The long and bumpy journey: Taiwan׳s aquaculture development and management

This paper presents an overview of Taiwan׳s aquaculture development and management, focusing on the transition of the industry and the current management measures that particularly address environmental effects, ecolabels and diversification into tourism and ornamental fish business. Since the late 1980s when Taiwan׳s aquaculture in its heyday was pounded by emergent environmental problems, a policy was established on enhancing governance over aquaculture, in seeking to transform it towards an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable industry. The paper shows that positive outcomes have been achieved after the policy measures have been implemented over the past two decades. However, potential challenges of ongoing environmental impacts, conflicts regarding multiple sea uses, concerns on seafood safety, lack of management of “black” farms, low market penetration of ecolabeled products and lack of participative management were identified. It argues for the need to encourage ICZM programs to solve sea use conflicts and minimize environmental impacts, reduce “black farms” to fill the management gap, enhance market shares of ecolabeled products and a transition to a more participative mode of governance.     

河道下河排污口污染源调查及测量方法研究

随着城市建设的高速发展,城市人口急剧增长,工业废水和生活污水的排放量日益增加,随之而来的环境污染也日趋严重。为还市民一个良好的生活和居住环境,让城市的水变清、草变绿,各地区政府把河道及其流域的污染治理纳入重要工作日程。本文通过对河道污染产生原因分析,探讨了污染源的调查和测量方法,以及排水管线成果图编制和污染源管理系统建设工作。     

The sustainable development goals: A case study

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs [44] are an ambitious step towards sustainable development, taking a much broader view of sustainability than ever achieved previously, yet practical challenges remain, including how to implement change. The aims of this research were to determine how an influential aquaculture company in Australia - Tassal, Tasmania's largest salmon aquaculture company - perceived the SDGs, and to ascertain the motivations and barriers for Tassal to work towards implementing the goals. Interviews were conducted with leaders, employees and external business partners. Tassal was not aware of the SDGs prior to this project, but were open to considering implementing them in their current sustainability practices. The survey responses were analysed using the Values-Rules-Knowledge (vrk) framework of decision making. Key findings were: 1) corporate and personal values were the key component driving Tassal's positive responses to the SDGs; 2) awareness of the SDGs resulted in Tassal recognising the potential gains from engaging with some of the seemingly less aquaculture-related goals (such as health and wellbeing). These findings demonstrate that businesses can fruitfully engage with the SDGs, even without government requirements or societal expectations, if they are prepared to broaden their interpretation of business sustainability and be reflective about their values. The vrk model is a potentially useful addition to current SDG and sustainability tools, such as those of the UN Global Compact, as a way to diagnose organisational barriers to adopting practices aligned with the SDGs. An emerging area of importance to social, economic and environmental sustainability – social license – was also identified as implicit in many, but not explicit in any of the SDGs.     

Seacage aquaculture in a World Heritage Area: The environmental footprint of a Barramundi farm in tropical Australia

The fate of aquaculture wastes from a seacage farm within a pristine mangrove environment was studied. Seasonal and tidal differences were most important in determining water quality within receiving waters and obscured any nutrient enrichment effect by the farm. Farm wastes added significantly to the N budget status of the creek system, but overall water quality conformed to Queensland EPA Water Quality standards. Mangrove trees throughout the creek system contained ¹⁵N signatures traceable to aquaculture feeds, but the footprint of the farm itself was best indicated by the ratio of Zn:Li in sediments. The creek became hypoxic (<2 mg l⁻¹) during wet season low tides. Consequently, we recommended monitoring of water-column oxygen concentrations to warn of hypoxic conditions threatening to fish health, as well as Zn:Li ratios in sediment accumulation zones to determine the area of influence of the farm.     

Using of the Ornamental Fish in Wastewater Biological Treatment

Breeding ornamental fish in wastewater was a successful solution not only to decrease sanitary risks but also to encourage fish growth. In fact, the secondary treated effluent was used to grow a walking catfish (Clarias batrachus), a western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis; Poeciliidae), and a leopard pleco (Glyptoperichthys gibbiceps). The growth rate of fish reared in final treated wastewater was significantly higher than of treated effluent (25 and 50%) and the relative growth rate during 2 months reached 2, 4, and 2.5, respectively. Bacterial loads were important in the gills compared to other fish organs (intestine, skin, and edible muscles). However, the total aerobic germs ranged between 2 × 10³ and 3.4 × 10³ cfu/g in the edible fish species cultured in secondary treated effluent. The pathogenic bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila was absent in all examined fish muscles. However, the presence of tested fishes did not prevent the reduction of the treatment biological parameter (BOD and COD) at half, in the three treated wastewater proportions (25, 50, and 100%) and thereafter, they clearly participated to the tertiary biological treatment of used water. Further bacteriological and physico‐chemical analyses indicated that the use of treated wastewater in aquaculture is safe and risks to human health are reduced.     

