This issue of NAFO Scientific Council Studies was initiated by the Standing Committee on Publications (STACPUB) of the Scientific Council with the intent of publishing the detailed review on Flemish Cap oceanography as prepared by the Chairman (M. Stein) of the Standing Committee on Fisheries Environment (STACFEN). At its meetings, STACPUB agreed to publish this review in addition to the annual review papers on climatic conditions as well as other currently available reports related to the Flemish Cap from research documents presented to its meetings, under a single cover of the NAFO Scientific Council Studies. The 24 previous issues of NAFO Scientific Council Studies are listed on the inside back cover of this volume.

During 15–16 September 1994, the Scientific Council held a Symposium on 'Impact of Anomalous Oceanographic Conditions at the Beginning of the 1990s in the Northwest Atlantic on the Distribution and Behaviour of Marine Life', with M. Sinclair (Canada) and M. Stein (Republic of Germany) as co-conveners. Through ICNAF and NAFO times, the scientific community had expressed the interests and values of conducting decadal reviews of the environmental conditions in the northwest Atlantic. Two such publications were completed for the decades of the 1960s (ICNAF Special Publication, No. 8 – Symposium on Environmental Conditions in the Northwest Atlantic, 1960–69, Jul 1972, 254 p.), and the 1970s (NAFO Scientific Council Studies, No. 5 – Symposium papers on Environmental Conditions in the Northwest Atlantic, 1970–79 Dec 1982, 114 p.). The September 1994 Symposium addressed the environmental issues in recent years, particularly relating them to marine life.