2nd SPC Regional Aquaculture Meeting, New Caledonia, 20–24th November 2006 (12/2006)
Thursday, 02 November 2006 00:00

By Ben Ponia

 

In November 2006, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community hosted a regional meeting of aquaculturists from government, private sector and academia. The theme of the meeting — “Pacific aquaculture: Sustainability through diversity and cooperation" — reflects the challenges of building on the unique and diverse characteristics of the Pacific through regional collaboration. During the meeting, participants identified regional trends, priority commodities and a regional work plan, all of which will serve as the basis for a new Aquaculture Action Plan for the Pacific Islands region.

 

Background and introduction

 

The 1st SPC Regional Aquaculture Meeting, held in 2002 at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, was an important milestone as it heralded the beginning of the first truly regional aquaculture programme within the Pacific. A major output of this meeting was the formulation of the SPC Aquaculture Action Plan 2002,[1] which subsequently provided significant guidance to the region.

 

Nearly five years after that inaugural meeting, the aquaculture sector has undergone significant changes. There are new developments to report on within the region, and there is a wider awareness of the role that aquaculture can play, particularly in terms of local food supply and trade. With aquaculture now firmly established as a primary development option for the Pacific, the task of this regional gathering was to review current and anticipated trends, and to take a forward thinking approach so that governments and the private sector are well placed to take advantage of their circumstances.

 

The 1st SPC Regional Aquaculture Meeting adopted the theme “Building Capacity for Aquaculture in the Pacific”. The theme for the 2nd SPC Regional Aquaculture Meeting was “Pacific Aquaculture: Sustainability through diversity and cooperation”, which reflects the challenges of building upon the unique and diverse characteristics of the Pacific through regional collaboration.

 

SPC provided funding for 20 country representatives (although some were unable to participate) and several international resource persons. A number of key institutions within the region were also present, such as the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR), United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Sub-regional Office for the Pacific (SAPA) in Samoa, French Institute for Research and Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) in New Caledonia, Institute of Marine Resources in Fiji, Network of Aquaculture Centres (NACA) in Thailand, University of Guam, University of Hawaii, Sea Grant College Program, University of the South Pacific (USP) in Fiji, Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries in Australia, and the WorldFish Center in New Caledonia. A number of private sector representatives gave presentations to the plenary, including Justin Hunter (Hunter Pearls Ltd, Fiji) and Emmanuel Malpot (Tropical Fish, Tahiti).

 

Meeting objectives were to:

 

review country reports;

assess regional status and trends;

present special presentations of emerging technology, commodities or development themes;

formulate a regional work programme; and

update the SPC Aquaculture Action Plan.

 

All documents and presentations are available on CD-ROM.[2]

 

Country reports and statistics

 

Prior to the meeting, country pages on the SPC Aquaculture web-portal www.spc.int/aquaculture were updated with information from meeting representatives. Country reports at the meeting plenary were delivered from the web using the aquaculture portal as the backdrop.

 

The result of updating the aquaculture portal has been more comprehensive and accurate information on each member country page. From the country presentations, it was evident that several countries in the region have expanded and diversified their aquaculture sector, in particular French Polynesia and Fiji. Several countries that previously did not have any aquaculture commodities reported on the aquaculture portal, have now been included: Penaeus vannamei prawn farming in the Northern Marianas, and freshwater shrimp (Macrobrachium lar) farming in Wallis and Futuna.

 

With an average of 110,000 hits and 2700 unique visitors per month, the aquaculture portal is becoming an important clearinghouse mechanism. During the meeting, there was a call for participants to use the portal more, and in particular, to contribute to the statistics and contacts database. SPC will soon release a CD-ROM of the entire aquaculture web-portal, which can be viewed from the computer with exactly the same features and information as the Internet-based version.

 

Status and trends

 

During the meeting, working groups were established to assess regional trends in aquaculture. Trends were grouped thematically, similar to the method used by the FAO State of the World Aquaculture Report 2006. The working groups made the following findings.

 

Production: Environment, Species, Quantities and Values: There has been an increase in of volume production, particularly marine and freshwater shrimp, kappaphycus seaweed, and tilapia. There is also increase in value among some commodities, particularly ornamental species such as giant clam. There has also been improvement in price per gram of cultured pearls in recent years.

Markets and Trade: A lack of quarantine and food safety standards was noted to be an impediment to trade.

