Information Services

ECOLEX database: ECOLEX is an information service on environmental law, operated jointly by FAO, IUCN and UNEP.
Its purpose is to build capacity worldwide by providing the most comprehensive possible global source of information on environmental law.

ECOTOX Database: The ECOTOX (ECOTOXicology) database provides single chemical toxicity information for aquatic and terrestrial life. ECOTOX is a useful tool for examining impacts of chemicals on the environment.

FIRMS: The Fishery Resources Monitoring System of FAO primarily aims to provide access to a wide range of high-quality information on the global monitoring and management of fishery marine resources.

FishBase: FishBase is a relational database with online information available for everyone on practically all fish species known to science.
   -FishBase links

FISHONLINE: FISHONLINE website can help you identify which fish are from well managed sources and/or caught using methods that minimise damage to marine wildlife and habitats.

FMSP Projects Database: The FMSP Projects Database holds information about all FMSP projects carried out during the lifetime of the programme. It holds summary data relating to the projects themselves, details of the people and organisations that contributed to the projects and also publications resulting from the projects.

GBIF: Three-quarters or more of data about biodiversity are stored in the developed world. Facilitating digitisation and global dissemination of primary biodiversity data, so that people from all countries can benefit from the use of the information, is the mission of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

iSpecies: iSpecies is a test of E. O. Wilson's idea of a web page for each species.

INCOFISH: Integrating multiple demands on Coastal Zones with emphasis on aquatic ecosystems and fisheries. INCOFISH is devoted to conduct specifically targeted strategic research suitable to contribute to the goals set by the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, such as restoring healthy fish stocks and ecosystems by 2015. It is specifically focused on developing online tools and data to develop improved coastal management and fisheries sustainability worldwide.
Incofish is an EU funded project under the EU commissions FP6 program. Project period lasts from May 2005 to May 2008.

MegaPesca FishFiles: FishFiles is a monthly email information service on EU fisheries and food issues, based on the Official Journal of the European Communities and other sources of EU information.

OBIS: The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) is the information component of the Census of Marine Life (CoML), a growing network of more than 1000 researchers in 73 nations engaged in a 10-year initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans - past, present, and future.

Onefish Fish Technology Knowledge Base: A fishery projects portal and participatory resource gateway for the fisheries and aquatic research and development sector.
   -Onefish bibliography: economic effects of climate change on fisheries

SeaLife Portal: SeaLife Portal is a prototype database on all marine aquatic species.

Useful link lists with relevance to international fisheries law

Other ICZM Projects

BCMTP: The Broadbased Coastal Management Training Program is a collaboration conceptualized and organized in 1994 among coastal active NGOs and GOs in the Philippines.

EMPAFISH: Marine Protected Areas as Tools for Fisheries Management and Conservation project is reviewing the effectiveness of different MPA regimes across Europe and also formulating integrated policy proposals and practical measures for establishing MPAs in the Atlanto-Mediterranean.

FAO Marine Protected Areas as a Tool for Fisheries Management (MPAs)
Noting the increasing effort to use marine protected areas in a fisheries management context, the 26th Session of the FAO Committee of Fisheries (2005) recommended specific actions for FAO to assist States in meeting their WSSD commitments, in particular the establishment of representative networks of MPAs by 2012, and to increase knowledge on MPAs in a fisheries management context.

PISCO: Partnership for interdiciplinary studies of coastal oceans, PISCO, is a large-scale marine research program that focuses on understanding the nearshore ecosystems . An interdisciplinary collaboration of scientists from four universities studying the of the U.S. West Coast, PISCO integrates long-term monitoring of ecological and oceanographic processes at dozens of coastal sites with experimental work in the lab and field. PISCO's findings are applied to issues of ocean conservation and management, and are shared through our public outreach and student training programs.

PROTECT: Marine Protected Areas as a Tool for Ecosystem Conservation and Fisheries Management is an interdisciplinary research project involving 17 European institutions aiming to strengthen the decision basis regarding potential use, selection, development and management of MPAs in Europe, as part of an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management.

