Barry Costa-Pierce gives invited talk at 100th Anniversary of the Ecological Society of America meeting

Barry Costa-Pierce, Henry L. & Grace Doherty Professor of Marine Sciences and director of the UNE Center of Excellence in the Marine Sciences, gave an invited talk on “Ecological Aquaculture as a Vital New Applied Pracademic of Global Scholarship” in a session on “The Impact of Ecologists in Higher Education Administration in Promoting Ecoliteracy, Ecological Research and Sustainability in the 21st Century” at the 100th Anniversary of the Ecological Society of America meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 13, 2015.

Costa-Pierce discussed ecological aquaculture as a transdisciplinary area of scholarship and practice – a “pracademic” – that combines the social-ecological wisdom of aquafarming and fishing peoples with the science knowledge to provide additional economic, environmental and social profits from seafoods.

He explained that ecological aquaculture can not only produce adequate seafoods for future humanity but can also support the restoration of capture fisheries while protecting and enhancing marine ecosystems and redeveloping the world's working waterfronts as premier examples of "blue-green economies."