Contribution to Food Security and Access to Food: Aquaculture can provide subsistence food, backyard farming and cash opportunities to improve household buying power. It was noted that fresh reef fish is becoming scarce and expensive, and that aquaculture could be an important source of local produce in some places.

Resource Use and the Environment:  There is more diverse use of natural resources and the environment for aquaculture. This increases the need for bio-security capacity and best-management practices.

Legal, Institutional and Management Aspects: Legislation is lacking in many areas and incentives for investors need to be developed.

Social Impacts, Employment and Poverty Reduction: There is a paucity of information to judge the impact of aquaculture. In order to get an objective analysis of the benefits of aquaculture, there needs to be a better system for measuring socioeconomic impacts (e.g. urban drift).

 

Regional work programme

 

Meeting participants developed a five-year work programme that focused both on commodities and cross-sectoral linkages. The work programme activities will serve as a guide and will assist SPC and other regional and international agencies to coordinate their activities.

 

In the Aquaculture Action Plan formulated at the 1st SPC Aquaculture Meeting in 2002, the main work programme strategy was to focus resources on developing aquaculture commodities with the most potential to make a regional impact. Eight key commodities were identified as priorities for the region: coral, giant clam, Macrobrachium shrimp, milkfish, pearl, sea cucumber, seaweed and tilapia. At the 2006 regional meeting, four more commodities were added to the priority list: mud crab, penaeid prawn, marine finfish and trochus.

 

After identifying key commodities a development plan for each commodity was drafted. Each commodity has a log frame with a matrix of objectives, actions, and indicators for development.

 

After deliberating on commodity-specific issues, the working groups turned their attention to a broader perspective in order to identify cross-sectoral priorities for aquaculture development. The findings are summarized below.

 

Information: Organisations need to determine their stakeholder requirements for information, and find ways to deliver information. One-stop shops such as the aquaculture portal are an example of the types of tools that can be developed. Information should also be sensitive to target groups (e.g. language used and media type).

Training: Care must be taken in choosing the right person for training and, given the scarce resources available, the training must also have greatest impact. For each of the priority commodities the working group identified the list of skills lacking to develop the commodity, the level of training required, and the recipients for training.

Research and development: Efforts to promote collaboration should continue and sub-networks established. Centralization of research would have benefits. Mechanisms for technology transfer are critical to bridge the gap between researchers and implementers.

Biosecurity: Increased awareness of diseases is required. Countries must evaluate their policies and capacity for import or export of aquatic organisms and their products. Regional organisations such as SPC should be tasked with harmonizing standards and providing access to specialist services.

 

Special topics

 

Many interesting advancements in aquaculture have emerged recently. During the meeting, a series of special topic presentations were made. A summary of the list of presentations and the main content of each is described briefly below.

 

Disease management and biosecurity measures for the Litopenaeus. stylirostris prawn industry of New Caledonia. P. Primot, Les services vétérinaires de la Nouvelle-Calédonie. The prawn industry in New Caledonia is the largest agro-industry, with most of the 2000 tonnes exported to high quality markets. The country has invested in stringent quarantine and health management programmes.

 

Successful Macrobrachium rosembergii shrimp farming in Fiji: Lessons for the Pacific. A. Singh, and J. Terii, Institute of Marine Resources, Fiji. Through improved management practices, IMR has assisted the owners of the former government farm “Viti-corp” to achieve a 20 t/year harvest and are aiming for 50 tonnes.

 

M. lar farm trial in Wallis and Futuna and Vanuatu: A rural development option. S. Nandlal, SPC, Noumea. Recent work with indigenous freshwater shrimp has shown that this species has potential for integrated “dalo” farming or mono-culture in rural locations.

 

Tilapia farming in Driti Village, Fiji: Opportunities for gender development. A. Vunisea and S. Nandlal. SPC, Noumea. In Driti village, a fish farming venture led by a women’s group, generated quite significant cash, leading to an investment scheme to assist village projects such as purchasing gardening tools.

 

Research and development efforts for aquaculture of sea cucumber in New Caledonia. N. Agudo, WorldFish Center, New Caledonia. Until recently, very little was known about the hatchery protocol and nursery of sea cucumbers, but significant progress has been made in New Caledonia. The sea cucumber fishery is an important livelihood option for Pacific Islanders, and aquaculture may have an important part to play in sustaining the industry.

