The FishBase Blog

The 8th Indo-Pacific Fish Conference will be held in Perth, Western Australia, in 2009.

Professor Neil Loneragan, Director of the Centre for Fish and Fisheries Research, Murdoch University, Murdoch, is making basic preparations already, and you may wish to mark your calendar.

The conference will be at the Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle 25-29 May 2009, with registration on the evening of the 24th. The International Scientific Advisory Committee has already been formed, consisting of previous and past convenors and other people who have been active in the IPFC.

The IPFCs are organised every four years and attracts participants not only from the Indopacific region, but also specialists from elsewhere working with Indopacific region fishes (freshwater and marine). The most recent conferences were in Taipei (2005), Durban (2001), Noumea (1997), and Bangkok (1993).

The Annual FishBase Consortium meeting was held this year at the Royal Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium, 3-5 September.

The Consortium consists of scientific institutions dedicated to the support of FishBase, contributing staff, resources and strategic guidance for the maintenance and development of FishBase.

Consortium members discussed the past result and coming annual workplan. Among other activities for 2006-2007, the Consortium will strengthen the collaboration within the biodiversity informatics community, where FishBase is the leading Biological Information System.

The Chinese Academy of Fishery Science (CAFS) was welcomed as a new member of the FishBase Consortium, and Dr Ningsheng Yang from CAFS was elected vice-Chair of the Consortium.

The Chinese Academy of Fishery Science is a leading research institution in China, involved in research in fishery resource survey and enhancement, aquaculture, fishing, fishery product processing, fishery machinery, fishery environment protection, fishery engineering, fishery economics study, and fishery information. With its headquarters in Beijing, CAFS has 21 related institutions of various disciplines spread over different parts of china and a total of 1590 scientists, 51 research fellows and 340 associate research fellows.

CAFS have already established a mirror website, and is actively adding Chinese fish information to FishBase.

Other members of the Consortium are the WorldFish Center, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Swedish Museum of Natural History, University of British Columbia, National Museum of Natural History (Paris) , FAO, and the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences.

Links

CAFS Presentation

Royal Museum for Central Africa