This is the ninth volume of ten in the The Natural History of the Crustacea Series. The chapters in this volume synthesize the diverse topics in fisheries and aquaculture. In the first part of the book, chapters explore worldwide crustacean fisheries. This section comes to a conclusion with two chapters on harvested crustaceans that are usually not within the focus of the mainstream fisheries research, possibly because they are caught by local fishing communities in small-scale operations and sold locally as subsistence activity. In the second part of the book, the authors explore the variety of cultured crustacean species, like shrimps, prawns, lobsters, and crabs. Chapters in the third part of the volume focus on important challenges and opportunities, including diseases and parasitism, the use of crustacean as bioindicators, and their role in biotechnology.

This document contains the Report and papers presented at the Regional Workshop on Networking for Improved Access to Fisheries and Aquaculture Information in Africa, which was held in Grahamstown, South Africa, from 3 to 7 November 2003. Eighteen participants from Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Seychelles and South Africa attended the Workshop and presented papers. Fisheries library networking activities were reviewed as a basis for planning future collaboration to improve access to fisheries information and to promote information resources sharing. The summary of priority issues includes improved dissemination of African fisheries publications, full-text online fisheries journals, open source software, network focal points, the use of standard methodologies to enhance information exchange and technology for document delivery. The long-term goal of the network is to strengthen the information capacity at national fisheries institutions in Africa.--Publisher's description.

Major topics discussed were: present situation of fishery statistical data collection in the CECAF region with a case study; fisheries data and their transformation into information for basic fisheries management; review of the present state of exploitation of stocks and management requirements; and future scientific work in the region.

By the Professor of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA.