Fisheries & Aquaculture

Simply spoken, too much and often destructive fishing is depleting or destroying fish stocks and their environments world over, and thus the livelihoods of fisher folks, especially of those who are most needy.

Fisheries development means therefore trying to adjust fishing efforts and practices to resources, protecting species diversity, supporting the fishing people to better conserve and manage their fisheries, and to help in forging national and international policies and legislation which are conducive to these ends.

It is hoped, and still expected, that aquaculture may compensate for declines of capture fisheries yields and to cater for the increasing demand for fish as luxury and mass food. We think that, like in capture fisheries, wise use of the increasingly limited resources – chiefly land, water and food - presents today's main challenge for aquaculture development. Only those aquaculture methods can be viable and sustained which are environmentally friendly and can be integrated into natural or agricultural production systems. Solutions are as complex as the present problems and must be addressed in a multi- and interdisciplinary fashion, drawing on expertise that may range from infrastructure engineering to social science, such as we have available at COFAD and should be glad to provide in the following areas:

• Fisheries policy, especially Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)
• Fisheries development strategy and planning
• Fisheries legislation and regulation, responsible fishery and aquaculture (in particular FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, CCFR)
• Fisheries institutional/organisational development/strenghtening
• Fisheries and aquaculture resources assessment, conservation and management
• Marine, coastal and inland fisheries and aquaculture development
• Post-harvest technologies (handling, processing and marketing)
• HACCP, fish product health and hygiene
• Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS), Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS), Vessel Registry
• Fisheries Communication and Information Systems
• Socio-economic, cultural and gender aspects of fishing and fish farming

COFAD has carried out numerous assignments and projects in fisheries and aquaculture in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America.

For more information, please contact cofad@cofad.de.