Team Details

Dr. Derek STAPLES

Dr. Derek Staples is the past Senior Fishery Office at the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, and is also the past-Secretary of the Asia Pacific Fisheries Commission. He has a PhD in fisheries ecology from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and a post-doctoral diploma in aquaculture from the Tokyo University of Fisheries, Japan. In his last position, Dr. Staples was responsible for providing technical advice on coastal and offshore fisheries for all of FAO Asian-Pacific Member countries and has been actively involved in a number of FAO projects in Asia, including fishery livelihoods in Bangladesh, fisheries information in several SE Asian countries and the multi-sectoral management in Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem.

Prior to taking up his present post, as the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Resource Sciences (BRS), he was a senior science advisor to Ministers and policy decision makers in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, in Australia (DAFF). Prior to this he was a scientist for many years with the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). His interests include all aspects of the sustainable development of fisheries and aquaculture, particularly small-scale operations in developing countries. Throughout his extensive career as a scientist and policy advisor, Derek has worked in a number of Asian countries as a consultant to FAO, World Bank and IOC/WESTPAC. One well-known example is his work as the team leader on a large multi-national project on penaeid prawns that brought to together the science and marine scientists of several SE Asian countries during the 1980s and 1990s.

Since retirement from FAO in October 2007, Dr. Staples has been employed as a consultant for the FAO to organize and facilitate a workshop on "Managing fishing capacity and IUU fishing in Asia" in Thailand. He has also undertaken a sectoral study on the marine fisheries of India for the World Bank and is currently working on integrating fisheries into Integrated Coastal Management with a consultancy with the Partnership for Environment of the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA).

Dr. Staples was an active member of the Asian Fisheries Society in its early years and was on the editorial board from 1986 to 1993. He participated in the first two Asian Fisheries Forums, but later lost contact with the Society due to work commitments in Australia. However, now that he has retired from FAO, he would like to commit more time and energy into improving the fisheries science in Asia and applying this science to better management of the natural resources of the region.