Fisheries & Aquaculture
In parallel with the catastrophic decline
in capture fisheries, there has been significant expansion in
aquaculture development worldwide. These activities are becoming
increasingly important to produce fish and shellfish for worldwide
consumption, and especially in ensuring food security for much of
the developing world.
Understanding the need to develop sustainable operations is
providing the key to realizing the longer term benefits and
viability of aquaculture development. This is helped by adoption of
the "ecosystem approach" as a basis for site development and
introduction of best practice guidelines to cover all aspects of
managing aquaculture operations.
Similarly, it is being more widely accepted that the long
term future of capture fisheries depends crucially on
implementation and enforcement of measures to ensure their
sustainable management. Although the necessary mechanisms are not
yet in place through international institutions, the consequences
of profligate and uncontrolled exploitation across all world
fisheries is finally reaching an end point. Developing and managing
a sustainable aquaculture industry depends not only on application
of scientific understanding of the natural environment, but also
respect for traditional knowledge and integration of social and
economic issues at the very early design stage of developments.
In addition to enforcement measures to control exploitation,
rehabilitation of capture fisheries will require initiatives such
as the introduction of no-take-zones and protection of nurseries
and breeding areas.
Creative use of marine space to accommodate these and other uses
will again be critically dependent on understanding ecosystem
functioning as a basis for protecting and managing resources in
order to optimize the benefits for everyone.
Applications of PML science include:
- Use of remote sensing to support strategic
studies for aquaculture development
- Determination of baseline conditions and
ecosystem functioning in potential aquaculture development
locations
- Modelling site specific aquaculture
potential (including shellfish and algae) as well as carrying
capacity in
multi-species systems
- Novel technology for monitoring harmful
algal blooms (HABs), water quality and food supply.
