Contact:
Fisheries Information Section
Section Information halieutique
SPC/CPS
BP D5, 98848 Nouméa Cedex
95 Promenade Roger Laroque,
Anse Vata
New-Caledonia / Nouvelle-Calédonie
Tel.: +687 26.20.00
Fax: +687 26.38.18

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Produced by the Information Section, Marine Resources Division, SPC, B.P. D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia. Fax: (687) 263818; E-mail: cfpinfo@spc.int with financial assistance from France.

Editorial

Following the tradition of most Pacific Island anniversaries, you might expect the 100th issue of the SPC Fisheries Newsletter to be an excuse for oratory. SPC is a self-effacing institution and we rarely take advantage of this kind of opportunity, however, just this once, I would like to give ourselves a pat on the back.

Delving into the archives, I see that the first SPC Fisheries Newsletter was published in April 1971. In fact, SPC has been continuously involved in regional fisheries work since 1952 (the fisheries programme has its 50th anniversary this year). However, 1970 marked the start of a more intensive, project-driven level of involvement, when SPC became the host for the South Pacific Islands Fisheries Development Agency (SPIFDA). The first newsletter, in 1971, was a first attempt at an ‘information system which would permit the Territories to be kept up to date on developments in fisheries and marine biology’.

You might say that things have changed a lot since then — there are now around 50 staff working at SPC on various aspects of fisheries instead of the two we had in 1971 — but then again, you might not — the 1971 newsletter notes the arrival of a locally owned longliner with an entirely local crew in one of our member countries, intending to develop the domestic tuna fishery — an achievement which many countries are still working towards.

Dr Tim Adams,
Director, SPC Marine Resources Division (tima@spc.int)