At the VIth Internatitonal Conference on Toxic Cyanobacteria, held from 21 – 27th of June 2004 in Bergen, Norway, 190 participants from 36 countries presented results covering a wide range of aspects of research on toxic cyanobacteria. The conference included a special session in which scientists and regulators reported on the current status of awareness of the toxic cyanobacterial hazards in their country, on discussions towards implementing regulations, and on regulatory approaches already implemented. This session demonstrated substantial recent progress in the perception of cyanotoxins as risk to human health and in risk management. Furthermore, differences in the approaches taken to risk management in different countries proved worth sharing. Participants concluded that it would be useful to compile this emerging experience, including contributions from those who could not attend the  conference, both for readers seeking to promote the development of regulatory approaches in their own country as well as  or further improvement of approaches already implemented.