Biodiversity, management and utilization of West African fishes

Abstract

Since 1997, the WorldFish Center (formerly known as ICLARM) currently headquartered in Malaysia, the CSIR-Water Research Institut (WRI) at Accra in Ghana, and the Univerity of Hamburg’s Institut und Zoologisches Museum in Germany have carried out collaborative research on the biodiversity of tilapias in Africa, with special emphasis on the Black-chinned Tilapia, Sarotherodon melanotheron. Their efforts have been fi nancially supported by the German Bundesministerium für Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklun (BMZ) through the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ). As part of this cooperation, a workshop was convened in July 2002 at WRI, Accra to present major results of their recent efforts. One session of the workshop was devoted to a meeting of the West African Fisheries Association (WAFA). The combined event was called “Biodiversity, Management and Utilization of West African Fishes” with reference to the international genetics project under whose umbrella the WAFA functioned. The present proceedings mainly contain extended abstracts of the papers delivered at the workshop, summaries of discussions, conclusions and recommendations, as well as a list of the participants. It is worth observing that the topics of most papers refl ect the range of issues that need to be integrated in order to determine, document, conserve and utilize the biological diversity of this species. The presentations and discussions also show the limitations of knowledge on the species and thus the need for sustained research.