiation of a self-sustaining Philippine National Tilapia Breeding Program and encouragement by the project's major donor, UNDP, to form an International Network on Genetics in Aquaculture (INGA). The INGA is now established with 11 NARS members and four more countries seeking to join. ICLARM is the member-coordinator. Moreover, the success in selective breeding shown by the GIFT project have increased donor and NARS interest in funding aquaculture genetic research. ACIAR, DANIDA, JICA and NORAD are now assisting NARS in applied fish breeding research. The impact of this project was submitted by ICLARM as an entry for the 1994 King Baudouin Award.
Small-Scale Aquaculture in Bangladesh
USAID, IFAD and Rockefeller Foundation funded ICLARM collaborative projects are bringing better nutrition and higher incomes to hundreds of rural families and increased adoption by many thousands more is anticipated. The project activities have caught the attention of many extension agencies, especially NGOs who are now training and involving women in aquaculture. For example, two major NGOs in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and Proshika, working with ICLARM and government scientists together, are assisting more than 30,000 fish farmers, of whom nearly 60% are women. The adoption by women of such productive and profitable small-scale farm enterprises helps the empowerment of rural women and the nutrition of their families.
Ms. Nur Banu, a housewife with four children, has shown how a rural housewife can help her family's nutrition and income through taking to aquaculture. She started culturing silver barb in her 160m2 backyard ditch, feeding the fish with rice bran and fertilizing the pond with cattle dung or chicken manure. In seven months, she was able to harvest two crops of fish amounting to a total of 41 kg (2,562 kg/ha) and generate a net benefit of Taka 1,757 (US$41), which is equivalent to 70 days earnings of her husband. The annual fish consumption of a low-income rural family of six members in Bangladesh is estimated at some 24 kg: much less than Ms. Nur Banu's production from her small ditch.
Small-Scale Integrated Agriculture-Aquaculture in Malawi
A GTZ-funded project has greatly strengthened the capacity of Malawi to pursue inland aquaculture within its own borders and to fulfill its designated lead role in inland fisheries and agriculture for the SADC subregion. The project provided or facilitated opportunities for eight M.Sc.'s and three Ph.D's. The project also more than doubled the aquaculture research facilities available in the country, including ponds, laboratories and a library at the National Aquaculture Centre - formerly just a fish seed production station. This and the 115 scientific publications from the project have contributed to a policy shift on the part of the Government of Malawi to foster small-scale integrated agriculture-aquaculture (IAA) development rather than large intensive estate farm aquaculture. Successful IAA practitioners still number in the tens rather than the hundreds, but some have doubled or tripled their farm income by adopting the results achieved by ICLARM and its collaborators. The keys to this have been farmer participatory research and an integrated resources management perspective; viewing ponds as farm ponds not just as fishponds.
Small-Scale Integrated Agriculture-Aquaculture in Ghana
A GTZ-funded ICLARM collaborative project has set a new direction in aquaculture development in Ghana, and hopefully its neighboring countries, by emphasizing natural resources management and farmer participatory research, rather than aquaculture development per se. The area in which the research activity was carried out is characterized by denuded hillsides, strong erosion, depleted soils, seasonal streams, short fallow periods (1-2 years) and a maize cassava-plantain intercropping system. Farm ponds helped to catch some of the sediment runoff and provided nutritious mud and water to adjoining fields.
This work has indicated the potential benefits from combinations of agroforestry, biointensive gardening and aquaculture of indigenous species. Although initially intended as a test-bed for trials with few farmers for a three-year project ending in 1994, has taken on a life of its own and integrated agriculture-aquaculture has spread in the area. On their own initiative, about 30 farmers recently formed a local fish farmers association, with the aim of exchanging experience, assisting new entrants, organizing fingerling distribution, and purchasing a communally owned net for fish harvests.
The process proved successful in that the approach taken was not the conventional top-down technology package dissemination. Rather, a farmer-participatory approach started decision-making, and design and implementation process of farm change in the minds of the farmers, who constructed their ponds without external inputs (aside from loaned tools).
Network of Tropical Aquaculture Scientists
The IARSP has developed, since mid-87, a global Network of Tropical Aquaculture Scientists (NTAS) that now has over 500 members in 85 countries. The NTAS is an information network. ICLARM links NTAS members, helps them to find information and, for some, helps to publish some of their first scientific contributions. NARS members have sent in positive feedback.
Tropical Fish Stock Assessment Methods
ICLARM scientists have developed several fish stock assessment methods especially targeted at use in tropical multi-species fisheries. Many of these methods have now been implemented as computer software packages with wide distribution and also used in fish stock assessment training courses. ICLARM monitors the numbers of known users of the software and citation of the methods in the scientific literature. ICLARM and FAO are shortly to jointly release the most comprehensive set of fisheries stock assessment software in the world (FiSAT) for use in developing and developed countries. A precursor element of the new package, ELEFAN, currently has over 700 users and the pre-release version of FiSAT has 150 users. Users of these packages are almost evenly divided between developing and developed world scientists.
Over the last 12 years, ICLARM's methods and various staff have been involved in the FAO/DANIDA training program in fish stock assessment which has reached over 3,000 developing country fishery scientists.
Another successful ICLARM model, ECOPATH II, describes the trophic dynamics of resource systems. It has been used to model over 60 ecosystems worldwide, including over 40 systems described in a joint ICLARM publication with the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the oldest fisheries research grouping in the world. There are now nearly 400 registered users of ECOPATH II, which is becoming a major teaching tool in several universities.
