Thematic Issue Presentations

FAO consultants presented the thematic aspects of zoning, siting and area management (i.e., biosecurity, social, certification and legal aspects).

Aquaculture Certification (Jesper Hedegaard Clausen)

The development and intensification of aquaculture has been outstanding over the last couple of decades with annual growth rates of around 8–10 percent, outpacing other animal protein production systems.
Products from aquaculture are widely traded on the international market, and are at the same time providing an important source of animal protein for national consumers. There have been concerns among academia, consumers and NGOs that certain forms of aquaculture, mainly high value species for export, are environmentally unsustainable, socially inequitable, raising issues of animal welfare and having issues with food safety. This is how both the legal mandatory certification requirements for food safety and aquatic animal health developed, as well as the voluntary certification systems concerning environmental and social issues.
In areas or zones that are favorable for aquaculture there is often a concentration of aquaculture operations that could create management issues and challenges for the surrounding environment and for certified farms in these areas. This case study explores how spatial planning and certification can together help aquaculture towards better management and sustainable intensification with a focus on the four areas identified in “FAO’s Technical Guidelines for Aquaculture Certification,” namely, food safety, environmental impacts, social impacts, and animal welfare. Regulation of density of farms within a zone, better carrying capacity tools, quarantining, and better control of movement of live aquatic animals between zones are suggested as means that should be implemented and addressed in any certification program addressing zones and not individual farms.

 

 

Biosecurity (David Huchzermeyer)

The capacity to contain, control and eradicate contagious diseases and the ability to move and trade aquatic animals and their products free of specific pathogens depend on the implementation of national, regional and zone level biosecurity programmes.
Planning based on epidemiological principles and a science-based approach provides the means of implementing disease control and risk management at multiple levels. The aim of biosecurity is to protect public health, the environment, and biological diversity.
It is applied from a farm to national level based on effective separation of populations with different health status, zones demarcated by geographical boundaries, and compartments defined by management and biosecurity practices, and may be classed as infected or disease-free, and provides an important means for disease control and eradication. Surveillance and diagnostic activities provide information on the occurrence of important aquatic animal diseases.
For maintaining international trade opportunities, control measures are the direct responsibility of a competent authority; the standards, guidelines and recommendations are provided by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). Emergency response is a critical element of risk management and requires relevant policy, procedures and regulations as well as adequate human, infrastructural and financial resources. Surveillance data on occurrence and prevalence of regulated and emerging aquatic animal diseases need to be reported on national, regional and international reporting systems. A number of regional organizations, and various codes and conventions contribute to standardization of international protocols and responsibilities.

Social Aspects (Pedro B. Bueno)

Any development activity impacts a community—directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, for better or for worse. An impact either enhances or reduces welfare. Impacts include fiscal, environmental, social and economic, and health. Fiscal consists of the public costs and revenues associated with the development.
Environmental—almost always negative—includes alteration of land and water resources, loss of open space, change in groundwater and surface water quantity and quality, air quality, alteration of wildlife habitat and changes in landscape aesthetics. Social and economic impacts are those that a development intervention would have on the lives and circumstances of people and their communities.
The positive impacts include employment, higher wages, increased supply of goods for the community, and multiplier effects on the economy and appreciation of property values. Impacts on health, often associated with environmental impacts, are lumped with social impact. But health impacts can be quantified in terms of additional cost of health care, cost of mitigating health hazards, and implications on insurance premiums. It then becomes part of economic impact assessment. Conflicts are the most obvious negative social impact of a development intervention, arising from a number of causes, usually perceived or real unfairness in allocation or sharing of benefits and access to opportunities offered by the activity, competition for resources, and opportunistic behavior. Impacts have varying consequences on different stakeholders. This underlines the importance of a multi-stakeholder participation in planning a development activity and assessing and understanding its potential impacts.

Legal Aspects (David L. VanderZwaag)

Suggestions were made for strengthening the international law and policy discussions. These included thoughts for enhancing the national law and policy components. The main focus was on the international law and policy dimensions by describing the relevance of the international binding agreements with special emphasis on these key agreements:
• UN Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC). The LOSC provides the overall governance framework for aquaculture developments by establishing both

State rights and responsibilities;

• Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (1992).
Although the CBD does not specifically mention aquaculture, the Convention is relevant to aquaculture activities in four ways:

• Through general obligations for Parties under the Convention,
• Through guidelines, e.g., Guidelines on Implementing the Ecosystem Approach (2004) through Decision VII/11,
• EIA guidelines,
• Through Biodiversity decisions;
• Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (1971);
• Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979);
• UN resolutions and processes relevant to aquaculture, e.g.:
• FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries
• Technical Guidelines for Aquaculture Development (1997),
• Technical Guidelines on Ecosystem Approach to Aquaculture (2010).

The presentation identified two ways to enhance national law and policy components:

1. Setting out a spectrum of national approaches to marine and coastal planning, e.g.:
a. Policy-based call for marine spatial planning (USA)
b. Bare-bones legislative framework for integrated marine planning (Canada)
c. Sectoral aquaculture legislation requiring aquaculture zoning (Chile) d.
Detailed legislative guidance on marine spatial planning (Scotland, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
2. Recognizing the special challenges of integrated aquaculture management in federated states.