The practical application of livelihoods approaches is still relatively new in development work and guidance is much sought by field teams. The concept aims to build a comprehensive picture of how people within communities live, rather than approaching development planning from a sectoral perspective such as agriculture, forestry or fisheries, to assist in planning interventions that will benefit present and future generations. This document discusses the concepts of livelihoods and sustainable livelihoods analyses with these objectives in mind.

In this issue:

MPEDA-NACA sustainable shrimp village demonstration programme. Inter-calibration of white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) PCR laboratories in India. Shrimp health management training. Rotary International/NACA meeting facility up at Koh Yao Noi. Tsunami-affected farmers train in marine cage aquaculture. Marine finfish aquaculture network at the APAN meeting in Singapore. Aquatic animal health policy workshops build consensus in ASEAN nations. Aquaculture Compendium released. Developments in establishing a conservation plan for the Mekong giant catfish. ROUNDTABLE: Exploring south-south cooperation opportunities in sustainable shrimp farming in West Africa, Conakry (Guinea). Technical missions to Cambodia and Lao PDR.

This manual provides guidelines for attaining better practices in culture-based fisheries, an emerging practice in rural areas in the Asian region. It deals with the principles of culture-based fishery practices, primarily based on relatively long-term experiences in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. It deals with the gross factors that are applicable to improving fish yields and therefore revenue; and sustaining culture based fisheries as a development activity in the long-term.

A series of leaflets on better management practices for Penaeus monodon shrimp aquaculture in Vietnam. The leaflets are available in both Vietnamese and English and cover: Broodstock management for suppliers, postlarvae selection and transportation for seed traders, shrimp seed quality, pond preparation, good pond management, shrimp health management.

Our better-practice guidelines are an attempt to share lessons that are learnt from local practice or from research, with many more people within Asia-Pacific and to enable people, institutions and policy-makers to use new tools and mechanisms which support aquatic resources management in ways that benefit the livelihoods of people who are poor. This publication is also available in Bahasa Indonesia, Bengali, Hindi, Ilonggo, Khmer, Myanmar, Nepali, Oriya, Sinhala, Urdu and Vietnamese.

Self-help groups are a way to start working that helps to build up the social connections which people find useful in support of their livelihoods objectives, helping people to agree on things and to speak together, giving people a stronger voice in decision-making and in negotiating with more powerful forces. This publication is also available in Bahasa Indonesia, Bengali, Hindi, Ilonggo, Khmer, Myanmar, Nepali, Oriya, Sinhala, Urdu and Vietnamese.

The stories that fishers and farmers tell us about their lives can give us a deeper understanding of the realities of their experiences. They can help policy-makers to build an understanding of the aspirations and complex livelihood strategies of poor people and disadvantaged or marginalised groups. A consensus-building process is a way of providing a space where people can tell their stories, so that policies can be improved to better support poor people's needs.

These guidelines provide advice on producing fish seed in small-scale hatcheries. This publication is also available in Oriya.

‘Spawn’ is the name for the young fish about three days old that are available from hatcheries. Sometimes these young fish are also called hatchlings. The spawn of catla, rohu and mrigal is about 6-8 mm long. At this stage, the ‘yolk sac’ is absorbed, the mouth opened and the fins fully developed. Spawn are reared intensively, first to the ‘fry’ size and then to the ‘fingerling’ size. All the three stages are marketed and collectively called ‘seed’.

The “fast fingerling system” can produce advanced fingerlings about two months earlier than they are normally available from fish farms.  The farmer uses just one pond for continuous growing until fingerling size is reached, and fewer fish are stocked. A farmer with a small, seasonal pond can produce fingerlings in one month. These can then be sold for a high price because everyone wants fingerlings as early as possible.

The fingerling rearing pond, like the nursery pond, should be free from weeds and predators. Submerged weeds and predators are killed by mahua oilcake, which then acts as a good fertiliser. If there are no weeds, to kill predators and competitors quickly you can just add 100 kg of urea followed 24 hours later by 200 kg of fresh bleaching powder for a 1-ha area of a 1-m deep pond.

This is the proceedings of the workshop on Building capacity to combat impacts of aquatic invasive alien species and associated trans-boundary pathogens in ASEAN countries, held in Penang, Malaysia, on the 12th-16th July 2004. The workshop built on the recommendations from a 2002 workshop organised by the Global Invasive Species Program and a 2003 workshop of countries sharing the Mekong watershed, in promoting awareness, coordination mechanisms and information exchange systems and identifying management and risk mitigation measures.

In watersheds, medium irrigation projects can be useful for aquaculture even though these water bodies are many times larger than ponds, and are basically built for irrigation or water storage. However, the full potential of these water bodies is not yet realised. Net pens or cages can be used to rear fingerlings in such environments.

It is best to stock advanced fingerlings in large ponds, tanks, and in both small and large reservoirs, since they can better escape predators and competitors. Seasonal ponds, often 0.10-0.15 ha and 1.5-1.8 m deep can be used as rearing ponds for raising advanced fingerlings. Low water levels at the end of the season will make netting and harvesting easy.

Everyone wants advanced fingerlings as early after the rains as possible. They fetch a good price and make marketable fish production possible in seasonal ponds. One way to produce early season advanced fingerlings is to grow them in perennial ponds and store them at high density with minimal feeding for the coming year. Whe such "stunted" fingerlings are stocked into ponds with good feed they grow fast and can be marketed in about 6-8 months.

Common carp is a foreign fish and there are several varieties. The variety used in Western Orissa is the fully scaled carp, which suits the tropical climate. Common carp lives and feeds near the pond bottom and can be grown with the Indian major carps, catla, rohu and mrigal as a 'polyculture' (which means growing many different types of fish together). It can also be grown alone, as a 'monoculture' in rice fields with high dykes that retain water.

These are the proceedings of two Workshops on Capacity Building for Situation Analysis of Mangroves Ecosystem and Communities, held in Hanoi and Nam Dinh, 4-8 December 2006. The workshop focused on developing the knowledge and skills of the VNU team in Sustainable Livelihoods Analysis through the application of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques. The workshops were funded under the European Union Mangrove Project (2005-2008) in preparation for commencement of field-based activities and situation analysis.

In order to provide practical and effective technical guidance for shrimp hatchery management, it is necessary to establish a set of better management practices (BMPs) which underpin an effective hatchery production system. This document is not a complete manual on the management of P. monodon hatcheries but concentrates on the implementation of BMPs for the hatchery covering all of the critical stages and processes in the production cycle, which are currently believed to be causing problems in Vietnamese hatcheries. 

These guidelines provide advice on producing fish seed of the Indian major carps in hapas within ponds to improve survival.

It was common to believe that fish cannot be cultured in seasonal ponds. However, fish can be produced in any pond of any size, anywhere in Orissa, provided that the water quality is good enough. A small and shallow pond that retains water for two months can be used for raising fry. A larger and deeper pond holding water for three to four months can be used for fingerling production.