WWF and Sustainable Aquaculture The Way Forward

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WWF and Sustainable Aquaculture The Way Forward

• Jason W. Clay, Ph.D.
• Vice President
• Center for Conservation Innovation, WWF-US

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Why WWF and Aquaculture?

• The largest environmental NGO, responsibility to
  look at global trends, impacts and opportunities
• Limits of traditional conservation approaches
• Interests in reducing impacts of human use of
  natural resources
• Concerns about the impacts of fishing
• Aquaculture is the fastest growing food
  production system globally

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WWFs Experience with Shrimp Aquaculture

• Study to compare impacts of shrimp aquaculture
  vs. shrimp trawling
• Shrimp aquaculture has large impacts but more
  potential to improve
• The industry is extremely profitable and will not
  disappear, so performance needs to be improved
• Considerable conflict between NGOs and shrimp
  producers

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How did WWF engage on the shrimp aquaculture
issue?

• Distributed our findings on trawling vs.
  aquaculture for comment
• Prepared an internal position paper on shrimp
  aquaculture to guide engagement
• Facilitated dialogue between industry and NGOs
• Obtained funding for research on shrimp
  aquaculture impacts and ways to reduce them
• Created a consortium (WWF/NACA/WB/FAO) to guide
  research

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The Shrimp Consortiums work

• Identified key stakeholders
• Hosted an initial meeting to discuss the science
  relating to environmental and social impacts
• Used the initial meeting to identify areas of
  agreement and disagreement as well as data gaps
• Developed a 3-year work plan, drafted TORs for 25
  studies, and vetted researchers for studies
• Made all this information available
  electronically to those who could not attend the
  meeting

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What did we do?

• 3-yr, 1 MM project to identify analyze the
  main impacts and BMPs to address them
• 40 case studies, 140 researchers, 20 countries
• Global to specific case studies
• Presented findings at 140 meetings, reaching some
  8,000 people
• Synthesis translated and all cases posted on
  www.enaca.org/shrimp

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What did we find?

• 8-10 activities cause 2/3 to 3/4 of impacts
• 3-5 activities cause most impacts on a single
  farm
• BMPs reduce impacts to acceptable levels
• Most BMPs pay for themselves within 2-3 years
• Social BMPs are surprisingly important for
  reducing impacts increasing profits
• Greatest barriers to adoption of BMPs are lack of
  info overall profitability without them

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Where is the shrimp work headed?

• Present findings to new audiences
• Adapt BMPs to different producer realities
• Develop standards to measure results with regard
  to key impacts
• Create BMP-based screens to guide investments
• Evaluate existing certification programs against
  our findings/standards
• Create a meaningful certification program

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What were the lessons learned?

• Focus on key impacts, not laundry lists
• Focus on better, not best practices
• Todays BMP is tomorrows norm
• Regulations encourage compliance, not innovation
• Need to focus on and measure results and not be
  prescriptive
• Innovation results from showing people how to
  think rather than telling them what to think/do
• Focus on cumulative and on-farm impacts

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What other lessons did we learn?

• Reduce impacts by closing production systems, but
  not overnight
• Increase efficiency of input use
• Reduce wastes and/or create by-products
• Collect data about key impacts and segregate it
  to identify retire more marginal areas
• Better managed operations have better returns and
  fewer impacts
• Tighter markets force efficiency to survive

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WWFs other work on aquaculture

• Identified 10 other species for work through 05
• Commission studies to understand global impacts
• Analyze global market trends to identify key
  players and points of entry
• Convene species-specific meetings to identify
  major impacts, BMPs and areas where work is
  needed
• Develop 2-3 year work plans for each

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The Oromo of Ethiopia say that you cant wake a
person whos pretending to sleep.

• Aquaculture is here to stay
• Mistakes have been made but can be reduced
• We need to analyze its impacts in comparison to
  taking those products from the wild
• Most innovation and learning is happening in
  production facilities and we need to capture
  those lessons
• We need to reduce the time it takes to get
  reliable information on impacts into the public
  domain