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BIDDEFORD, Maine

Barry Costa-Pierce chairs global meeting on 40 years of aquaculture science

Over 400 participants from 20 nations gathered November 3-7 in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain, to mark the first four decades of the Elsevier Science journalAquaculture, the mainstream journal of the field. Participants celebrated and reflected on progress made in modern aquaculture science in that time frame, and to help chart its future.

The conference focused on promoting aquaculture as a transdisciplinary science and included 12 keynote review presentations from pioneers in the field, as well as invited oral and poster presentations elected by the international scientific organizing committee.

UNE Doherty Professor and Director of the Marine Science Center (MSC) Barry Costa-Pierce, Ph.D., chaired the committee and presented a keynote, “Fisheries-aquaculture for the restoration of ocean ecosystems: A review of interactions between sustainable fisheries, marine ecosystems and aquaculture,” and chaired the symposium’s sessions on interactions of aquaculture and the environment. Costa-Pierce also presented a contributed paper, “A New Social Contract for Shellfish Aquaculture in North America.”

Also presenting at the conference was MSC Assistant Research Scientist Carrie J. Byron, Ph.D., on “Social-ecological systems for the carrying capacity of shellfish aquaculture.”

Costa-Pierce’s plenary address reviewed the inter-linkages between fisheries and aquaculture and how these have often been underplayed in terms of the impacts that aquaculture can have on seafood supplied for the future of 9 billion people. This often requires understanding how fishers respond to declining catches in changing livelihoods.

Costa-Pierce presented examples of how fishing communities’ involvement in aquaculture value chains can provide numerous economically viable alternatives. He called for greater transdisciplinary research to ensure that ecological and social impacts of emerging aquaculture are well understood and negotiated with fisheries stakeholders throughout the world.

Members of the international scientific organizing committee included Costa-Pierce and Brian Austin, University of Stirling, UK; John Benzie, University College Cork, Ireland; Ed Donaldson, West Vancouver Laboratory, Canada; Tony Farrell, University of British Columbia, Canada; Delbert Gatlin, Texas A&M University; Francisco Gomes, Novus, USA; Gideon Hulata, Agricultural Research Organization, Israel; David Little, University of Stirling, UK.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.