This technical publication focused on nursery production of anguillid eels from glass eels to elver using data gathered from eel farm surveys and rearing trials conducted by SEAFDEC/AQD as part of the JAIF (Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund) project on Enhancing Sustainable Utilization and Management Scheme for Tropical Anguillid Eel Resources in Southeast Asia.

The information presented in this paper were taken from several key FAO documents. The objective is to continuously raise awareness about the concept of risk analysis and its application to the aquaculture sector.

The paper provides information in response to several key risk questions, e.g.: (1) what is risk versus hazard, (2) what is risk analysis, (3) who uses risk analysis, (4) why do countries need to be able to use risk analysis? An overview of the risks in aquaculture is also provided in terms of the process and approaches; and the different risk sectors in aquaculture.

The paper concludes with some key points and challenges. Risk analysis is a decisionmaking tool that contributes to protecting national health and welfare. It can also contribute to sustainable aquaculture and the success of individual aquaculture businesses and operations. Risk analysis does not stand alone - it supports and is supported by other components of a National Strategy on Aquatic Animal Health. A basic strength of the risk analysis process is its flexibility - it is adaptable to almost any sector/system where risk and uncertainty occur.

Countries will often be confronted with a lack of scientific information, both quality and quantity, to support the risk analysis process. Nevertheless, governments must often act under these uncertainties as well as make decisions in the face of a great deal of complexity, significant variability, and multiple management goals.

Myanmar is one of the OIE members and the Department of Fisheries (DoF) is highly concerned with transboundary aquatic animal pathogens. Therefore, the Aquatic Animal Health & Disease Control Section has already been formed not only for field diagnostic surveys but also for border control especially at international airport and border trade areas by checking and counter checking export and import of aquatic animals and products. At the moment, the DoF is stressing an issue of some transboundary diseases for finfish such as Gyrodactylus sp., Dactylogyrus sp., Argulus sp., Trichodena sp., Streptococcus sp., Aeromonas sp., and for crustacean are MrNV/XSV and WSSV. In addition, the DoF is facing challenges with parasitic disease and bacterial disease problems due to poor water quality management at culturing fish ponds. For the prevention and control of fish diseases within the country, the DoF is issuing Health Certificates by physical and microbiological examination of fishes and fisheries products. At the same time, Quarterly report on fish disease has being regularly submitted to NACA, OIE since 1998 until now. Although the DoF has no specific law and legislation on the control of quarantine pest and disease of aquatic animal, a good aquaculture practice has been implemented and code of conduct responsible for aquaculture is being followed in the country. The aquatic health management is a challenging issue in aquaculture development. Myanmar is still needing technical assistance to improve quarantine system especially for importation and exportation of live aquatic animals. Moreover, monitoring and surveillance programs with harmonized aquatic emergency preparedness and response system are required to boost up not only for Myanmar but also for effective management of transboundary disease outbreaks in Southeast Asia.

A few decades ago, Cambodia was rich in both freshwater and marine fisheries resources because of its favorable geographical area. However, the fisheries resources have depleted and were unable to totally fulfill the increasing fish demands of its people. This was caused by various factors including unfavorable climate changes, increase in population, improper agricultural production practices, and other human affecting activities. In this sense, aquaculture development in Cambodia becomes increasingly important in order to reduce the fishing pressure on its natural resources which are mainly for food security and economy of Cambodian people. Aside from this, aquatic animals in the country are vulnerable to infectious aquatic transboundary diseases as a result of insufficient and low transboundary diseases monitoring capacity. Neither the official list of aquatic transboundary diseases was created nor are the emergency preparedness and response systems for effective management of transboundary disease outbreaks in Cambodia has been well-established. Nonetheless, the government fisheries officers of both central and provincial levels have conducted fish health monitoring and undertake sample collection from fish farmers since 2016 in 10 targeted provinces as funded by the European Union s Programme. Regarding the capacity of the diagnostic laboratory, officers can perform level I and II but not for all species and diseases. Level III diagnoses cannot be effectively performed yet due to the lack of facilities, skills, and knowledge. The Marine Aquaculture Research and Development Center (MARDeC) is the only main laboratory for aquatic animal health diagnosis in the country. To minimize the spread of aquatic transboundary diseases in freshwater and seawater, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has been moving to initiate and establish policies regarding: (1) the registrations, licensing, and law enforcement; (2) the inspection of sites; (3) and the issuance of health certificate and quality seals. However, those national regulations and legislation regarding the movement of aquatic animal stocks are not yet practical or effective. Importantly, the Royal Government of Cambodia needs both technical and financial assistance. It requires an improvement, amendment, and enforcement of the regulations, laws and the standard operating procedures (SOPs). It requires laboratory capacity building and SOPs for responsible management to establish the aquatic emergency preparedness and response systems for effective management of transboundary disease outbreaks in Cambodia as well as Southeast Asia.

