The Asia Regional Advisory Group on Aquatic Animal Health meets annually to discuss regional health issues including emerging disease threats. This report includes a review of regional disease status circa 2002, global and regional disease reporting arrangements, global issues and standards, progress in implementation of the Regional Technical Guidelines on Health management for the Responsible Movement of Live Aquatic Animals, identification and designation of regional aquatic animal health resources and regional and international cooperation.

In this issue: Hon Mun MPA Pilot Project on Community-based Natural Resources Management. An experience with participatory research in Tam Giang Lagoon, Thua Thien-Hue. Experiences and benefits of livelihoods analysis. Lessons learnt in implementing PRA in livelihoods analysis. Lessons learnt from livelihoods analysis and PRA in the Trao Reef Marine Reserve. Using the findings from a participatory poverty assessment in Tra Vinh Province. About the STREAM Journal. About STREAM. This edition is also available in Ilonggo, Khmer, Nepali and Vietnamese.

This report, the eighteenth in the series, contains information about the aquatic animal health status of fifteen states in the Asia-Pacific region. The foreword discusses changes to the list of diseases covered in the report by the Asia Regional Advisory Group on Aquatic Animal Health.

In this issue:

Outcomes of Advisory Group on Health. New FAO Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific. Chinese Regional Lead Centre provides training in Rice-Fish farming under China-ASEAN Agriculture Cooperation. Development of Second Phase of APARIS. Building the leading source of global information on aquaculture. AFS/Fish Health Section 5th Symposium on Diseases in Asian Aquaculture. Upcoming training courses.

This paper examines farming practices in marine fish cage aquaculture in southeast Asia with reference to feed and feeding. It proposes a range of reforms to improve the economic performance of the sector, including selective breeding, use of hatchery-reared fingerings, modernisation of cage systems, improved feed management and use of dry pelleted feeds, relocation of cages to better quality sites and a greater degree of government and private sector co-operation in research and development.