Sea Around Us: The Sea Around Us project is studying the impact of fisheries on the world's marine ecosystems. It uses GIS-systems to map global fisheries catches from 1950 to the present, considering coral reefs, seamounts, estuaries and other critical habitats of fish, marine invertebrates, marine mammals and other components of marine biodiversity.
    -North Atlantic trends (flash player)

SSWG: The Society for Conservation Biology, Social Science Working Group is a global community of conservation scientists and practitioners. Established in 2003, the SSWG is dedicated to strengthening conservation social science and its application to conservation practice. They create forums and mechanisms for information exchange, promote dialogue and debate, and build social science capacity among conservation practitioners.

Useful mapping links

Marine Gazetteers

ADL Gazetteeer: The Alexandria Digital Library Gazetteer contains NIMA Gazetteer, set of countries and U.S. counties, set of U.S. topographic map quadrangle footprints, set of volcanoes, and set of earthquake epicenters.

Botanical Gazetteer of Central Africa: A geographical database of locality names in R.D.Congo and its vicinity.

MarBEF Geobrowser: The European Marine Gazetteer is a relational list of geographic names, coupled with information and maps of the geographic location of these features. It integrates all different geographic names used in the MarBEF data pages. Geographic names that occurr in the gazetteer can be names of sites of marine biodiversity importance (MarBEF and BIOMARE sites), geographic covers of datasets or geographic entities occurring in the ERMS2 database.

Surf Your Watershed: Surf Your Watershed is a service of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designed to help you locate, use, and share environmental information about your state and watershed.

VLIMAR Gazetteer: The VLIZ Marine Gazetter aims to improve access and clarity of the different geographic, mainly marine names such as seas, sandbanks, ridges, bays or even standard sampling stations used in marine research.

Institutions, Commissions and Organisations

CCAMLR: The Commission for the The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources is established to manage the marine living resources of the area of Antarctica.

CIESM/ICES: The Commission Internationale pour l´Exploration Scientifique de la mer Méditerranée has 23 Member States today. These support a network of several thousand marine researchers, applying the latest scientific tools to better understand, monitor and protect a fast-changing, highly impacted Mediterranean Sea.

CoML, Census of Marine Life: The Census of Marine Life (CoML) is a growing global network of researchers in more than 70 nations engaged in a ten-year initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of marine life in the world’s oceans - past, present and future.

EuroCoML, European Census of Marinel Life: EuroCoML is a Regional Implementation Committee for the global Census of Marine Life project.

FAO Fisheries Department: The Food and Agriculture Organization's major programme on fisheries aims to promote sustainable development of responsible fisheries and contribute to food security.

FFA: Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency is an organisation set up to provide expert fisheries management and development advice and services to member countries. There are 16 country members and one territory member from the western and central Pacific region. FFA was formed 26 years ago under an international convention and is based in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

GLFC: Great Lakes Fishery Commission was established in 1955 by the Canadian/U.S. Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries. The commission coordinates fisheries research, controls the invasive sea lamprey, and facilitates cooperative fishery management among the state, provincial, tribal, and federal management agencies.

GFCM: The General Fisheries Commission of the Mediterranean has the objective to promote the development, conservation and management of living marine resources, to formulate and recommend conservation measures and to encourage training cooperative projects.

HSTF: High Seas Task Force is a group of fisheries ministers and international NGOs working together to develop an action plan designed to combat illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing (IUU) on the high seas.

IBSFC: International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission ceased to function from 1 January 2006 but will still legally exist in 2006 with two Contracting Parties (Poland and Russian Federation). IBSFC has been responsible for the conservation and rational exploitation of the living resources in the Convention area over more than 30 years.

ICCAT: The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas is responsible for the conservation of tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas. The organization was established in 1969, at a Conference of Plenipotentiaries, which prepared and adopted the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.

ICES: The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea coordinates and promotes marine research in the North Atlantic.

IPHC: The International Pacific Halibut Commission's mandat to research on and management of the stocks of Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) within the convention waters of both Canada and the United States of America.

