Central Grand Plaza Hotel. This latest update on an earlier announcement in FAN No. 20 gives a short background and rationale for the Conference and explains its structure and programme organization as revised recently by the Steering Committee. Since the first global technical conference in Kyoto in 1976, aquaculture has gained steady progress in most parts of the world. Its global growth has outstripped by a factor of 2-4 that of meat production in the livestock industry. In Asia, and particularly in countries like China (1.23 million tons in 1979 to 15.31 million tons in 1996), Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, aquaculture, including culture-based fisheries, has greatly outpaced the growth in livestock production. Africa, Latin America, northern Europe, and Oceania have not produced the volume and variety of products Asian aquaculture has, but recently, their growth has been displaying even higher relative increases than Asia’s. But throughout the world — and especially in the developing countries where government policies have been driven by the urgency of having to feed people adequately, lessen the incidence of poverty and contribute to the national economy — a host of problems has loomed threatening the sustainable expansion of aquaculture. Sustaining Growth and Development Aquaculture, which has come of age techno-logically since Kyoto 1976, has been crossing yet another threshold during the last decade of this century. The applicability of technology and management systems which laid the foundation for, and fuelled rapid growth during the early years of the sector’s development have been challenged by new |
development paradigms involving complex issues of environment, resource allocation, distribution of benefits, and community participation in development processes. Application of technology has now to be measured as much by its impacts on ecology and on future generations as on its effect on productivity. Moreover, increasing international trade in aquaculture and seafood products and the trend towards globalization have moved local activities into the global spotlight. As a result, many interest groups, including governments, economic blocs, and non-government organizations, are making demands that translate all the way to how farmers should conduct farming. The need was felt to address, in a broad and cooperative manner, the issues related to sustainable aquaculture development, food security and poverty alleviation, equity in the access to development benefits, participation in development processes, environmental mana-gement, and human resources development, which have become high priority policy and development concerns of governments and widely seen to remain so in the foreseeable future. The Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA), an intergovernmental organization spawned by the Kyoto Conference of 1976, currently composed of 14 member countries and territory (most of its regional activities also involve 6 more countries), programmed into its work agenda for the period 1990-94 an international conference on aquaculture. Subsequent experiences and results from a number of projects and conferences — in cooperation with ADB, FAO, UNDP and other international and regional organizations — examined, clarified and defined many of the issues facing sustainable growth of aquaculture in Asia. These activities have built up a capital of expertise in the NACA organization. However, while illuminating many issues, the studies also raised more questions which fuelled the sense of urgency for the global conference. This Conference was endorsed by NACA’s Governing Council in 1995, gained shape and substance from various forums and discussions during the following two years, and was finalized in 1998 after FAO offered to cooperate with NACA and bring, among others, the inputs that will provide the global perspective to the Conference. |
