Environmental Regulation of Aquaculture - The European Experience Seen from a Danish Perspective

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Environmental Regulation of Aquaculture - The
European Experience Seen from a Danish
Perspective

• Karl Iver Dahl-Madsen
• DHI Water Environment
• to FAME Jun-05, Esbjerg

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A Typical NGO View

• Currently, the Norwegian (Chilean?!) fish-farming
  industry is not sustainable. Along with the
  production of salmon and trout come great
  environmental challenges. The most serious one
  being over-fishing of stocks used for fishmeal
  and fishoil to produce fish feed. Other dangers
  includes discharge of vast amounts of nutrients,
  chemicals and metals, introduction of escaped
  salmonoids to Norwegian watercourses, parasites
  and diseases transferred to the wild stocks, and
  a threat of inducing gene modified fish to
  Norwegian waters

Draft Position Document from WWF-Norway, January
2002 Written by Maren Esmark, mesmark_at_wwf.no
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Food Production Environment

• All food production impact environment
  including aquaculture
• But the proportions
• N-Loss from agriculture in DK 350.000 t/yr
• From Aquaculture 1000 t/yr
• And Fisheries
• Catching 1/3 of all fish production in the North
  Sea is hardly low impact

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The Salmon Farming Image Could be Better But
Can Be Changed

• The Industry (and public servants) needs to
• Take this issue very seriously
• Continue decoupling impact from production
• Be proportionate (and very correct) in its
  description of impacts All food production
  impacts
• Be publicly proud of itself (not arrogant though)
  and visible
• Good Environmental Management is not just a
  scientific and legal issue, but mainly about
  attitudes
• It can go very wrong The Case of Denmark

NGOs Bureaucracy may kill you
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European Regulation

• The political and (bureaucratic) reflex reaction,
  when identifying a new problem
• Make Command Control regulation
• Smother the Industry in Red Tape and hope that
  waiting out for years will make the industry quit
• The future is incentives for the industry to make
  its decoupling and a partnership with authorities
  and NGOs

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Norway Modelling On-growing Fish Farms Monitoring

• Balance No deterioration
• Monitoring Intensity Expertise after 3 degrees
  of influence
• 3 impacted zones Local, Intermediate, Regional

T.C. Telfer and M.C.M. Beveridge1 Institute of
Aquaculture, University of Stirling,
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Scottish Regulation

• 3. Siting Zones
• 1. No Future
• 2. Limited
• 3. Feasible
• Discharge Consent
• Hydrographic Sediment information
• Used in Dispersion Models

T.C. Telfer and M.C.M. Beveridge1 Institute of
Aquaculture, University of Stirling,
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In Greece
S. E. Papoutsoglou Agricultural University of
Athens
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Conclusions on the Comparison

• Complexity
• Diversity, and then enforcement
• Is this a fair playing ground?
• Too much emphasis on analysis and control
• And too little on incentives for solving the
  problem

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What Is Proposed in Denmark

• 1 Blue Zone for Sea Cage Farming
• North Sea not relevant yet
• No New Farms outside blue zone
• Existing to be gradually moved
• No Ceiling for production
• Nitrogen will be limiting though So 100.000 year
  with existing technology

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Regulation System

• Discharge permits for nutrients, etc
• No Food / Production limits! Good practices asked
  on feeding efficiency etc. expected
• Controlled by massbalancesLossFood_In
  Stocking Fish_HarvestedAnd then VAT control!
• Cleaner Technology In a dialogue between the
  fish farmer, a continued decoupling

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Monitoring Plan

• For New Farms (which will all be from 1000 to
  5000 tons/yr) a thorough EIA has to be done
• Mapping of the benthic conditions
• Model simulations of ecological impact
• For small farms monitoring to be discontinued
• Big farms Monitoring until steady state
• If major changes monitoring starts again

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Monitoring Methods

• Fluctuations Not practically and economically
  feasible to monitor in water
• Instead
• Modeling
• Benthic Surveys
• And Biomonitoring in DK, Ulva Lactusa

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Modern Environmental Management of Aquaculture
Recognizes

• That all food productions impact ecology
• That aquaculture is ecological efficient
• Env. impact from aquaculture is generally well
  known
• Env. Management should be simple
• And monitoring kept to a minimum
• Freed resources to be used for decoupling

Simulated algae in Sea of Chiloe
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A Global Lesson for Aquaculture

• This issue is political, and needs political
  decisions
• Irrational stops for seafarming can happen
  anywhere in the world
• Science Technology can produce the desired
  decoupling

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The End