Following a three-year cycle, an International Workshop on the Marine Flora and Fauna of Hong Kong and Southern China was convened at the Swire Institute of Marine Science of the University of Hong Kong from 2-20 April 1995. Sixteen scientists from six countries and fifteen scientists and students from Hong Kong investigated aspects of the marine flora and fauna of the Cape d'Aguilar proposed marine reserve and the southeastern waters of Hong Kong. The marine flora and fauna of this area of Hong Kong is poorly known and, like others locally, is threatened by pollution. Such broad-based studies of this area of Hong Kong's waters are needed urgently.

The Proceedings of the workshop contain thirty-one original research papers dealing with aspects of the taxonomy and ecology of Hong Kong's marine life with particular reference to the Cape d'Aguilar Marine Reserve and the benthic fauna of its territorial waters.

The workshop was sponsored by the University of Hong Kong to bring scientists and students together to study the shores and seas around its infant institute of marine science. The success of the workshop is self-evident in the contents and scope of these proceedings. This venture, like the first workshop, convened in 1977, on the shores of the now disastrously polluted Tolo Harbour, is a landmark publication. It is a significant compilation of wide-ranging research papers on an area of Hong Kong that has been, hitherto, little-studied but which will, one day, be of vital conservation interest to local people, if any of the territory's now threatened marine life is to survive.Distributed for Brian Morton