to Working Group Homepage (leaving Center for Fisheries Enhancement)FORMATION:
Members of the World Aquaculture Society and fisheries scientists formed an ad-hoc working group on Responsible Stock Enhancement following a special symposium on "Fisheries and Aquaculture" at the Society's 1993 meeting in Torremolinos, Spain. The founding members (representing Japan, Norway, USA, and the Rome, Italy, office of The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) viewed the working group as a way to bring together the world-wide conventional wisdom on stock enhancement to focus on rapid advancement of knowledge and effectiveness in this field of fisheries science. Much of the focus of the working group is on the rapidly advancing field of marine stock enhancement.
Marine stock enhancement (releases into the wild of hatchery-reared organisms that spawn in seawater in order to help replenish or augment natural populations of marine and estuarine organisms) is not a new concept, but its development as a fishery management tool was hampered during most of the 20th century by technological constraints. Because the field of marine stock enhancement is a relatively new branch of science (no papers on its effectiveness published in scientific journals before 1989), there is much work to do to understand its full potential as a fishery management tool.
The World Aquaculture Society (WAS) is an appropriate forum for the Working Group on Stock Enhancement, because new marine aquaculture technologies are providing the impetus for many of the new programs in stock enhancement that are emerging around the world. Promoting a responsible approach to stock enhancement from within the aquaculture community will help instill these principles at the formative stages of new enhancement programs.
One of the goals of the working group is to promote scientific discussion that will lead to the development of guidelines, recommendations and codes of practice for Responsible Stock Enhancement.
Another goal of the working group is to develop a global network of professionals interested in stock enhancement. If you would like to become involved with the global network please contact Lytha Conquest, who is managing the mailing list. If you have questions or input that would be appropriate for the group, consider joining the Discussion Forum at the Stock Enhancement and Sea Ranching homepage, a companion web site linked with the Stock Enhancement Working Group homepage.