In Thailand, Department of Fisheries (DoF) is the competent authority for various aspects of aquatic animals including aquatic animal health. There are two principal legislation giving DoF power to apply for aquatic animal disease prevention and control measures in the country as well as import-export control; namely, Royal Ordinance on Fisheries and Animal Epidemic Act.

DoF has two national reference laboratories for aquatic animal health, one is Aquatic Animal Health Research and Development Division (AAHRDD) for freshwater aquatic animal disease diagnosis and another is Songkhla Aquatic Animal Health Research Center (SAAHRC) for brackish water aquatic animal disease diagnosis. Both are ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratories. Besides, there are 19 regional laboratories of DoF located in different areas of the country. All of 21 laboratories are responsible for performing disease diagnosis service for fish farmers as well as for disease surveillance. There are a number of surveillance and control programs for aquatic animal diseases in Thailand. Passive surveillance: information can be collected from disease reporting and other sources such as scientific research, news, publications, social network, or rumor. Active surveillance: to provide assurance of disease status for trade purposes, DoF has setup nationally active targeted surveillance program for demonstrating a number of diseases free status of country or farm establishment in accordance with OIE Aquatic Animal Health Code.

There are several farm standards in Thailand such as Good Aquaculture Practices for Hatchery of Disease Free Pacific White Shrimp, Good Aquaculture Practices for Marine Shrimp Farm, and Aquaculture Establishment for Export of Aquatic Animals. Each standard includes necessary biosecurity practices in order to prevent the introduction of pathogenic agent into or spread within or release from the farm. To control domestic movement of live aquatic animals, in normal situation, Aquatic Animal Movement Document should be gained when purchasing as it is beneficial to traceability. However if the disease free zone or disease zone is announced according to Animal Epidemic Act, all transportation of target aquatic animals or carcasses in or out of the defined zone is prohibited, unless a written permission is obtained.

DoF had developed contingency plan for dealing with aquatic animal disease emergencies. In contingency plan, the Provincial Fisheries Officer in responsible area will act as Director of Emergency Aquatic Animal Disease Control Center while Inland Aquaculture Research and Development Center/Coastal Aquaculture Research and Development Center/AAHRDD/SAAHRC will act as disease investigator and laboratory testing. DoF maintains early warning system by supporting staff to attend the meeting and workshop where there is occurrence of new disease, regularly checking local/regional/international disease report database, communicate with competent authority of trade partner, and regularly reporting disease situation to regional and international system. For early detection system, DoF has not only supported expertise and facilities required for laboratories to diagnose different diseases but also conducted training courses for fish farmers, traders and DoF staffs to recognize signs of the listed disease and emerging disease and encouraged them for rapid reporting of the event to the nearest DoF agency for the purpose of immediate investigation. For early response system, when there is serious disease outbreak, aquatic animals in that epidemiological unit should be contained in safety area. Waste water also should not be released from that area without disinfection. Meanwhile, the DoF staffs should investigate the outbreak urgently in order to define disease zone and find out what factors associated with the outbreak so that the disease management or control measure can be applied properly.

Understanding the information-seeking behavior of library patrons is essential for the library to provide quality resources and services, and to satisfy its patrons’ information needs. A quantitative research was conducted to describe the information searching and using behaviors of the Filipino aquaculture scientists, researchers and research staff at the Aquaculture Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC/AQD). The study revealed that although the respondents find it useful to go to the library to get assistance from the librarian, and to browse and read current acquisitions related to their research, they visited the library infrequently. However, remote library services, especially email and phone services, were highly utilized. When searching for information, the Internet, mainly via search engines, was highly preferred rather than visiting the Library and using its online public access catalog (OPAC) or its databases. The combination of print and electronic formats was highly preferred when reading, rather than print only or electronic-only. The majority would print and save the retrieved electronic copy.

A disaster management plan is essential because it can guide library personnel on what to do in a critical time. Using an eight-part survey instrument, this paper documents the impact of Typhoon Haiyan on 22 academic libraries in Northern Panay, Western Visayas, Philippines and the disaster management practices that were implemented. The results revealed that although the majority of the libraries do not have a disaster management plan, they all had common disaster management practices that enabled them to save parts of their collections. Moreover, the study revealed that librarians lacked knowledge and skills on disaster management. This paper was presented at the 40th International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers (IAMSLIC) Annual Conference, Noumea, New Caledonia, September 14–18, 2014.

Mud crabs, Scylla spp., are commercially important large-size marine crustaceans in the Indo-West Pacific region. As females have the higher growth rate and economic value, the production of all female stocks is extremely essential in aquaculture. However, the sex determination mechanism is still unclear. Development of sex-specific genetic markers based on next-generation sequencing proved to be an effective tool for discovering sex determination system in various animals.