The Symposium on Cold Water Fishes of the Trans-Himalayan Region was held on the 10-13 July 2001 in Kathmandu, Nepal. It was jointly organized by the Directorate of Fisheries Development, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, His Majesty's Government of Nepal, Nepal Agriculture Research Council, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific, in co-sponsorship with the Nepal Fisheries Society, the World Conservation Union and Worldwide Fund for Nature. The Symposium was attended by over 70 scientists, planners, policy makers, private entrepreneurs, representatives from 10 countries of the Trans-Himalayan and neighbouring regions: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China P.R., India, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, and representatives of international and regional organizations including the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the Bagmati Integrated Watershed Management Programme (BIWMP), and the Mekong River Commission (MRC).
The Trans-Himalayan region, as defined by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), encompasses the midland and highland areas of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China PR., India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. In the region, characterized by rugged terrain and very low levels of human development, fisheries play an important role in providing food and income to the people. The objectives of the Symposium were to share information on the status of indigenous fish species in the Trans-Himalayan region, improve understanding of their importance in peoples' livelihoods and assess their current level of exploitation. The Symposium was designed to consolidate information, experiences, ideas and findings related to fish species distribution, fishing intensity, socio-economic conditions and livelihoods of fisher communities, impact of environment degradation, conservation measures and aquaculture technologies for indigenous and exotic cold water fish in the region.
The papers presented at the Symposium are grouped in four sections. In the first section resource paper by Petr reviews the cold water fish and fisheries in the mountain countries of Hindu Kush-Pamir-Karakoram and Himalayas, while their contribution to the livelihoods of the mountain people is dealt with by Phillips et al. One resource paper (Shrestha) is devoted to the host country Nepal. The six country reviews in the second section deal with cold water fish and fisheries in Bhutan (Gyeltshen), Iran (Mehrabi), Myanmar (Oo), Nepal (Swar), China (Wang and Yang), and Pakistan (Yaqoob). Of the 18 experience papers of the third section, 15 deal with fish stocks and fisheries in Nepal. Of these, two (Rajbanshi; Shrestha J.) provide a comprehensive list of cold water fish species, their distribution and taxonomic revision; six papers deal with the most important fish of Nepal, the mahseer (Bista et al.; Gurung et al.; Joshi et al.; Sharma and Mishra; Shrestha T.K.) and snow trout (Rai et al.), including aspects of their aquaculture; one paper deals with the culture of the exotic rainbow trout (Nepal et al.); six papers deal with fish stocks in rivers and lakes (Dhital and Jha; Ranjit; Shrestha et al.; Swar and Craig; Upadhaya and Shrestha; Yadav), with two of the papers also dealing with the socio-economic aspects of fisheries (Dhital and Jha; Ranjit); two papers address the problem of river damming on fish stocks (Gubhaju; Upadhaya and Shrestha). Prospects for fishery enhancement and aquaculture in cold waters of Nepal are discussed by Shrestha et al. Mahseer fishery in India is dealt with by Ogale, while the progress with mahseer aquaculture and its profitability are considered in papers by Bista et al. and by Gurung et al. One paper deals with the production of trout in northern Pakistan (Yaqoob). The fourth section, under the heading Associated topics, contains five papers dealing with the fish and aquaculture in Bangladesh and of the Mekong River. The papers from Bangladesh address aquaculture production in hill districts (Aziz and Hossain), and the prospects of low cost diets in aquaculture (Hossain), respectively. One paper deals with the endangered Mekong giant fish species (Mattson et al.), one paper is devoted to aquaculture of the catfish Aorichthys seenghala (Ratanatrivong et al.), and one to the possibilities of developing aquaculture based on indigenous Mekong fish species (Vibol and Mattson).
