A very insightful essay was published in Fisheries, the magazine of the American Fisheries Society, in November of last year (Hilborn 2006). Hilborn's thesis is that within the fisheries community there is "a strong movement of faith-based acceptance of ideas, and search for data that support these ideas, rather than critical and skeptical analysis of the evidence." He goes on to provide examples of papers that have been published in two of the world's most prominent journals that use faulty or inadequate data to support the person beliefs of the authors. It is my contention that Hilborn's essay could just as easily have been written by those scientists - and I use the term loosely - who produce anti-aquaculture papers, just by citing different sources of information and substituting the word "aquaculture" for "fisheries" and "fisheries management." As has been, according to Hilborn, the case with respect to fisheries papers, manuscripts highly critical of aquaculture (particularly shrimp and salmon aquaculture) that are long on opinion and very short on supportive science have appeared in the journals Science and Nature, among other publications. I am aware of, and in fact was a co-author of, at least one among several rebuttal manuscripts that have been submitted to those journals and others in an attempt to present unbiased and sound scientific evidence that refutes the beliefs that are put forth in the flawed papers. Invariably, such rebuttals have been rejected. This leads one to the conclusion that journals that publish poorly or undocumented information based on beliefs and not sound science either are not conducting a proper peer review process, are not listening to those peer reviewers who question the evidence presented, and/or have an agenda that supports faith-based, or as I prefer to call it, junk science. Aquaculture is not without its issues, as I have commented and written about extensively -including in the pages of World Aquaculture. However, as someone recently said, Contents (continued) 48 Sustainable development of marine cage aquaculturefor poverty alleviation in Vietnam UDAYA SEKHAR NAGOTHU 55 All that Atlantic sturgeon fry need are plenty of food, space and clean tanks! JERRE W MOHLER 57 The fate of chemical additives and antimicrobial agents applied in Danish freshwaterfish farms MORTEN S. BRUUN, LARS-FLEMMING PEDERSEN, 2 MARCH 2007 our science has only been around a few decades and we are trying to advance in a few years as far as terrestrial agriculture has progressed over a period of several millennia. Many of the criticisms raised by those opposed to aquaculture that pushed our community into action some quarter century ago continue to be the same as when they were first raised, while as they say, the world has moved on.. While the aquaculture community has effectively addressed many of the issues that have been raised, the opponents refuse to accept the fact that the situation today is not the same as it was in the mid-l 980s. Our community has moved from its first response, which consisted to some degree of denial, to aggressive and effective problem solving. I am frankly sick and tired of hearing that a salmon net pen produces wastes equivalent to the sewage from 10,000 people and other nonsensical claims. Even worse is the statement, "Yes, but what if such and such happens? Invoking the 'precautionary principle' is tantamount to saying "We will accept no practices by aquaculturists that have measurable impact on the environment." Well, I am sorry, but we live in the real world where our actions result in consequences. Our obligation as aquaculturists who, I would argue, are environmentalists first and were environmentalists - in the most positive sense of the word-long before the environmental extremists came on the scene, is to produce healthful cultured foods while maintaining high environmental and social standards. Have we been 100 percent successful in meeting that objective? No, of course not, but we are on the proper trajectory and we are not going to have several millennia to get it right, so we will keep moving forward at a rapid pace. In the meantime it would be very nice if media attention was less focused on the babble of faith-based aquaculture bashers and more attention was paid to the scientifically supported facts. -Robert R. Stickney Hilborn, R. 2006. Faith-based Fisheries. Fisheries 31(11): 554-555. INGER DALSGAARD, PER BovBJERG PEDERSEN AND OLE SoRTKJiER 62 Marine shrimp agribusiness in Brazil YoNY SAMPAIO, Ecro DE FARIAS CosTA, ERICA ALBUQUERQUE AND BRENO RAMOS SAMPAIO FEATURES AND DEPARTMENTS 44 Literature of Interest 68 Calendar 72 Advertisers' Index
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