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BIDDEFORD, Maine

Carrie Byron attends annual meeting of Working Group on Aquaculture

Carrie Byron, Ph.D., research assistant professor in the Department of Marine Sciences, attended the 2015 annual meeting of the Working Group on Aquaculture (WGAQUA), which took place March 16-20 at the University of Rhode Island, on the Bay Campus, in Narragansett, Rhode Island. The International Council for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) Working Group was formed in 2013, and this year marks the end of the group’s first three-year cycle.

For the 19 participants, this meeting was a chance to document past accomplishments by ICES expert groups and to identify, prioritize and report on some of the many issues and challenges that the aquaculture industry and WGAQUA will continue to face in the coming years. 

Expectations are high that aquaculture production will help fill the growing gap between the supply and demand for fishery resources. However, this need for aquaculture development comes with an increasing demand for science to help minimize adverse environmental interactions and decrease the reliance on wild fishery resources for feed ingredients. 

In addition, environmental factors limiting the production of cultured seafood, including climate change, need to be understood so that mitigation measures and new technologies can be developed. The current ICES Science Plan recognized the increasing demand for aquaculture science and advice and placed WGAQUA in a position to help fulfill these needs.

The first three-year cycle of WGAQUA focused on:

  • Identifying emerging topics and synthesizing past reports prepared by ICES Study Groups (SGs) and Working Groups (WGs) related to the environmental dependence and effects of aquaculture and on science advice provided. The review of past activities served to identify aquaculture issues that have not yet received adequate attention from ICES.
  • Reviewing the state of knowledge related to three major research themes: benthic effects, pest management and ecosystem interactions.
  • Providing advice on interactions between aquaculture and wild fisheries. This large effort from many WGAQUA members was key in providing advice to OSPAR, but it also served as an insightful test case for the provision of aquaculture advice within ICES. The future role of ICES in providing aquaculture advice will be discussed at a dialogue meeting to be held June 1-2, 2015, in Bergen, Norway. This dialogue was organized with input from WGAQUA to bring together policy-makers, managers, industry and scientists to identify the science and advisory needs for aquaculture. 

The meeting closed after an extensive discussion of proposed new terms of reference and the election of new chairs. The outgoing chairs from Canada (Peter Cranford; Science Advise), The Netherlands (Pauline Kamermans; Shellfish and Plants) and Norway (Karin Boxaspen; Finfish) look forward to working on these new terms of reference under the leadership of the newly elected chairs, which will be announced after approval by their respective institutions.