Creation of a web-accessed database would allow a long standing objective of the Conservation and Management Plan of the Agreement to be met; “3. Use of by-catches and strandings: Each Party shall endeavour to establish an efficient system for reporting and retrieving by-catches and stranded specimens and to carry out, in the framework of the studies mentioned above, full autopsies in order to collect tissues for further studies and to reveal possible causes of death and to document food composition. The information collected shall be made available in an international database.” In addition, public display of data collected throughout the ASCOBANS region along with a qualitative overview of information on both strandings and research carried out by strandings networks (e.g. species found stranded, reporting arrangements, causes of death and conservation threats etc) will help facilitate another objective; “5. Information and education Information shall be provided to the general public in order to ensure support for the aims of the agreement in general and to facilitate the reporting of sightings and strandings in particular; and to fishermen in order to facilitate and promote the reporting of by-catches and the delivery of dead specimens to the extent required for research under the agreement.” Finally, such a system would serve as a potentially useful point of access for scientists, policy makers and NGOs.