Multi-disciplinary studies of Philippine fisheries
The San Miguel Bay Project, undertaken in 1980-83, was one of the earliest examples of an integrated biological, social and economic evaluation of a developing country fishery. The value of the methodology was recognized by the Government of the Philippines which instituted a 12-Bays project in 1990 to replicate the work in the country's principal coastal fishing areas. Local university and government research agency teams were mainly used, as well as ICLARM which played a major advisory and training role and was responsible for the San Miguel Bay and Lagonoy Gulf sectors. In San Miguel Bay itself, ICLARM repeated and extended earlier work and participated as the independent technical advisors to the San Miguel Bay Management Council in drafting and agreeing a management plan for the Bay. The Bay's waters are governed by 7 municipal authorities out to the 15 Km mark and by the national government outside these waters. Many different types of fishing gears, commercial and small scale, are used. ICLARM is now studying the implementation process as an exercise in fisheries policy research under the Fisheries Co-management project. The exercise appears to be one of the few well-documented case studies of successful co-management. The success of the consultative process was surprisingly swift and appeared to result from the structured decision-analysis approach adopted during the management planning meetings.
ICLARM is now directing its attention to how to get a research multiplier effect from such results. The multi-species, multi-gear fisheries of San Miguel Bay are fairly typical in many respects to those in other parts of the developing and indeed the developed world. The lessons from ICLARM's work should also have wide application in the vital search for more effective ways of managing common property fisheries resources.
FishBase and ReefBase
Fishbase is a global database of biodiversity, fisheries and other data on 12,000 of the 25,000 known fish species. This number includes all the species used by humans, all endangered species and all introductions. It has just been released on CD-ROM and will be distributed at marginal cost worldwide funded by the EC. It is significant collaborative effort between FAO and a large number of other specialists who have contributed datasets (e.g. fish diseases, genetics) which they will maintain and update periodically. ICLARM intends to monitor the number of users and numbers of collaborating scientists and institutions as well as to canvass users' views on its utility and development. It is particularly attracting attention in global biodiversity issues.
ReefBase in a global database of information on the resources, demographics, economic uses and status of the world's coral reefs. It is in the early stages of development but has already excited attention and collaborative support, including from the World Conservation Monitoring Center which provided data support from earlier work on the global status of reefs. ReefBase will be a prime focus of a workshop at the 8th International Coral Reef Symposium in July 1996 and has already received attention from the newly emerging International Coral Reef Initiative being developed by USA, EU, France, Japan, Australia, Jamaica and the Philippines.
Coastal Resource Management
In the 1980s, ICLARM was an early leader in coastal resource management studies, focusing in South East Asia through a large earlier program. Now that the concept of integrated management across sectors and terrestrial and aquatic systems in the coastal zone is well accepted, ICLARM and partners in ASEAN and at the University of Warwick are working on decision-support technologies which can aid the analysis of issues across bio-physical, economic and social dimensions. The coastal transects project.
ICLARM's early work is often cited and is credited with being instrumental in changing thinking on coastal areas management and fisheries.
Village-based farming of giant clams, pearls and sea cucumbers
ICLARM's work in the culture of high-value reef invertebrates are already contributing to food security in the case of clams and show potential to contribute in the case of pearls and sea cucumbers. These species contribute by providing much needed income for island people, thus increasing their purchasing power for food. Increasingly, non-food uses of living aquatic organisms are proving better economic deals for the people with access to aquatic resource systems.
There are now 17 countries throughout the Indo-West Pacific farming giant clams. ICLARM's work has catalyzed these efforts. Small scale village operations, supported by simple government or private hatcheries, are enabling inland people to add another product to their limited economic opportunities, and countries to repopulate reefs where local extinctions of clams from overfishing have been common. Clams are versatile in their uses, cultural, food and economic significance.
Pearl production in parts of the Pacific have made major economic contributions to local economies. ICLARM is exploring the possibilities of introducing the pearl oyster culture technology in other parts of the Pacific. This work is still in the early stages.
Sea cucumber culture is likewise in its early stages at ICLARM. If the technology of production can be developed for the major market species, this will also add options to the support of island people. Where natural stocks still exist, communities already catch and dry these animals for export. The post harvest handling and marketing therefore are already established.
Asian Fisheries Social Science Research Network (AFSSRN)
A 1992 review of the AFSSRN concluded that "the AFSSRN has proven its worth to the member institutions. Before the establishment of the AFSSRN, there was no mechanism in the region to pull together economists and other social scientists for the purpose of promoting research and training in the social science aspects of fisheries." The mobilization of a core of fishery social scientists for this purpose has been a fundamental achievement of the AFSSRN. The AFSSRN has played a significant role for members in improving their research skills, providing opportunities to interact with and learn from other fishery social science researchers in the region and the world, provided advanced graduate degrees, and expanded the professional pool of trained social science researchers in fisheries, aquaculture and aquatic resource management. The AFSSRN members have developed a growing capacity to help address issues of fisheries policy and fishery aquatic resource management.
Citation data
ICLARM has recorded nearly 10,000 citations of its work from 1979 to the present, for senior authorship alone. Two authors accounted for more than half this number. From previous studies, the proportion of citations of ICLARM publications in the core western primary literature is probably around 10%, meaning that most use of the Center's publications are thus well-cited, especially in less-academic or more applied literature.
ICLARM also compared its publication productivity with that of other international research centers, including all the CGIAR centers. In primary literature, ICLARM's output was very favourable per scientist and especially so relative to the budget level. In other publications (conference proceedings, reports, Naga, etc.), ICLARM's output is well above that of the other Centers. (ICLARM had a greater concentration on widely distributed newsletter and other such material than other CGIAR Centers.)
