The Directory consists of three volumes covering 1) the Wider Caribbean, Atlantic and Eastern Pacific, 2) the Indian Ocean (up to and including South-east Asia), the Red Sea and the GUIf* and 3) the Pacific and Australasia. This volume (3) includes 29 countries in the region extending from Clipperton Island and the Pitcairn Islands in the East Pacific to the eastern seaboard of Asia, Papua New Guinea and Eastern Australia. Most of this area lies within the Oceanian Realm as defined by Udvardy (1975), but China, Taiwan and Hong Kong lie within the Indomalayan Realm, and Japan within the Palaearctic Realm. Western Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines, which have close biological, geographical or political affinities with some of the countries in this volume are covered in Volume 2. Of the regions defined by the UNEP Regional Seas Programme, only the South Pacific Region is covered in this volume. Eastern Australia, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, China and New Zealand are not within this Region although some of them participate in the Regional Seas Programme.