Some prose on a database of indigenous knowledge on fish T here are about 24.000 species of cartilaginous and bony fishes.in the world. The International Centre for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM) has started together with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to assemble and standardize information on them. D. Pauly M.L.D. Palomares R. Froese fishes of the USA and Canada, all freshwater fishes that have been introduced to another country, all fishes contained in the mCN Red List, all sharks, all marine fishes dangerous to humans, all important game fishes, all members of important families such· as the Scombridaeand theClupeidae, and more. For all of these species, FISHBASE contains over 8,600 synonyms and over 20,000 common names in various languages, a prime example OfiK. Fishers from Palau increase their dropline and speargun catches through their knowledge of the reproductive cycle of remochel (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus), one of the most important resource species in the area (Johannes 1981). 26 In Moliere's comedy of 1610 'Le Bourgeois gentilhomme', the hero, who strives rather unsuccessfully to acquire the 'touch' of an aristrocrat, discovers, much to his amazement, that what he had spoken all his life is called 'prose'. Thereupon, in one rather hilarious scene, he calls all the members of his family, and belabors them for not knowing that when he speaks, he speaks ... prose! On 22 April 1992, Dr. Michael Warren gave at ICLARM a fascinating seminar on 'Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and Development', and we discovered, much to our amazement, that we had been developing in the last years a global database of IK related to fish, and had not been aware of it. The project in question is called FISH BASE, and is a joint activity of the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM) and of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), funded by the Commission of the European Communities (CEC). The goal of FISHDASE is to assc!Uble, standardize and then make available for research, development and conservation (published) information on all of the 24,000 species of cartilaginous and bony fishes in the world (Froese 1990, Pauly and Froese 1991, Froese ct. at. 1992). As of September 1992, 'only' 6,000 species have been covered, but those included contribute to over 80% of the world's fish catch. Also included are all species used for aquaculture, all commercial species of the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, most European freshwater species (all of Germany, Belgium, France, etc.), over 800 African freshwater species, over 1,500 Asian marine species, all Indigenous Knowledge & Development Monitor How to integrate IK into FISHBASE The structure of FISHBASE, and especially its fields for entering common names allow for a large fraction on indigenous knowledge of fishes (Le., ethno-ichthyology) to be incorporated into FISHBASE (Palomares and Pauly 1992). Now aware of this, we need to establish an international network of collaborators on and contributors of indigenous knowledge on fishes, just as we have for 'scientific' knowledge (SK?). The rules will be the same for IK as for SK; if IK is to be incorporated in FISHBASE, it will have to: 1. be attributable to a published, verifiable source (though not necessarily in a peer- reviewed journal; we use books, reports, and even theses as 'sources'); 2. be pertinent to individual species or group of species, i.e., not refer to 'fish' in general; 3. involve as few free-text entries as possible, or conversely; 4. not be 'open-ended', Le., generally be broken into relatively small sets of multiple choices (e.g., fish species X is used by ethnic group Y for either A, B, C, •. " where A, B, .•• are choices described by standardized text fields with descriptions valid between species and ethnic groups). The last ilem is important. It enables FISHBASE to: • allow rapid entry of a large amount of information, while reducing opportunities for typing errors; • have limited (memory) requirements for storage; • ensure a high degree of searchability for the information contained in the database. Volume l/nr. 1/1993 .. - Pauly, D., M.L.D. Palomares and R. Froese. 1993 Some prose on a database of indigenous knowledge on fish. IK and Development Monitor 1(1): 26-27.