ANNEX IV

ANNEXE IV

ADDRESS/ALLOCUTION

by/par

Mr. H. Tambs-Lyche

General Secretary, International Council
for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)

Mr. Chairman,

It is traditional, when ICES arranges symposia - alone or in cooperation with other organizations - that its President takes part and speaks at the opening ceremony. Unfortunately, our President, Professor Nikolsky, is prevented by illness from being with us today. This is the more regretted, since we know that he looked forward to this Symposium on a subject which very much has his personal interest.

Our First Vice-President, who is acting for him, is at present attending another meeting in Cuba. It has therefore become my task to convey to you the greetings of our President and Bureau, wishing you a successful meeting.

We all know the remarkable role the studies of eel biology has played in the history of marine research. ICES was associated with eel research from the days of Joh. Schmidt and earlier. We are therefore glad to see the great attendance to this Symposium and the large number of papers presented to it. We hope that it shall be a worthy follow-up of the old traditions.

EIFAC is concerned with problems of freshwater fishes and fisheries in Europe, while ICES is concerned with the marine fishes and fisheries of the North Atlantic. This means that in one sense there is a clear division of responsibilities, but it also means that there is one field where the interests of the two organizations meet. This has - as Professor Tiews has just explained - been reconized by both organizations. Eel research and management is part of this field, particularly - perhaps - the problems of reliable eel statistics. There is really an urgent need for cooperation in order to get statistics which can give better basis for management. We are, therefore, most pleased that the two Eel Working Groups of EIFAC and ICES will have a joint meeting at the closure of this Symposium, and we hope they will, together with other problems, attack that one.

There are other subjects where future cooperation between EIFAC and ICES will be fruitful, even necessary. Let me mention some of them briefly.

Aquaculture is one of them. Here interests and capabilities of both organizations will supplement each other rather nicely. It is a subject which ICES has recently taken up, and where we look forward to cooperation. This should perhaps not be difficult since there are personal contacts already. For instance, Professor Tiews, who has just spoken on behalf of the Director-General of FAO, is at the same time Chairman of ICES Working Group on Mariculture.

Connected with mariculture are the problems of fish diseases, where again both organizations are interested.

And finally, I should mention pollution and its effects on living resources. This again is a subject of common concern to both our organizations, both because many of the contaminating substances are progressing to the marine environment after they have created problems for EIFAC, and because these substances affect the living resources, freshwater or marine, single species or ecosystems, in much the same way, and the effects are studied by the same or similar methods.

We know that cooperation through personal contacts between scientists working with freshwater or marine problems is nothing new; salmon research is a good example. But the time has come for a more organized cooperation. This is what is now being realized both through this Symposium and through the cooperation between the two Working Groups I mentioned.

We in ICES look forward to the continuation of such organized cooperation, and hope it will extend to some of the other subjects I have just mentioned.

Mr. Chairman, we in ICES are most happy to be again associated with a meeting here in Helsinki, where we held our own annual meeting in 1971, together with a special meeting on cod and herring in the Baltic, and a meeting, jointly with SCOR, on the study of pollution of the Baltic. This joint initiative has in turn led to extensive activities, of which we now begin to see the results. I wish, therefore, to associate myself with the thanks Professor Tiews has expressed to the Government of Finland for hosting this Symposium, and to everyone that has been connected with the preparations for it. Please consider his thanks as being expressed on behalf of both of us.

Before I close, I should also wish to thank the EIFAC Secretariat and Mr Gaudet personally for a very good cooperation in the preparations for this Symposium. ICES and EIFAC have somewhat different operating procedures. This, however, has proved to be an advantage, rather than a difficulty, and I hope you shall, as Symposium participants, benefit from the combination.

With these words, Mr. Chairman, I wish you a successful Symposium and pleasant days.

Thank you.

Papers issued in this series

Documents publiés dans la présente série