Aug 07 2009
The End of the Line is a powerful film and the world’s first major documentary about one of the world’s most disturbing problems - over-fishing. It gives us an imagination of an ocean without fish, our meals without seafood and the global consequences. This is the future if we do not stop
Allocate your precious time to watch the film at the following link http://endoftheline.com
Aug 02 2009
On 30 July 2009 y, the European Commission launched a call for proposals entirely dedicated to research for Africa. Africa continues to face serious challenges to sustain its development and research can develop solutions. This special initiative for Africa will address some of the science and technology objectives included in the EU-Africa Strategic Partnership agreed on by the European Commission and the African Union Commission in December 2007. Up to €63 million will be allocated to research projects in 2010 aiming to improve health conditions, and water and food security in Africa. Supported research activities will involve African partners, with the aim to strengthen Africa’s research base.
EU Commissioner for Science and Research Janez Potočnik said: “With this “Africa call” we are turning words into actions. The EU-Africa Strategic Partnership is harnessing the potential of science and technology to meet the water, food security and health challenges of Africa. It is getting researchers from Europe and Africa to work together in the true spirit of this Partnership; we are working not only for, but with Africa”.
Promoting cooperation between complementary research areas
This call for proposals is the first one entirely dedicated research initiative for Africa under the EU’s Framework Programme for research (FP7). It brings together several funding Themes under FP7: Health (€39 million), Environment (€17.5 million) and Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology (€6.5 million). The projects selected will involve these various scientific and technological research fields and will also take into account broader socio-economic factors such as migration and resettlement, urbanisation, health care systems, variation of food and energy prices, etc.
Two major issues: “Water and Food Security” and “Better Health for Africa”
The “Africa Call” is structured around two major issues:
The application deadline for the call is 14 January 2010 and projects selected to negotiate grant agreements will be announced by April 2010.
Collaborative research and capacity-building
All projects will involve local stakeholders. Depending on the project, at least 2 or 3 partners must be established in an African country. The projects selected will foster capacity-building through the promotion of academic research and training, the setting up of networks, and the building of sustainable capacity for research for health.
An information Day on 18th September 2009
EU Commissioner Potočnik and a representative from the African Union will open the Information Day on the “Africa call”. Ongoing activities in support of Africa and future prospects in the field of research within the EU-African Strategic Partnership will be presented. A detailed presentation of the call and its topics will be followed by a brokerage session. Participants will have the possibility of giving a ‘2-3 minutes flash’ presentation.
The deadline for registration is 14th September 2009.
Background
The European Commission (EC) and the African Union Commission (AUC) representing 53 African States agreed on an EU / Africa Strategic Partnership during the EU/AU Summit in Lisbon in December 2007. 8 thematic partnerships were identified, the 8th of these being the partnership for Science, Information Society, and Space. In the framework of this 8th Partnership, 19 priority “lighthouse” project areas have already been identified and developed by the African Union. This call covers some of the early deliverables amongst those project areas. The partnership is not only between two Commissions, but also with the 27 and 53 Member States on the two continents, and it is intended to provide a framework for co-ordinated support and delivery of research.
For more information:
Jul 06 2009
Aqua Africa are delighted to report that the first batch of Aquaculture Distance Learning DVDs are complete and have been mailed off. The 4-DVDs include voice, text and photographs pertaining to Aquaculture in Africa, providing an excellent and comprehensive exposure to what the aquaculture industry is all about. Send an email to leslie@aquaafrica.co.za to order.
Jul 03 2009
A workshop focusing on Post-larval Capture and Culture (PCC) technology Marine hatchery management will take place in ARDA, Le Port, Reunion Island (½ hour drive from the WIOMSA venue) from 31st, August – 4th, September 2009
The organizers will not charge you for this workshop. ARDA is organising and funding:
- transportation from St Denis to St Gilles on Sunday 30th August
- transportation from the hotel at St Gilles to the conference venue every day of the workshop
- transportation back to St Denis (airport) after the workshop on the 5th of September.
We can fund neither accommodation nor lunch, dinner or refund change in plane tickets.
But if requested, they can book a hotel room for you in St Gilles (35 euros per person per night).
Discussions and/or aquaculture tours if requested by participants offshore aquaculture cages in Saint-Paul Bay, freshwater hatchery, recirculation systems technology in marine hatchery…
If you wish to attend this workshop, please contact Sophie Vermond (sophievermond@hotmail.com) before the 3rd August 2009, explaining your background and why you are interested in this workshop.
they won’t be able to welcome more than 15 persons. Priority will be given to people involved in the development of aquaculture projects or coastal areas management.
