1. The Fifth Session of the GFCM Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) was held at FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy from 1 to 4 July 2002.
2. The Session was attended by delegates from 16 Members of the Commission and by an FAO Permanent Observer Nation as well as by observers from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The list of delegates and observers is given in Appendix B to this report.
3. The meeting was called to order by Mr J. Camiñas (Spain), Chairperson of the Scientific Advisory Committee, who welcomed the participants to Rome. He congratulated the new Secretary of the Commission, Mr Alain Bonzon, on his appointment and he thanked FAO for providing the facilities for the meeting.
4. The Chairman then gave the floor to Mr Ichiro Nomura, Assistant Director-General, FAO Fisheries Department. On behalf of the Director-General of FAO, Mr Jacques Diouf, Mr Nomura welcomed the delegates to Rome. He noted the importance of the agenda before the Committee and pointed out that GFCM was the only inter-governmental body dealing with fisheries management for the region. He pointed out that, because of this, there should be political will from the Members of the Commission to take fishery management decisions and to set up appropriate mechanisms to ensure that decisions were made on a scientific basis. This would entail firstly that Members provide the Secretariat with timely and reliable data and information, and secondly that adequate financial resources be made available in order to undertake essential scientific research. He informed the meeting that the number of Members who have ratified the amendment to the GFCM agreement for the establishment of the autonomous budget has increased only to seven since last year but it was hoped that the number would increase before the Twenty-seventh Session of GFCM due to be held at FAO Headquarters from 19 to 22 November this year. In conclusion, he thanked those Institutes which have hosted various meetings of the SAC Sub-Committees and their Working Groups and also the Government of Italy for funding ADRIAMED and MEDSUDMED, and the Government of Spain for providing financial assistance to the COPEMED project.
