This document consists of three parts. Part I contains the proceedings of the two workshops, including lists of participants and the results of stock assessments by country and/or subregion made during the two workshops. Part II contains a combination of edited national reports.

The Panel met in response to the agreement by the 25th and 26th sessions of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) to discuss proposals regarding the Convention on International Trade in endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), The objectives of the Panel were to assess each proposal from a scientific perspective in accordance with the CITES biological listing criteria; and to consider technical aspects of the proposal in relation to biology, ecology, trade and management issues, as well as the likely effectiveness for conservation. Seven proposals were evaluated by the Panel.

This document consists of three parts. Part I contains the proceedings of the two workshops, including lists of participants and the results of stock assessments by country and/or subregion made during the two workshops. Part II contains a combination of edited national reports.

The first part of the report contains an up-to-date summary of information on the Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) resources, its fisheries and management. After a discussion of the biology, the fisheries situation, management aspects and the benefits of regional cooperation, the Management Workshop led to a number of important recommendations and proposed actions, including the intention of signing in the future an Inter-Institutional Agreement.

This document assembles three reviews of the marine shrimp and groundfish fisheries of the Brazil-Guianas shelf (northern Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and eastern Venezuela) and one on environmental aspects of the area. Each report contains a number o recommendations for fisheries management, further research and international cooperation in data collection and assessments.

This special issue focuses on the Scientific forum held at the beginning of the International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which took place in Interlaken, Switzerland, in September 2007

Celebrating the centenary of the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) Fisheries Research Laboratory at Lowestoft, UK, this peer-reviewed, edited tome discusses four interwoven themes: · The consequences and management of unregulated/unreported catches · Competition · External drivers and resource behaviour · Ecosystems and migration With contributions from fisheries scientists, policy-makers and managers from more than twenty countries, this international volume has evolved from the CEFAS symposium on International Approaches to Management of Shared Fish Stock- Problems and Future Directions. The editors, Andrew Payne, Carl O’Brien and Stuart Rogers, have succeeded in bringing together the research of over sixty participants into an essential source of reference for all those involved in, or studying, fisheries management across the globe.

Ecosystem-based fishery management (EBFM) is rapidly becoming the default approach in global fisheries management. The clarity of what EBFM means is sharpening each year and there is now a real need to evaluate progress and assess the effectiveness and impacts. By examining a suite of over 90 indicators (including socioeconomic, governance, environmental forcing, major pressures, systems ecology, and fisheries criteria) for 9 major US fishery ecosystem jurisdictions, the authors systematically track the progress the country has made towards advancing EBFM and making it an operational reality. The assessment covers a wide range of data in both time (multiple decades) and space (from the tropics to the poles, representing over 10% of the world's ocean surface area). The authors view progress towards the implementation of EBFM as synonymous with improved management of living marine resources in general, and highlight the findings from a national perspective. Although US-centric, the lessons learned are directly applicable for all parts of the global ocean. Much work remains, but significant progress has already been made to better address many of the challenges facing the sustainable management of our living marine resources. This is an essential and accessible reference for all fisheries professionals who are currently practicing, or progressing towards, ecosystem-based fisheries management. It will also be of relevance and use to researchers, teachers, managers, and graduate students in marine ecology, fisheries biology, biological oceanography, global change biology, conservation biology, and marine resource management.