Jun 25 2009
From SUCCESS to RECOMAP and Other Projects
(Extract from the current WIOMSA newsbrief - Courtesy of WIOMSA)
In 2004, the five year Programme, titled Sustainable Coastal Communities and Ecosystems (SUCCESS), was initiated in Eastern Africa and Latin America. Many wondered then, whether the acronym SUCCESS would live up to its name. Four years on, there is consensus amongst partners, peers and the coastal communities that have benefited from the program, that it has indeed been a SUCCESS! The SUCCESS Program was a collaborative initiative of Coastal Resources Center of the University of Rhode Island (CRC-URI) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to promote Integrated Coastal Management, Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture worldwide. In Eastern Africa, the Programme was implemented by the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) in collaboration with the Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) of the University of Dar es Salaam both based in Zanzibar, Tanzania.
The programme’s accomplishments in Tanzania and East Africa were celebrated at a special seminar held in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, on the 11th March 2009. During the event, experts from the project presented their results to stakeholders from the coastal communities, relevant government departments, USAID officials from Washington and the mission in Tanzania, academia, NGOs and other implementing partners. They also held plenary discussions on implications of the Programme and future opportunities.
The highlights of SUCCESS include the introduction of pearl farming; communities in Fumba Peninsular ,Zanzibar have started their own small scale half pearl farms. This follows the production by SUCCESS of the first ever artificial pearls in the region. Shell polishing, which is a part-time activity of the Programme has become a lucrative business earning some women up to 400 USD per month. Milkfish farming has improved from 0.5 tons/ha up to 3 tons/ha, with the prices rising from 0.4 USD up to 4 USD through proper choice of markets and the farms size changing from tens to hundreds of ha. The communities of Fumba Peninsular, especially the women, have become very enterprising.
At the inception of pearl farming, adult oysters were collected from the wild. The practice was found to be unsustainable; accordingly,spat collectors were set and the settling spats cultured to seeding size. Besides being more environmentally friendly, spats produce better animals with less attached parasites – thanks to regular monthly cleaning. The seeding of oysters for pearls, instead of eating into an additional year of their reproductive cycle, has substantially improved the conservation of oysters. This and the establishment of no-take zones has resulted in remarkable recovery of the pearl oyster population at Bweleo; which in 1989 was depleted beyond recovery. Collecting pearl oysters for food has also decreased substantially as the women collectors are now engaged in different income generating activities like pearl farming, shell polishing and marketing, and seaweed farming. Further, the organization of the women into groups by SUCCESS has made it easy for other donors such as the Tanzania Marine and Coastal Environmental Management Project (MACEMP) to provide loans for poultry and agriculture; develop infrastructure for seaweed drying and storage; and construct a building for meetings and display of their commodities.
The Government of Tanzania created a taskforce to develop the National Aquaculture Development Strategy (NADS) and has created a division of aquaculture in the Department of Fisheries, activities that seem to have been influenced by the SUCCESS Programme in some way. The Government is also creating an enabling atmosphere, and proper policy and permiting procedures.
As the SUCCESS Programme ends, new projects are emerging, which are adopting its activities. These include the US State Department exchange training program on jewelry making, the 2 year Regional Program for Sustainable Management of Coastal Zones of the Indian Ocean Countries (ReCoMaP) projects for pearl farming and milkfish farming and MACEMP.
The ReCoMaP program on milkfish farming is developing 1ha demonstration ponds in Tanga, Pemba and Mtwara to complement the Changwahela demonstration sites developed by SUCCESS. At each centre, at least 25 people are trained on all aspects of fish farming in six 5-day training stints (30 man days over the two year period). The trained extension officers are encouraged to develop their own farms with those developing the right type of ponds being rewarded with the installation of a main gate to the pond - an otherwise costly venture. The ReCoMaP project on pearl oyster farming and shell polishing is being carried out in Fumba Peninsular with the aim of consolidating the pearl farming and shell polishing industry from farming through polishing, packaging and marketing. In a related,development, the US State Department in collaboration with IMS have launched a training and exchange program where women entrepreneurs will travel to America to visit their counterparts in the business and trainers from America will come to Zanzibar to conduct training.
It is reasonable to believe that the seed that was sown by SUCCESS is growing.
