During 2020, the ASFA Secretariat supported the CECAF-PESCAO project by compiling an inventory of marine fisheries research produced in nine countries (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain). A search methodology was agreed with the CECAF project team, with support from the EAF-Nansen Programme to identify relevant marine fisheries research. Further parameters, including publication date and author affiliation, were defined in order to conduct systematic and repeatable searches. In the first stage, online searches were conducted using four sources (ASFA, Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus). The second stage involved searching local and nationally held collections (library catalogues, institutional websites or repositories) to identify further references. The results from these searches were then combined to produce an inventory of 2 411 unique references. A bibliometric analysis was then conducted on the inventory which revealed intensive publishing activity and strong collaboration across the region, however publishing in predatory journals and difficulty in locating grey literature on online sources were areas where further work is needed to ensure research produced in the area reaches a wide audience. A detailed analysis of research published by authors affiliated to Senegalese institutions was conducted which revealed a significant gender imbalance of authors (only 13 percent of authors identified in the study were female). Recommendations included in this report are to expand the inventory and analysis to other CECAF member countries and to take steps to ensure the grey literature produced by authors from the CECAF region is indexed by online sources.

This document presents the report of the 2022 ASFA Advisory Board Meeting (ABM), which took place virtually from 12 to 14?September, with a final session on the ASFA business model taking place on 23 November. Though ASFA has been in a period of transition since the need for a new business model was identified in 2018, progress has been made in recent years in the areas of technologies, with the launch of OpenASFA and migration of the Subject Vocabulary to AGROVOC, and communications, with working groups now meeting regularly and the ASFA magazine published twice yearly. Despite these improvements, doubt remains as to ASFA’s future with a need to prove the usefulness of the information network in an age of rapidly changing technologies and demands from users for information to be free and quick to access. Discussions on these topics, as well as the financial situation, were held at the 2022 ABM with decisions taken that will help ASFA adopt a new business model. These decisions include approval of a revised partnership agreement, improvements to the ASFA regional networks and working groups as well as support for training, communications and promotional materials that will help ASFA to launch a recruitment drive in 2023 and to re-engage with currently inactive partners.

This document provides a review, commentary and tabulations of the main trends that have occurred in exploitation of fisheries resources since the 1970s, largely as they are reflected in the FAO database on fishery landings, supplemented with selected information from the fishery literature. Reviews were prepared separately for the 15 main areas into which FAO divides the world's oceans for statistical purposes. They are then compared from a global perspective to reveal relative trends by species and areas, which are highlighted. Several special topics are reviewed, including tuna and tuna-like species, whales and dolphins, and environmental issues in fisheries.