Author: Diego Lozano

MedAID organizes the 1st MedAID Regional Workshop on Holistic Sustainability Assessment of Mediterranean Aquaculture. The workshop will be held at the IRTA Centre Sant Carles de la Ràpita on 24 January.

The objectives of this MedAID regional workshop are i) to present the analysis of the survey conducted to assess the sustainability of the Mediterranean marine fish farming sector (Deliverable D1.2 – Assessment of Mediterranean Aquaculture Sustainability); and ii) to discuss the results obtained with representatives of the surveyed companies, other aquaculture producers and other key players of the sector in order to obtain their inputs and gain a broader vision from the whole value chain of Mediterranean aquaculture.

The workshop will have 70 participants from 14 countries that are involved in the whole value chain – company managers, associations, researchers, aquaculture farm workers, etc.

All updated information on the workshop is available on the MedAID web page and twitter account.

Following preliminary stakeholder interviews (May and June 2018) and a first workshop on July 2018 devoted to the diagnostic of aquaculture development in the Bay of Monastir, the MedAID project organized a final stakeholders workshop on November 28. Part of the social acceptability and governance work implemented in the frame of MedAID, the workshop was organized and took place at INSTM building in Monastir, thanks to the support of Dr Naceur Dhraief. 28 participants from aquaculture, fisheries, tourism, NGOs, harbour or research sectors attended the workshop where the social acceptability of aquaculture in the Bay of Monastir was addressed through a set of scenarios. Scenarios were built according to the preliminary interviews and diagnostic. Through a multicriteria approach, participants were invited by Ifremer (Loeiza Lancelot), LISODE (Jean-Emmanuel Rougier) and UBO (Pascal Raux) to position themselves and collectively on social acceptability criteria. Debates were fruitful and animated, leading to an important material to assess the social acceptability of aquaculture development in the Bay of Monastir. Results of the analysis will be delivered to stakeholders in a report by the end of 2018.Continue reading

On 29^th and 30^th November the 13^th International aquaculture conference entitled “Co-operation of Production and Science – A Foundation for Successful, Sustainable Development of Aquaculture” was held in Vukovar, Croatia.

The meeting gathered most of the Croatian scientists (100) dealing with different aspect of aquaculture (molluscs, freshwater and marine fish and tuna), representative of the governmental bodies, nature protection institutions and representatives of the farming sector. There were more than 30 scientific presentation and among them the MedAid project was presented and the participation of Croatian partners and stakeholders highlighted.

MedAID presented his work on Social Acceptability at the Aquaculture Technical Seminar of the Open Method Coordination for Aquaculture, Brussels, 27 November 2018.

The Aquaculture Technical Seminar is part of the  European Commission Open Method Coordination for Aquaculture. Within this framework, DG MARE coordinates the exchange of good practices between Member States by organizing twice a year a workshop at technical level, attended by experts from Member States administrations (see https://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/aquaculture/good-practises_en). Almost all Member States are represented by around two experts per Member State, since aquaculture usually falls within the remit of several Administrations/Ministries.

This second edition of the Aquaculture Technical Seminar (2018) has discussed various topics. One of them being Social Acceptability, on which MedAID is working in its Work Package 7 on “Social acceptability and governance of aquaculture development in the Mediterranean”. WP7 Leader, Dr. José Pérez from Ifremer, presented the objectives of this WP and the results collected so far. The presentation was followed by a round table discussion addressing some additional issues about good practices to enhance social acceptability of aquaculture at national level.  As un example, aquaculture in Finland is contested and the Administration has opened a dialogue process with stakeholders to discuss aquaculture sustainability. In Italy big efforts have been made to improve the perception of aquaculture products through communication campaigns.

Delegations from the Ministries of European Member States attended this Technical Seminar on Aquaculture. In total, about fourty people attended this meeting.

Aquaculture Day 2018 was celebrated on 26 November at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans with 35 participants from aquaculture companies (14),  academia (11), fisheries and aquaculture authorities (2) as well as 4 cluster and  professional network managers and MSc & Ph D Students.

The workshop began with the presentation of aquaculture and research projects in Catalonia: “Development of methods for stimulating sperm production in farmed Senegalese sole” (Dr. François Chauvigne), the European projects “Vivaldi”, “MedAID” (Dr. Dolors Furones) and “PerformFish” (Dr. Francesc Padrós) as well as “Development of seafood productions through co-creation projects ” (Dr.Luís Guerrero). The presentations were followed by a roundtable discussion addressing keys to understanding the future of research in aquaculture.

Afterwards, the relationship between aquaculture and industry was dicussed in the round table “Experiences of innovative businesses of the Acuiplus Cluster” followed by some general conclusions.