The Twenty-ninth Session of the Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission (APFIC) heralded a new direction for APFIC. After a lengthy review, the Commission agreed that APFIC could best serve its members by becoming a regional consultative forum that would provide a neutral platform to examine issues and develop solutions affecting the sustainable development of fisheries and aquaculture across Member Nations. It also agreed that the Session should be preceded by a major Regional Consultative Forum Meeting based on inter-sessional workshops on selected issues.

This Session was the first to consider the outcomes of that process and the outputs from the first Regional Consultative Forum Meeting held in Kuala Lumpur, 16-19 August 2006. The overall theme for the Consultative Forum Meeting was “Reforming fisheries in aquaculture in Asia-Pacific”. Input into this forum meeting were the recommendations of two APFIC Regional Workshops – one on “Low value and trash fish in the Asia-Pacific region” held in Hanoi, Viet Nam, 7-9 June 2005 and another on “Mainstreaming fisheries co-management” held in Siem Reap, Cambodia, 9-12 August 2005.

In the APFIC Session, the recommendations from the Regional Consultative Forum were presented to Commissioners for their consideration. Through this process more action-orientated decisions were adopted, which can be undertaken by Members in collaboration with partners. The Session also revealed human capacity gaps which can be addressed with assistance from regional partners and donors.

The Session also identified two new topics as a focus for the work of the Commission during the 2006/08 biennium: (i) managing fishing capacity and (ii) fish trade and standards. Both of these topics include a range of issues relating to the sustainable development of fisheries and aquaculture in the region, including illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) and certification of fish products for trade.