Influence of tuna penning activities on soft bottom macrobenthic assemblages

The influence of tuna penning on soft bottom habitat present in the vicinity of tuna pens and at distances 200 m and 1.5 km away, was assessed by comparing attributes of macroinvertebrate assemblages and sediment quality before (November 2000, March 2001) and after (November 2001, April 2002) initiation of the activity. Results from November 2001 indicated a significant increase in sediment organic carbon and organic nitrogen, and a non-significant increase in the abundance of Capitellidae in the vicinity of the cages. Similar results were obtained 200 m from the cages but not 1.5 km away, where the only change was a significant increase in organic nitrogen in sediment. Results from April 2002 indicated no significant change in sediment organic carbon and organic nitrogen, however, mean sediment grain size decreased significantly in the immediate vicinity of the cages. Changes in attributes of the benthic assemblages and sediment resulted from accumulation of uneaten feed-fish on the seabed.     

The imperishable controversy over aquaculture

Fish farming has been a recurring topic of debate, not the least in the news media. The media is an important source of information about the aquaculture industry and its products to the public. However, the media is also an important debate arena, enabling representatives of the public, stakeholders, authorities, and the industry to engage in discussions as well as to influence policy and regulations. This paper focuses on the continuous debates in news media, the topics and storylines discussed, the various actors participating, and their arguments. Through a study of the content, positions, and producers of debate contributions in nine Norwegian newspapers, this paper sheds light on the public debate on aquaculture and the present controversies. Drawing on discourse theory, it is argued that the concept of discursive conflicts offers important insights into the controversies surrounding aquaculture. Discourse coalitions unite seemingly dissimilar and independent actors, and shared story lines provide political momentum, reduce complexity and reify the debate. However, such coalitions also contribute to maintaining the debate in a deadlock.     

Comments on FAOs State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA 2016)

Comments are provided on several points in the 2016 State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). It is shown that data assembled by FAO from submissions by countries suggest a “stable” trend mainly because the declining catches of a number of countries with reliable statistics is compensated for by unreliable statistics from countries where reporting increasing catches may be politically expedient, e.g., China, Myanmar. Also, concerns are raised as to why FAO chose to ignore the well-documented data ‘reconstruction’ process, which fills the gaps that exist in data reported by countries to FAO. It is being ignored despite its importance for governance and resource conservation being well known. This process and its findings could be used by FAO to encourage countries to improve their data reporting, including retroactive corrections. This is important in view of successive analyses of the status of fisheries resources undertaken by FAO (published in current and past SOFIAs) and also in modified form by the Sea Around Us. This suggests a degradation of marine fisheries, and, if trends continue, a crisis by mid-century. Finally, comments are presented on the proposition that aquaculture will overtake wild capture fisheries in terms of food production, notably because current aquaculture requires huge quantities of wild-caught fish as feed. Indeed, this emphasis on aquaculture-as-substitute for fisheries raises issues of food security and malnutrition in developing countries, from which much of the fish used as feed originates.     

Temporal variability in predator presence around a fin fish farm in the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea

Recently, aquaculture has generated worldwide interest as a result of the overexploitation of wild stocks combined with a growing international demand for fish and seafood products. Wild fish attracted to the marine fish farms, together with the presence of the farmed fish, are powerful attractants to predators that normally feed on similar or identical fish stocks in nature. This 9‐year study describes for the first time in Mediterranean waters the temporal variability of mammalian and avian predators in a coastal fin fish farm. In all, 99 months (1062 days during 36 consecutive seasons) were spent in the field. By examining the results of this study, it is clear that species as seagulls, shags, bottlenose dolphins and grey herons (considered to cause economic loss in aquaculture owing to direct predation) interact regularly with the fish farm. Although bottlenose dolphins and grey herons were not the most important of all predator species, predatory interactions with the fish farm occurred with what seems to be increasing regularity. Another result observed is the possible bottlenose dolphins’ attraction caused by the harvesting operations in the fish farm. The fish farm offers an alternative food source for predators; hunting at fish farms usually requires less effort on the part of the predator, and becomes a more attractive option than hunting wild fish over wide ranges. During the period of this study, individually identified dolphins feeding were regularly observed feeding on discarded fish from fish farm workers during harvesting operations, supporting the possibility that some individuals are habituated to this food supply. Based on the evidence presented in this paper, it is recommended that strategies for the management of both the aquaculture industry and marine mammal populations should take the results of this study into consideration.     

垃圾填埋场污泥灰改性黏土衬垫的强度特性及微观结构

为评价污泥灰改性黏土作为填埋场衬垫防渗材料的可行性,分析污泥灰改性黏土强度特性及孔隙结构,针对受垃圾渗沥液腐蚀的纯黏土与污泥灰掺量为1%～5%的改性黏土,采用直接剪切试验分析其抗剪强度变化规律,采用低温氮气吸附试验分析剪切变形后试样的孔隙结构组成。结果表明,改性黏土属于VI型等温线,并存在H3型滞后环,且2～6 nm介孔的数量占比较大。受垃圾渗沥液腐蚀后,黏土抗剪强度大幅下降,黏聚力与内摩擦角分别下降60.12%和19.17%;黏土的最大氮气吸附量降低16.19%,且孔隙分布双肩峰发育不完全;随污泥灰添加量的增加,改性黏土抗剪强度增大,且孔隙分布逐渐恢复双肩峰形式,总孔容增大。