International Review Panel Report for the 2005 International Fisheries Stock Assessment workshop

The Workshop focused on the South African West and South Coast Rock Lobster resources, and also included a session to discuss elephant metapopulation modelling being undertaken by Dr Rudi van Aarde and colleagues at the University of Pretoria. The Workshop was funded jointly by the Marine and Coastal Management Branch of the Department of Environment Affairs and Tourism, the National Research Foundation (through a research grant to D S Butterworth), and the local industry associations for the South African West and South Coast rock lobster fisheries.

An External Review Panel of four invited scientists participated in the Workshop. These were Tony Smith (Australia) who chaired the event, Ana Parma (Argentina), Andre Punt (USA) and Paul Starr (Canada and New Zealand). In total, some 30 scientists and industry members attended throughout the event, and about another 40 occasionally.

This report does not cover all the discussions that took place. Instead it is comprised of four primary Annexes related to key elements of these discussions.