Aquaculture development is one of the mail pillars of the European Blue Growth Strategy that can be also addressed at the whole of the Mediterranean eco-region. However, this development is facing many technical, technological, social and economic challenges. In addition, as is the case with other recent activities requiring for space (eg. wind farms….), aquaculture should be aware of its role within the coastal and marine social ecological systems in a way to convince the society about its benefits. In general, Social Acceptability as a concept has been rejected by the social sciences because it has been interpreted as the way of making political decisions. Social acceptability stems from major shortcomings on two levels: that of local acceptability, because of the impact the projects in question have on communities directly affected (noise, pollution, traffic, safety, property values, etc.); and that of social relevance, because developers have proven to be unable of convincing communities that projects will meet certain guidelines or expectations (sectoral policies, direct and indirect economic spinoffs, overall environmental impacts).Continue reading
