A comprensive data base on global fishery resources of commercial importance, organised by species, including information on nomenclature, geographical distribution, size, depth, habitat, and biology.

This publication gives an updated review of the quantity of discards in the world's marine fisheries, using information from a broad range of fisheries in all continents. A number of policy issues are discussed including a 'no discards' approach to fisheries management, the need for balance between bycatch reduction and bycatch utilisation initiatives, and concerns arising from incidental catches of marine mammals, birds and reptiles. The report also highlights the need for more robust methods of estimating discards, and the development of bycatch management plans.

This document contains the report of the Strategic Data policy workshop held in Rome from 21 to 22 September. Originally targeting the South West Indian Ocean (SWIO) Region, it expended to a global scope with the SWIO Region as an example. As a consequence, its main objective was “Developing strategies and best practices for investments in an efficient data supply chain, of global value, building on the Indian Ocean situation used as case study. Working sessions aimed to analyze different cases though projects/initiatives presentations and discussions to identify what worked and what didn’t to define general principles, identify challenges and propose strategies and best practices for cost-efficient and sustainable investments in fisheries data collection, sharing and utilization. Key principles were raised by the participants to keep tools, methodology and process in the data supply chain simple and to reuse as much as possible what already exists. Seventeen key points were identified during the discussion as common issues/common needs/general principles and were organized and developed in the Expert Document “Strategies and Best Practices”.

This is a report on the guidance given to fisheries data-managers on improving their collecting, processing, storage and reporting capabilities of information on the status and trends of their marine capture fisheries, provided by the CARICOM Fisheries Unit and the FAO. There was also proposals and discussion on expanding the data collection on national fisheries to include social and economic information.