Mekong River Commission

 

The Fisheries Programme continues to place great emphasis on communicating information on all aspects of the Mekong's fish and fisheries. The targeted readers include technical experts, fisheries managers, and people working in other development sectors and water related resources. While printed documents still dominate the range of products, the Programme is increasingly involved in other media particularly CDs, web based information and film. Annex 3 of this report contains a full listing of the available publications and CDs.

Highlights of last year's publications include:

Fisheries Information in the Lower Mekong Basin: This CD-ROM contains a wealth of published information on the Mekong's fish and fisheries. Included are over 300 technical papers, all back issues of Catch and Culture, all past Proceedings of the Annual Technical Symposium on Mekong Fisheries, annual reports and a variety databases, maps and photographs.

Catch and Culture: This year the Fisheries Programme produced two English language editions of the newsletter and an omnibus edition in each of the four riparian languages. This version of the newsletter, which is the only MRC publication translated in full, was particularly well received by people working the fisheries sector in the MRC member countries.

An Introduction to Cambodia's Inland Fisheries: Attractively laid out and easy to read, the report provides an excellent overview of one of the world's most important fisheries. It is part of the Mekong Development Series that targets a lay audience as well fisheries professionals.

Distribution and Ecology of Some Important Riverine Fish Species of the Mekong River Basin: MRC Technical Paper No 10. This report provides detailed information on the biology, ecology and life cycle of 40 key species and describes their importance to the Mekong fisheries.

Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on the Management of Large Rivers for Fisheries. This two-volume publication contains 32 papers covering many major fisheries of the world. Produced in conjunction with the FAO, it is recognised as a world class publication by many fisheries experts. It is also available on CD-ROM.

The Fisheries Programme also continues to post articles and fisheries news on the MRC (www.mrcmekong.org) and Mekonginfo (www.mekonginfo.org) websites. Both sites are very popular with the number of hits and downloads increasing by the month.

Planned publications during the coming year include: the Proceedings of the 6th Annual Technical Symposium on Mekong Fisheries (due out in May), short films on Mekong fisheries in Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam, further reports in the Technical and Development Series, and gender in fisheries and management briefs for the TAB.