The 2nd Regional Scientific and Technical Committee Meeting at Kampot Province in Cambodia

GEF-UNEP/SEAFDEC Fisheries Refugia Project

Fisheries Administration of Cambodia (FiA) hosted the 2nd Meeting of the Regional Scientific and Technical Committee Meeting (RSTC2) at Thansur Sokha Hotel, Kampot Province Cambodia on 21st – 23rd May 2019. This biannual meeting is one of the regional activities under the SEAFDEC/UNEP/GEF Project on Establishment and Operation of a Regional System of Fisheries Refugia in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand with aims to overseeing the scientific and technical elements of the project; ensuring effective implementation of activities undertaken during project execution, and providing sound scientific and technical advice to the Project Steering Committee. The meeting invited all national scientific and technical focal points and regional experts from various institutions such as the IOC/Westpac-SEAGOOS project, Research, and Development Division of the Training Department, Chulalongkorn University, as well as our partners from the SEAFDEC Sweden project and SEAFDEC/JTF projects. The highlights of the discussion are the updated national activities on the establishment of a Regional System of Fisheries Refugia by 4 Member States namely Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand during the past years till 1st Quarter of 2019. It is also noted that Viet Nam and Indonesia will start the project implementation from the third quarter of 2019 after signing the Letter of Agreement and revision of the national project activities and work plans for 2019-2020. There are several issues on the Data and Information needs to support the activities were addressed as follows:

1) on the Management of transboundary species based on the selected priority species in each fisheries refugia particularly short mackerel and frigate tunas, it is agreed that future works of the Transboundary species to support the establishment of fisheries refugia in transboundary areas and possibility for the development of Action Plan at Sub-regional Gulf of Thailand for short mackerel will be conducted in cooperation with SEAFDEC-Sweden Partner;

2) developing best responsible fishing practices in response to threats to the marine resources and habitats where the SEAFDEC Project Coordinating Unit will work with the Training Department of SEAFDEC to support member states within this year;

3) Introduction of the Ocean modeling developed by the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources under the framework of IOC/Westpac-SEAGOOS project and the future activities on Geographic Information System mappings to support the establishment of a Regional System of Fisheries Refugia; and

4) enhancing the information and education program as well as the awareness-building/campaign to promote the concept of fisheries refugia via different ways and means. During the meeting, a technical visit to the sites was conducted to the Fisheries Refugia site of blue swimming crab and important marine habitats in Kep province namely Marine Conservation Cambodia at Koh Ach Ses, as well as crab market in the city of Kep Province, and sight-seeing to the vicinity of Kampot and Kep Province. For more information please refers to the full report on the website: https://fisheries-refugia.org/refugia-events

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