Important new information on the catches of sardine in the CECAF area, which became available after the first session of the Ad hoc Working Group on Sardine held in Casablanca, 13-17 December 1977, invalidated some of the main conclusions of that session. It was therefore decided that a second meeting of the Group should be held before the next session of the CECAF Working Party on Resource Evaluation, to be held in Dakar, 23-27 April 1979.
The Group met under the chairmanship of Dr H. Belvèze, at the Institut scientifique des pêches maritimes in Casablanca, Morocco, from 10 to 23 March 1979. Mr L. K. Boerema, FAO, was appointed rapporteur. The participants were welcomed by Mr M. Azzou, Director of the Institute, who expressed his pleasure at the enlarged attendance, which facilitated the international cooperation in the evaluation of the resources.
Mr A. El Belghiti, Director-General of the Office national des pêches, emphasized in his address to the meeting the importance of the sardine resources for Morocco and the need for reliable information on these resources as a basis for proper management of the fishery. He expressed his concern about the apparent recent change in the distribution of the sardine stocks and mentioned the difficult task of the Working Party to provide the answers to many questions. This required the cooperation between all countries involved in this fishery. He wished the participants success in their work.
During this March 1979 meeting, the Group had no opportunity to complete the cohort analysis and to review the calculations. It was agreed that these studies should be continued after the meeting on the basis of the discussions and guidelines developed during the meeting, and that the results should be discussed at a short additional session organized in conjunction with the 4th Meeting of the CECAF Working Party, to be held in Dakar (Senegal) in April 1979.
This supplementary meeting took place, as scheduled, in Dakar, on 20 and 21 April 1979. Mr J.-P. Troadec, FAO, was appointed rapporteur for that meeting. It was further agreed to combine the two reports in a single document.
The agenda for the two meetings is attached as Appendix 1, and the list of participants is given in Appendix 2.
Sections 2-5 of this report discuss the additional information which has become available since the first meeting of the Ad hoc Group and should be read together with the same sections of the report of the first meeting. Sections 6-8 provide a new analysis of the available information and the conclusions from these data, and thereby supersede Sections 6-8 of the report of the first meeting. Section 7.4 refers specifically to the assessments, through cohort analysis, conducted at the Dakar meeting.