Group picture of the participants to the closeout meeting, 11th March, 2009
Apr 28 2009
SEAFDEC, based in the Philippines, will come out with a new DVD that has a wealth of information and manuals on various species used in mariculture including seaweeds, milkfish, prawns, mudcrabs and many others. I do not see it on their website “Compendium of Aquaculture Technologies” as I was given a beta version to look at.. Anyone working on mariculture in WIO should get a hold of this when it comes out. Most of the pubs are also available on the website but the DVD puts them all together on one disk that is searchable by species. An excellent resource!
Dec 15 2008
Please go to the following link and read the summary of the shrimp fishery in Madagascar.
povertyenvironment.net/files/CASE%20Madagascar%20shrimps.pdf
I am not sure what report this originally came out of but what is very impressive is that shrimp farming now rivals wild caught shrimp in terms of production at 7000MT in 2003 and employs as many as 4000 people! I wonder why pond mariculture and shrimp farming has not caught on in other places like Kenya and Tanzania. Interesting in that it notes the capture fisheries industry is what drove the investment in shrimp farming…..
Nov 19 2008
Reproduced from the Sea Grant Network listserve:
Mauritius: The introduction of aquaculture
by Pynee Chellapermal (translated from French)
On July 8, 2008, the Mauritian Parliament passed an amendment to the Fisheries and Marine Resources Act (2007) through the Bill of Finance in 2008. Note that the Bill of Finance of the provisions and fiscal measures taken by the Government for fiscal year 2008-2009. Therefore, carrying out this amendment under the Bill of Finance in place of an amendment directly to the law on fisheries and marine resources, depriving citizens of the desirability of a real debate and make a critical analysis of the amendments.
These amendments are intended to enable the development of aquaculture in the lagoon and outside the lagoon. Section 8C of the bill speaks of ‘Concessions on portions of the lagoon and sea for aquaculture projects for a period of 20 years initially, then renewable for periods of 10 consecutive years. These concessions will be granted to both
Mauritian and foreign investors and will be denied access to traditional users including fishermen, boaters, divers and practicing water sports. Violations are punishable by fines and even imprisonment.
These amendments have prompted the reaction of the Mauritian society and in particular fishermen’s associations, NGOs, associations of boaters, skipper, some operators in the tourism sector such as the Association of divers, service providers in the field of sports Sailing, environmentalists and ordinary citizens. All these organizations and civil society movements came together in a platform that took the name of Kalipso (Calypso in French) to oppose aquaculture activities in the lagoon and sea, and to advocate for restoration the right of the public on Wednesday
Kalipso platform for the amendments that were passed constitute an unprecedented openness toward privatization of the sea, especially as the concessionaire rushing to mark his concession and that will control and administration ‘.
Also according Kalipso, ‘Apart from the disastrous impacts that aquaculture will have on the environment, other sectors including the social fabric, economic growth linked to tourism, food security for the poor, the quality of our tourist destination marine biodiversity and aspects practices related to safety at sea ‘, will suffer negative impacts.
Also, aquaculture activities in the lagoon and sea will constitute a serious infringement of freedom of movement on Wednesday, freedom guaranteed by our Constitution and the Civil Code (Article 538) which states that the sea forms the common heritage What the public domain that is not owned by the state, which may be subject to private ownership and is inalienable and imprescriptible.
Today the question of compatibility between the activities of offshore aquaculture and sustainable development is very pertinent . Several countries, which have embarked on similar activities, have had some problems and had to abandon their activities.
Oct 08 2008
With exception of seaweed farming and may be the long story on shrimp farming mariculture was insignificant in the WIO region untill about half a decade ago. Today it is not so insignificant. The news is, of the 29 projects that have just been launched by ReCoMaP 24% are mariculture projects. The mariculture projects have been narrowly overtaken by coastal erosion that forms 25%. To read more about this including the ranking of the recipient countries please click “http://www.recomap-io.org/downloads/publications/nl/nl5.pdf” for their newletter. There are also very interesting aquaculture discussions at “http//www.sarnissa.org“. SARNISSA is an acronymn for “Sustainable Aquaculture Research Networks in Sub Saharan Africa”. This is by all means good news to mariculturists and please lets get the spirit running.
I am kindly inviting forum authors and subscribers to post interesting information for all of us to share. The national authors can post directly to the forum while the subscribers can send files to the national coordinators or to me mmochi@ims.udsm.ac.tz copied to mmochi2003@yahoo.co.uk. I would also like to remind you that all subscribers can comment to a post by clicking “responses” after logging in and a window will open for your comments.
CHEERS
Mmochi