The First Session of EIFAC was held in Dublin, Ireland, in April 1960, and was attended by delegates of 14 member countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey, United Kingdom and Yugoslavia. Norway sent an observer and three international organizations (IAL, ICES and GFCM) were also represented. This meeting was important not only in establishing the Rules of Procedure (as indicated above) but also in clarifying the position of EIFAC in relation to other international bodies, and in providing for the first time an opportunity to establish the nature of the most important problems facing inland fisheries.
The consensus was that EIFAC would not replace the inland fishery activities of any of the already established bodies, and thus the Salmon and Trout Committee of ICES (now its Anadromous and Catadromous Committee) should continue its important work on anadromous salmonids which it had pursued for thirty years. The Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), the General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean (GFCM), ICES and the IAL all welcomed the establishment of EIFAC, and expressed the desirability of cooperative endeavour to avoid major overlapping with any established programmes or fields of activity. Delegates to EIFAC agreed that it was a duty for the Commission to cooperate with all existing bodies to increase their efficiency and usefulness and to avoid duplication or dispersion of efforts.
Pending the institution of more formal relationships, should these become necessary, it was recommended that interested bodies be invited to send observers to future EIFAC sessions, and the Commission would, in turn, appreciate the opportunity of being represented at meetings of other bodies where inland fisheries activities were discussed. The exchange of reports through the Secretariat was also recommended.
With regard to the assessment of the current problems of inland fisheries, each member country had been asked by the Secretariat, before the First Session, to provide information on its main problems in this field, indicating those which EIFAC might help to solve. Delegates to the meeting were also asked to summarize the major problems concerning inland fisheries in their countries. A total of eleven subjects was extracted from the many suggested as being of the greatest general interest to the members of the Commission, and these were voted upon by the delegates to obtain an indication of the order of importance in which they could be placed for future consideration. It was stressed, however, that the initial selection should in no way invalidate the claims of other items for future attention of the Commission.
1 See Annex 2 for the list of EIFAC sessions
The following subjects or fields of activity (ranked in their apparent order of interest at the time) were selected:
Mutual aid with respect to inland fisheries, in the form of the exchange of information or scientists, provision of advice and general cooperation
Pondfish culture (later linked with fish diseases, see below)
Surveys and appraisals of fishing waters and their fish populations
Water pollution
Fish diseases
Review of the principal European species of freshwater fish
Problems concerned with migratory fishes, including the subject of fish passes
Methods of increasing the productivity of open waters
The special problems of reservoirs or impoundments
Problems concerned with the effect of land reclamation or land gaining on fisheries
Appraisal of the economic and recreational values of angling and its development
It is perhaps worth noting that although the first six of these topics have concerned the Commission for much of the subsequent twenty years, the only topic among the last five to be given significant consideration is the last (economic and recreational values). Most member countries have reconsidered the importance of this subject since the 1960 Session.
The Commission then selected five items as having the most interest for the greatest number of member countries, and confirmed them as the principal fields of activity for its initial programme of work. These were as follows:
Mutual aid with respect to inland fisheries
Preparation of a directory of inland fishery workers in Europe (e.g., administrators, scientists, and fishery engineers)
Preparation of a list of fishery schools and training courses
Annual reports by governments, including changes in organization and administration; a description of programmes of research, management and development; a list of publications
Interim reports by governments of the results of important research
Other exchanges of experience, including response to requests for technical advice, and the services of experts when possible.
Pondfish culture and fish disease
Surveys and appraisals of fishing waters and their fish populations
Water pollution study and control
Review of the principal European species of freshwater fishes
Of these five major topics, that of mutual aid has received only a modest amount of support. A directory of inland fisheries workers,1 produced by the Secretariat, has been revised at intervals, although coverage has been only partial, dependent as it is on the submission of names by those personally interested. A list of fishery and training schools was issued in 1964. Biannual reports by delegates or correspondents were provided in earlier years but were very variable in quality and by 1974 had been almost discontinued. This form of communication was revived for the Tenth Session in 1978.
The subject of fish culture and disease, particularly stimulated by a discussion at the Third Session, became the responsibility of Sub-Commission II following that Session. Surveys and appraisals of the populations of fishing waters were difficult to achieve, primarily due to the lack of effective techniques suitable for lakes and large rivers, which were eventually the subject of a symposium at the Eighth Session in 1974. Methods for small streams utilized the technique of electrofishing, which was studied by a working group and formed the subject of a book (“Fishing with Electricity”) published in 1967.
1 See Annex 3 for the list of EIFAC publications
The fourth topic, water pollution, gave rise to a working party on water quality, which became the most active group of Sub-Commission III in 1964 and has been one of the major successes of the Commission since. The review of freshwater fish species has been only partly successful, but has taken the form of a series of synopses (in the FAO Fisheries Synopsis series) each devoted to a selected species. The major difficulty encountered has been in locating authors who are experts on the biology of the particular species and are also willing to compile the detailed synopses.
