ACP-EU Training   Trinidad & Tobago, May/June 1998   The course was organized in cooperation with the regional partner for the Caribbean, the CARICOM Fisheries Resource Assessment and Management Program (CFRAMP). It took place in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, from May 21 to June 3, 1998. The course was attended by 22 participants from 14 ACP countries in the region. CFRAMP

Participating Countries:

ICLARM staff who participated in the training course were: Training Coordinator Dr. JM Vakily, Senior Research Scientist Dr. R Froese, Software Developer and Database Scientist Dr. MLD Palomares, Principal Science Adviser Dr D Pauly, Research Assistants Ms. A Torres and Ms. G Pablico, and FishBase Webmaster Mr. J Falcon.

Other resource persons included Dr. Jack Randall, FishBase collaborator on taxonomy and fish pictures and Dr. Jack Sobel, Director, Ecosystem Protection, Center for Marine Conservation, who specializes in the topic of Marine Protected Area.

The course included the following modules:

• assessment of national biodiversity
• traditional methods and concepts in fisheries management;
• ecosystem modeling;
• library research and scientific writing;
• Internet connectivity and communication;
• regional concerns in respect to species biodiversity
• marine protected areas: concepts and applicability in the region.

In addition to the 22 regular participants from the Caribbean, an additional 8 observers from Trinidad and Tobago attended the course. The course was a success, both in terms of technical implementation and scientific contents presented to the participants. Attention was high throughout, resulting in lively discussions and lots of new ideas to be implemented in FishBase and a number of new and interesting partnerships. The curriculum has stood its test and can be applied, with a few modifications, to the following courses.

All participants were provided with FishBase 98 as well as other relevant software (ECOPATH, FiSAT, ABee). Powerful laptops and portable printers were distributed to one institution each of the participating countries, which will ensure that the tools and methods presented during the course can be taken up and put to use in the partner countries. Within their own national context, participants identified a number of research areas with limited information available. Participants felt confident to contribute to a better knowledge of these topics in form of publications, which summarize hitherto inaccessible information.