 

Pearl farming in Savusavu Bay, Fiji: Lessons for the Pacific. J. Hunter, Hunter Pearls Ltd., Fiji. Pearl farming has traditionally been the domain of eastern Polynesia where stocks are plentiful. However, through government and community involvement and sound investment, the Hunter Pearls Ltd farm in Fiji has successfully carried out all phases of pearl farming: from hatchery seed supply to pearl culture and pearl marketing.

 

Seaweed farming development in the Pacific: Opportunities and constraints. A. Meloty, Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Solomon Islands (delivered in absentia). Several years after the start of kappaphycus seaweed farming in the Solomon Islands, there has been an exponential increase in exports to around 300 t/year. However, establishing a new rural industry is a challenging task that requires a balance between farmers' expectations and market demand.

 

Successful application of the post larval settlement ranching system for aquaculture. E. Malpot, Tropical Fish Tahiti, Polynésie française. Capturing larvae from the wild before high levels of natural mortality can occur, provides an opportunity to benefit from the Pacific's biodiversity in a sustainable manner. Tropical Fish Tahiti focuses mostly on the marine aquarium trade, athough there is potential for food fish and coral eco-tourism projects.

 

Status and trends in aquaculture in Asia and linkages to the Pacific region. P. Bueno, Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific, Thailand. Asia is the powerhouse of aquaculture production, accounting for most of the world's supply. The region is also growing as an important market for importing aquaculture products such as marine finfish. The Pacific must carefully assess its niche opportunities and constraints within the Asia-Pacific sphere. The relationship between SPC and NACA provides and important cross-link between the Pacific and Asia regions.

 

ACIAR-funded mini-projects, a programme for research and development. C. Hair, Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, Australia. The mini-project concept makes available grants from a large pool of funds, which are intended to activate small and rapid response projects addressing aquaculture bottlenecks. In two years, 14 projects worth AUD 180,000 were successfully implemented under this scheme.

 

All presentations can be downloaded from a temporary link from main page of the SPC aquaculture portal www.spc.int/aquaculture

 

Field trip

 

A highlight of the meeting was a one-day excursion to several aquaculture sites in New Caledonia.

 

A stop was made near Boulouparis at a red claw crayfish (Cherax quadricarinatus) farm where the president of the Redclaw Farmers Association gave an impromptu presentation. The hardy red claw drew considerable attention from participants. Eels, tilapias and other freshwater species were also being cultured at this site.

 

The next site was in Tontouta at AquaMon prawn farm, which is a medium-sized farm by New Caledonia standards, producing about 150 tonnes of Litopenaeus stylirostris prawns per year. The farm has a hatchery (Ecloserie de Montagnes) that supplies other farms in New Caledonia with juvenile prawns. Participants noted the large size of the earthen ponds (between five and eight hectares each), which require small aluminum boats to evenly distribute the prawn feed, and the large level of investment required for the operation.

 

Lastly a stop was made in Dumbéa at an edible oyster (Crassostrea gigas) farm (Les Huîtres de Dumbéa). This farm produces 80 tonnes of live oysters per year, and more than half of all the oysters are consumed in New Caledonia. The triploid spat are air freighted in from a hatchery in France. The host of Les Huîtres de Dumbéa graciously supplied oysters accompanied by French white wine for participants to savour.

 

SPC Aquaculture Action Plan

 

The regional meeting successfully provided the mandate and ingredients to formulate an update of the current SPC Aquaculture Action Plan, which itself was derived from the 1st SPC Aquaculture Meeting. The key components — including the regional trends, priority commodities and a work programme — were successfully extracted by the hard working efforts of the meeting participants. Some work still remains, such as validating, synthesizing and publishing the raw information generated. However, it is evident that the updated action plan will have a broader platform then the previous version.

 

In some respects, the burgeoning requirements of the draft plan reflect the maturing of the aquaculture industry. The 2nd SPC Regional Aquaculture meeting was a reflection of the expansion and diversity that is occurring. For example, in 2002 eight commodities were short-listed for development, whereas in 2006, 12 priority commodities were prioritized. The meeting also captured the spectrum of increasing opportunities from subsistence to industrial scale production, seaweed to inland freshwater culture systems, and new techniques such as post-settlement larval ranching. Some of these opportunities will require cross-agency cooperation in order to be successfully implemented. Hopefully, this regional meeting has enabled the Pacific to plot its own path in determining the future shape of the aquaculture sector.

  


[1] Ref: http://www.spc.int/aquaculture/site/publications/documents/spc-aquaplan.pdf

[2] Copies of the CD-ROM are available from SPC's Aquaculture Section (attention This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

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