E-Newsletter December 2015
12 Jan, 2016

FROM THE EDITOR

Wishing all readers a very happy, healthy, productive and prosperous 2016.

Year 2015 ended with a good note. Some of the recent assessments have indicated that the world will need an additional 68-78 million tons of fish by 2030 to meet the growing demand. Much of this, if not all additional requirement has to come from aquaculture as marine and freshwater stocks have been overexploited. This has to be achieved in spite of the fact that availability of water and land resources are on the decline and horizontal expansion of traditional aquaculture in ponds and tanks may not be the only solution. Keeping this in view and realising the importance of cage aquaculture in marine and freshwaters, the Asian Fisheries Society has been organising a series of conferences on cage aquaculture and the latest in the series – Cage Aquaculture in Asia-5 (CAA5) was held in Kochi, India in November 2015. The conference was well attended and has come up with a number of recommendations detailed in the relevant section of this newsletter.

Another landmark event in 2015 has been US-FDA approving genetically modified Salmon, generally known as AquAdvantage salmon as fit for consumption, making it the first genetically altered animal approved for human consumption opening doors for other GE animal production. The approval is being fiercely opposed by some consumer and environmental groups, that the safety studies were inadequate and that wild salmon populations might be affected if the engineered fish were to escape into the oceans and rivers.

Gender issues in fisheries and aquaculture are gaining importance and attracting the attention of scientists and planners and preparations are in full swing for the upcoming 6th Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries (GAF6) scheduled for August 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand in conjunction with 11th AFAF. The other major event of the Society for 2016 is the organisation of 11th Asian Fisheries and Aquaculture Forum (11th AFAF) with the theme “ASEAN Seafood for the World and Asian Food Security for the World” scheduled for 3-7 August 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand. AsiaPacific-FishWatch is making progress with completion of species profile on longtail tuna (Thunnus tonggol) which has been uploaded on its website.

Let us all look forward to a year of efforts at sustainable development of fisheries and aquaculture. 

Dr M.V. Gupta

	e-Newsletter Dec 2015