Matt Thompson is a senior aquaculture specialist with the Aquarium’s Sustainable Seafood Programs (SSP). He is blogging from the Seafood Summit in Hong Kong. The Seafood Summit brings all those concerned with sustainable seafood together in a conference to identify challenges and look for solutions.  



Today, I had the great pleasure to moderate a panel at the Seafood Summit, it was entitled: “Untapped potential for sustainability: Exploring aquaculture innovation in Asian aquaculture.” The purpose of the panel was to call leading experts to give their opinions on some of the most effective technologies and practices in Asian aquaculture and identify how they can used in other global aquaculture industries to reduce the environmental and social impact of aquaculture.

My panel consisted of Dr. Malcolm Beveridge an aquaculture scientist from Worldfish Center who uses his extensive knowledge of the industry to tackle the environmental challenges of aquaculture, as well as poverty and hunger in the developing World; Olav Jamtøy from a company named Genomar that raises improved tilapia by selectively breeding them for things like faster growth ; Robins McIntosh, from CP Thailand, who is a pioneer in shrimp farming and actively works to move this improving industry towards ever better and more responsible practices, Dr. Rohana Subasinghe, a globally recognized leader that works with the FAO to analyze and predict trends in global aquaculture.

Collectively, the panel showed that Asian aquaculture was a leader in production in fish farming and had some of the most efficient fish farming systems globally. We all agreed that there is an opportunity to learn from these producers to increase global aquaculture production, which was important as we face a large shortfall in seafood supply relative to the demand of future generations. Another issue was that despite the rapid growth in aquaculture production, the numbers are below what they need to be to meet the growing demand. The panel highlighted challenges for the industry, including feed, technology, and finance. Disease and biosecurity (techniques to prevent the introduction of disease) were also identified, with Dr. Subasinghe highlighting that the annual losses from diseases in aquaculture cost around $6 billion. But innovation, creating ideas and technological solutions to address challenges in aquaculture, could offer us a way to expedite an increase in seafood production while addressing its environmental challenges. Innovations learned from shrimp and tilapia farming, such as selective breeding and biosecurity can improve efficiencies to, as Robins put it, we can “get more from less”. These innovations have the potential to be transferred to other aquaculture industries, especially the smaller-scale fish farmers that form the majority of the people working in aquaculture, around the world to increase production, profitability and food security – all while reducing aquacultures environmental footprint. My thanks again to the panel.

From the left, Me, Dr. Rohana Subasinghe, Dr. Malcolm Beveridge, Robins McIntosh, Olav Jamtøy

While there are great innovations in Asian aquaculture, there are also ongoing challenges. Additionally, innovations may not be used by all the farmers in the industry, making it important to source seafood from farms that make meaningful efforts to reduce their environmental impact.

– Matt

Matt Thompson is a senior aquaculture specialist with the Aquarium’s Sustainable Seafood Programs (SSP). He is going to be blogging from the Seafood Summit in Hong Kong. The Seafood Summit brings all those concerned with sustainable seafood together in a conference to identify challenges and look for solutions. 


The Summit kicked off with a special program about the future of sustainable ecolabelling and certification in the seafood marketplace. Generally, an ecolabel or certification is a logo shown on a package of seafood that tells the customer that that product has met certain environmental requirements. There are many differences between certification schemes, for example some may be self-certified, whereas others are termed “third party” meaning that separate entities develop, audit and verify compliance with the content of the standards. The USDA organic logo is an example of a third-party certification - but you won’t find as USDA organic logo on seafood anytime soon, since no standard has yet been defined for these products. Several speakers, including the Sustainable Seafood Programs' own Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Meghan Jeans, offered their perspectives on seafood certification. Meghan highlighted the benefits of having the requirements for certification being defined by a diverse committee of representatives, such as fish farmers and conservation organizations like the Aquarium. In this way, the requirements developed would likely be more effective at addressing the concerns of the various stakeholders throughout the seafood industry. 



The meeting continued with another panel of representatives of seafood certification schemes, including the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Global Aquaculture Alliance Best Aquaculture Practices. Each group presented its thoughts on another important factor of certification: To what degree that they drive fisheries or fish farms to reduce their environmental impacts in order to meet the goals of certification – with each one highlighting ways in which they believed they had an impact.

Another initiative that the Aquarium is a key player in was also presented at the meeting: the Global Seafood Sustainability Initiative (GSSI). GSSI will compare certifications on their content and how they operate, in order to highlight those that meet various stakeholders requirements for “credible” certification – this is important as the current situation has been described as “watching a football (soccer) match with no rules and no referee” (Aldin Hilbrands, Royal Ahold).




The meeting generated significant interest, and highlighted the amount of work that had gone into these schemes, as well as that still to do. One aspect that was clear though was how influential the New England Aquarium has been in this area; with many of the standards, improvements in the schemes, and improvements in the seafood certification industry being informed directly, or indirectly, using the expertise of Aquarium staff.

Matt Thompson is a senior aquaculture specialist with the Aquarium’s Sustainable Seafood Programs (SSP). He is going to be blogging from the Seafood Summit in Hong Kong. The Seafood Summit brings all those concerned with sustainable seafood together in a conference to identify challenges and look for solutions. 



Before the Summit gets going full swing, I feel it’s important to explain why it’s being held here in Hong Kong (not that I’m complaining). It’s largely down to the role that Asia, and particularly China, has both as a major producer and consumer of seafood.



The growing middle class in Asia will have significant purchasing power that will influence global seafood markets. It’s important then, that consumers and producers in Asia – as in the U.S. - become more aware of the issues surrounding seafood sustainability, and use their buying power to drive improvements.

 


Being a tourist: Matt with (wax) Bruce Lee

I arrived in Hong Kong yesterday and was immediately hit by the mix of British and Asian cultures. The buses, for example, could have been lifted straight off the roads in London and not least because they also drive on the left side of the road.


Double-decker buses

I spent the day getting acquainted with my new surroundings and the efficient subway system (curiously they use an “octopus” card to get around, but the card itself is devoid of images of an actual octopus). I hit some of the tourist hotspots including the views from the Peak, the Chi Lin Nunnery, and the Nan Lian Garden.


 Chi Lin Nunnery


Nan Lian Gardens

I look forward to reporting back on the nitty gritty of the meetings when things begin in earnest.