DA-BFAR Caraga holds Workshop on Risk Assessment of Introduced Fishes in Lake Mainit Local fisherfolks and representatives from the academe and the local government units of the lakeside municipalities of Lake Mainit were convened as the DA-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR)-Caraga, in partnership with the DA-National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI), hosted a two-day Workshop on Risk Assessment of Introduced Fishes in Lake Mainit on May 4-5, 2022 at Dotties Place, Butuan City.

Serving as resource speakers were Dr. Maria Theresa M. Mutia, Chief of the NFRDI-Freshwater Fisheries Research and Development Center (FFRDC) who gave an overview and background of the project, and introduced the tool to be used for risk assessment, and Science Research Analyst Allan S. Gilles Jr. who presented and discussed the use of the tool Aquatic Species-Invasiveness Screening Kit (AS-ISK).

The AS-ISK toolkit is a user-friendly multi-lingual decision-support tool that calculates the potential invasiveness of a certain species through information provided by the assessor. In the two-day workshop, the participants were oriented on the use of the AS-ISK software, and discussed each question/criteria that were used to identify the species' potential invasiveness.

The said activity is part of the NFRDI R&D project Risk Assessment of Introduced Fishes in the Philippines, which intends to assess the potential invasiveness of introduced species in five selected inland bodies of water, including Lake Mainit in the Caraga region.

The results of this risk assessment analysis will support the stock enhancement activities of BFAR's Balik Sigla sa Ilog at Lawa (BASIL) program.

(Photo courtesy: NFRDI-FFRDC)