ISC: The International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the North Pacific Oceanwas formed by the United States and the Government of Japan to develop better information on stocks of tuna and tuna-like species in the North Pacific Ocean, in cooperation with relevant fisheries organizations, to enhance scientific knowledge throughout the entire migratory range of these species.

IWC: The International Whaling Commission was set up under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. The purpose of the Convention is to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.

NAFO: Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization is an intergovernmental fisheries science and management body that aims to contribute through consultation and cooperation to the optimum utilization, rational management and conservation of the fishery resources of the Convention Area.

NAMMCO: The North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission is an international body for cooperation on the conservation, management and study of marine mammals in the North Atlantic.

NASCO: The North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization was established to promote the conservation, restoration, enhancement and rational management of salmon stocks in the North Atlantic Ocean through international co-operation.

NEAFC: The North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission was formed to recommend measures to maintain the rational exploitation of fish stocks in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

NPAFC: The North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission aims to promote the conservation of anadromous stocks in the Convention Area.

PICES: North Pacific Marine Science Organization is an intergovernmental scientific organization established in 1992 to promote and coordinate marine research in the northern North Pacific and adjacent seas.

PSC: Pacific Salmon Commission is the body formed by the governments of Canada and the United States to implement the Pacific Salmon Treaty.

SPC-OFP: The Secretariat of the Pacific Community - Oceanic Fisheries Programme serves to provide member countries with the scientific information and advice necessary to rationally manage fisheries exploiting the region's resources of tuna, billfish and related species.

Tuna-org: This Web site serves as an informal framework for sharing information from tuna Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs). Tuna RFMOs are intergovernmental organizations that carry out data collection, scientific monitoring and management of tuna and tuna-like resources.

WCPFC: The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission was established by coastal and fishing states of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean to ensure, through effective management, the long-term conservation and sustainable use of highly migratory fish stocks in the WCPO.

NGOs

BirdLife: BirdLife International is a global partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources. BirdLife Partners operate in over one hundred countries and territories worldwide.

CCB: Coalition Clean Baltic is a network for cooperation and coordination between environmental NGOs active in the Baltic Sea catchment area. The main goal of CCB is to promote the protection and improvement of the Baltic Sea environment and natural resources.

CI: Conservation International's programs combine scientific knowledge with expertise in specialized fields to achieve conservation solutions.

CFFA (.pdf, 6 KB): The Consortium for Fair Fisheries Agreements is working for fundamental change in the EC’s policy towards fisheries agreements with countries in the South. Their particular concern is the sustainable use of fish resources for the benefit of fishing communities who depend on them for their livelihoods and subsistence.

Greenpeace: Greenpeace International is a non-profit organisation, with a presence in 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. Greenpeace Oceans focuses on four major threats to the world's oceans: overfishing, pirate fishing, whaling and intensive shrimp aquaculture.

ICSF: International Collective in Support of Fishworkers is an international non-government organization that works towards the establishment of equitable, gender-just,self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector.

IUCN: IUCN-The World Conservation Union, responding to the need to conserve our marine and coastal resources, formed the Global Marine Programme (GMP) that covered multiple areas such as integrated coastal and marine management, fisheries, marine protected areas, larger marine ecosystems, as well as coral reef rehabilitation, and the effects of coral bleaching and climate change.

Oceana: Oceana is a non-profit international advocacy organization dedicated to restoring and protecting the world's oceans through policy advocacy, science, law and public education.

SAR: Seas at Risk is an independent non-governmental federation of national and international environmental organisations concerned with the protection and restoration of the marine environment. Its participant organisations are primarily nationally based, although some are international groups, and it acts principally as a technical and political platform for environment group intervention at international political and legal meetings of government.

WWF: WWF's Endangered Seas Programme works in more than 40 countries at a range of decision making levels. Within a generation they aim to stop overfishing and ensure that all exploitation of fish stocks is sustainable and, establish a network of well-managed marine protected areas covering at least 10% of the world's oceans.