World Aquaculture - December 2014

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2 DECEMBER 2014 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S.ORG
P re s i dent ’ s C olumn
As I write this, Christmas decorations are
starting to appear in the gardens of Adelaide and
what looks like being a long dry summer is about to
descend on us as the year spins by. South Australia
is the driest state in Australia and yet, along with
Tasmania, has the greatest aquaculture activity. It’s
somewhat counterintuitive to think of aquaculture
expanding in dry areas but here at WAS we are seeing
a significant growth of interest in aquaculture in arid
areas, particularly in the Middle East. A reliable source
of quality water is a pre-requisite for any aquaculture
operation and a basic fact is that our animals live in water. Thus,
as aquaculturists, we treasure that water and invest heavily in
conserving it and maintaining a quality conducive to profitable
production. Aquaculture is actually one of the most drought-resistant
forms of primary production!
The Asia-Pacific Chapter organized an Aridland Aquaculture
Symposium and Workshops last year. Also, our immediate Past
President Michael Schwarz is heavily involved and formally
representing WAS in the Global Forum for International Agriculture
(GFIA) initiative, which is emphasizing climate-smart agriculture
with a focus on the Middle East and Africa, and also in the
upcoming Middle East Aquaculture Forum (MEAF). The second
GFIA meeting is being held next year on March 9-10 in Abu Dhabi
and the first MEAF meeting follows in Dubai April 5-6. These are
meetings towards which WAS is contributing and sponsoring and,
in the case of GFIA, ensuring that aquaculture has a profile as an
important component of climate-smart agriculture.
Shifting attention farther south, and a
development that I am following closely, we are
moving forward in the planning and organization of
our first WAS conference in Africa. This will be held
in Cape Town, South Africa from June 26-30, 2017. I
signed the agreement for this conference with Roger
Krohn of the Aquaculture Association of Southern
Africa during the conference in Adelaide earlier this
year and the first steering committee meeting was
held last month in Cape Town. The conference in
South Africa will represent an exciting opportunity to bring together
the global aquaculture community with aquaculturists throughout
Africa to discuss the latest technologies and opportunities for
aquaculture development. The conference theme is Sustainable
Aquaculture - New Frontiers for Economic Growth. My personal
interest comes from having spent some considerable time in the
region working on an aquaculture development project with the
University of Stellenbosch in the late 1990s. In addition to the
interest around this being our first meeting in the region, this
happens also to be a spectacularly beautiful part of the world with
plenty to interest delegates outside of aquaculture. Nonetheless, the
conference will have a significant challenge in encouraging and
supporting participation from aquaculturists throughout the sub-
continent, in particular, which includes some countries that remain
among the least economically developed in the world.
Contents (continued)
Society
2 President’s Column
3 Editor’s Note
4 USAS Report
4 Asian Pacific Chapter Report
5 Korean Chapter Report
5 Latin American and Caribbean Chapter Report
69 Financial Report
70 Conference Calendar
71 Future Conferences and Expositions
72 Advertisers’ Index
72 Membership Application
( C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 9 )
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