Conferences and workshops invariably produce reports that reveal important milestones in policy and programme development. Only rarely do these kinds of reports contain primary, technical information that could be used in front-line implementation of CA projects.

More commonly, such reports are more relevant at policy level than they are directly useful at tactical levels of CA implementation. Three kinds of reports can readily be distinguished, namely:

• Formal Reports: are not scientific, journal type publications. Instead, they may, for example, be reports written by a consultant as part of the consultant's terms of reference. If these reports are public rather than private, then they could be shared in EcoPort.
• Official Reports: are reports made by a person or official acting in a designated reporting role within the framework of an established regulatory framework - usually a government agency. Such reports should generally be openly accessible by the public.
• Designated International Reports: various international bodies such as UN Agencies and 'Commissions' such as the Commission on Phytosanitary Matters (CPM) in the context of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) publish official reports at a level of jurisdiction above and across national jurisdictions and regulatory frameworks.

Reports are separated from technical items to provide a discrete section of this CA website for 'policy and bureaucracy' as distinct from CA 'ecology and science'