Editor
Neil Sims
Production
Pacific Community, Fisheries Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems Division, Information Section, SPC, BP D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia.
Produced with financial assistance from the Australia, France and New Zealand.
About the Pearl Oyster Special Interest Group
Greetings, and welcome to the inaugural edition of the Pearl Oyster Information Bulletin. This newsletter is the medium, catalyst and standard-bearer for the Pearl Oyster Special Interest Group (SIG). The Group has been established with the aim of promoting co-operative research and information exchange between pearl oyster workers in the Pacific, and outside the region.
Most of us who work in the Pacific Islands have, at one time or another, felt hampered by our isolation in our respective countries and fields. Communication difficulties have been recognised as one of the principal constraints on fisheries research in the Pacific. The SPC Workshop on Pacific Inshore Fishery Resources, held in Noumea in early 1988, identified the establishment of SIGs such as this one as an appropriate means of redressing this problem. Further impetus to the formation of this particular group was given by the recent SPC Regional Technical Meeting on Fisheries, held in Noumea in August, 1989. The meeting highlighted the burgeoning interest in pearl oyster development among Pacific Island countries, and recommended the prompt formation of a pearl oyster research and development group.
The Pearl Oyster SIG is intended primarily to address your needs. Do you want to find out what spat-collector materials other folk are using? Thinking about designing a stock assessment survey? Need to know who else is culturing your species? Want a guiding hand towards the major references on pearl oyster diseases, death, and other disasters? If the answers are not in the pages of the Information Bulletin, then at least there should be the name and address of someone you could write to and find out. The Editor, or staff of the SPC Fisheries Information Project will be happy to assisting in answering questions.
As a newsletter, the bulletin should be informal and informative. It is a co-operative venture; you are encouraged to share what you are doing with all of us, and thereby become part of the wider network of pearl oyster people. Any and all contributions are welcomed. We are interested in news, reports of recent progress (or lack thereof), formal announcements, recent publications, reviews or abstracts. Contributions should be forwarded to the Editor at the address above, or to SPC. Requests for copies of papers, further details on news items, or other correspondence with specific workers should be addressed direct to the individual or institution concerned.
As an information service, we hope to include a regular listing of recent publications in each 6-monthly issue of the Pearl Oyster Information Bulletin. If you have published recently, or are aware of a recent paper that has not been listed here, please let us know. In future issues we hope to publish reviews of the most relevant literature, to help make it more accessible.
As a multi-lingual fraternity, Pacific pearl oyster workers also need to have access to translation services. There is a limited capacity for French-English and English-French translations of important pearl oyster papers through the Inshore Fisheries Research Project at SPC. There is also a need for Japanese-English translations, and we are presently trying to identify an avenue for having these done.
As you have received a copy of the inaugural issue, your name is already on the mailing list. If you have only "borrowed" this copy from someone, or if you know of someone who is involved in pearl oyster research, development, or management who would be interested in participating, then please forward name and address to the Editor, or to SPC.
Neil Sims