Aquatic foods play a vital role in healthy and sustainable food systems around the world, but their dietary, economic, and ecological values are often undervalued and overlooked by society. This is especially evident when comparing society’s treatment of aquatic foods to terrestrial foods, and t his disparity is even great er for aquatic foods produced from aquaculture.
In the North Atlantic region, wild capture fisheries are long-held, traditional activities with special rights and privileges. Governed by regulations guided by global agreements, the industry benefits from relatively straightforward, single-source government policies. These regulations are complemented by well-organized stakeholder networks, coordinated data streams, and scientific cooperation, facilitating an established science-policy interface essential for sustaining wild capture fisheries.
Yet, in recent decades, landings from wild capture fisherie s have declined while aquaculture production has increased . As demand for aquatic foods continues to rise, the North Atlantic region faces increasing pressure to meet this demand from aquaculture using sustainable practices at a faster pace . Unlike capture fisheries, a quaculture is typically a national competency where sharing best practices is not the norm . To confront the mounting pressure to sustainably meet escalating demands, governments must navigate intricate environmental, economic, and social factors inherent to this multifaceted sector. Collaboration and collective intelligence are imperative.
This presentation will argue that international scientific cooperation and independent, consensus-driven scientific advice is needed to support the demand for high-quality aquatic foods that are produced according to globally agreed best practices. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is an international, inter-governmental organization that has long provided consensus-based, independent scientific advice to national governments, RFMOs and the European Union on the sustainable exploitation and management of marine commercial fisheries. Today, ICES’ work on aquaculture is part of a wider portfolio of work under the Ecosystem Approach that seeks to advance and share scientific understanding of marine ecosystems and the services they provide, and to use this knowledge to generate state-of-the-art advice for meeting conservation, management, and sustainability goals . This presentation will highlight successful case studies where scientific cooperation and independent advice has facilitated the development of sustainable marine resource policies and practices, and it will encourage discussion on how stakeholders, industry, science, and policy makers can work together to support sustainable aquaculture in the region.