H-vii 



PREFACE 



This document represents four years of effort by several members of the SCAR nations to 

 develop a co-ordinated international programme for the study of the living resources of 

 the Southern Ocean. This effort began in August 1972, in Canberra, Austraha, with the 

 estabUshment of a subcommittee of the Biology Working Group on the Marine Living 

 Resources of the Southern Ocean. The subcommittee met in Montreal, Canada, in May 1974, 

 and in Cambridge, UK, in October 1975. At the latter meeting the subcommittee (now 

 upgraded to the SCAR Group of Specialists on Living Resources of the Southern Ocean, and 

 from November 1975 cosponsored by SCOR as its Working Group 54) welcomed the offer of 

 the United States to host an international scientific conference on the living resources of the 

 Southern Ocean. The meeting was held in the US National Academy of Sciences Summer Study 

 Center in Woods Hole, Mass, 17-21 August 1976; 59 scientists representing 14 nations 

 participated. The chief objective of the conference, and the following meeting of the Group of 

 Specialists (23-25 August), was to review the present knowledge of the living resources of the 

 Southern Ocean and to develop a proposal for future co-operative studies in this area. A 

 number of background review papers and scientific reports was also presented at the 

 conference and is to be published in a separate volume {BIOMASS Volume II: Selected 

 contributions to the Woods Hole Conference on Living Resources of the Southern Ocean, 

 1976). 



The major part of the conference, as well as the subsequent sessions of the Group of 

 Specialists, were devoted to discussions on the development of an international programme for 

 the Biological Investigations of Marine Antarctic Systems and Stocks (BIOMASS). The principal 

 objective of BIOMASS is to gain a deeper understanding of the structure and dynamic 

 functioning of the Antarctic marine ecosystems as a basis for the future management of 

 potential living resources. The BIOMASS proposal described in this report represents the first 

 major international effort to co-ordinate present and future research for the development and 

 wise management of the living resources of the Southern Ocean. 



It is important to note in this respect that, at the meeting of the Group of Specialists held 

 immediately after the Woods Hole conference, a set of recommendations, addressed to SCAR, 

 SCOR and IOC, was adopted. These recommendations contain the amended terms of reference 

 of the Group of Specialists, together with a proposed mechanism for practical implementation 

 of the BIOMASS programme at the international level. The recommendations are included in 

 the appropriate parts of the text. 



I am indeed grateful to the valuable contributions made by the members of the 

 SCAR/SCOR Group of Speciahsts on Living Resources of the Southern Ocean in drafting this 

 document. The I ABO reviewers of the BIOMASS document deserve much thanks for their 

 helpful and generous suggestions for the proposal's improvement at draft stage. I am also 

 grateful to the participants at the Woods Hole conference for their useful advice at the meeting. 



I wish to express my deep thanks and appreciation to the US National Academy of 

 Sciences for hosting the conference at the Academy's Summer Study Center in Woods Hole, 

 Mass. Mr Liiuis DeGoes, Mr Timothy Hushen and Ms Betty Olsen, of the Polar Research Board, 

 NAS, deserve thanks for their splendid help and co-operation. Finally, I am deeply indebted to 

 Mrs Pamela S. Home for her invaluable assistance in producing this report. 



Sayed Z. El-Sayed 



n II c. *• T Convenor 



College Station, Texas 



3 June 1977 



