This is a brief of a project to develop an overarching conservation strategy for the Mekong giant catfish integrating supportive breeding with harvest and habitat management. This will involve (1) quantitative assessment of population status based on existing information, (2) quantitative assessment of the likely effectiveness of different conservation measures (3) review and improvement of captive breeding procedures; (4) promotion of appropriate adaptive policies for the further development of the strategy; and (5) definition of an overall conservation strategy.

This is the report of the Second Mekong Giant Catfish Working Group Meeting, held in Phnom Penh 12-13 November 2005, under the project Development of a conservation strategy for the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish. The purpose of the workshop was to review existing knowledge on Mekong giant catfish, identify future conservation and research priority activities, and to continue the joint planning process aimed at developing an overarching conservation strategy.

This publication contains the proceedings and major recommendations of the expert workshop which tackled three major themes: Seed quality, genetics, technology and certification; seed networking, distribution, entrepreneurship and certification; and how rural fish farmers can benefit from the seed sector. It also contains the outcomes of a desk study consisting of three regional syntheses, twenty-one country case studies and five thematic reviews (seed quality, genetics and breeding, seed networks, role of seed supply, farmer innovations and womens' involvement).

This compendium provides an overview of feed and fertiliser use for sustainable aquaculture development in developing countries. It comprises of a series of review papers from Asian and African countries, three regional reviews, a case study from Asia, a global synthesis and the report of an FAO Expert Workshop on "Use of feeds and fertilisers for sustainable aquaculture development", held in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China, on 18-21 March 2006.

This report, the 40th in the series, contains information about the aquatic animal health status of sixteen states in the Asia-Pacific region. The foreword discusses epizootic ulcerative syndrome in Asia and Africa.