WWW.WAS.ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • SEPTEMBER 2013 9 Latin American and Caribbean Chapter The Latin American and Caribbean Aquaculture conference, LACQUA13, in Villavicencio, Colombia from 8 to 11 October is approaching quickly. We are looking forward to our first regional LACQUA event with lots of excitement because it will be the time to present the next steps to be followed by our chapter, which hopefully will contribute to consolidate our position in the region. We had elections during June and July. I want to congratulate Lorenzo Juarez for being chosen as the new President-Elect. I am sure that having Lorenzo as part of our chapter board will be extremely valuable because he is a Past-President of WAS and a WAS Fellow. I feel extremely lucky to be able to have his experienced advice for the duration of my term. I also want to acknowledge and congratulate Pablo Gonzalez Alanis, elected as Secretary, Helcio Marques, elected as Treasurer and Patricia Moraes Valenti, who was elected as a Board Director. The aforementioned and Marcelo Shei, Board Director, Maria Celia Portella, Past President and me will constitute the LACC Board of Directors and will represent you for the next two years. The next election will be next year; we will change one board member (Marcelo Shei) and will revise our bylaws. The recent election had a participation of around 20 percent of the Chapter membership; we are looking forward to having more involvement of the membership next year. Be assured that the current board will be very active and will try to serve the Chapter the best way possible to the extent of our capacities. I invite you take part in chapter activities, especially the ambassador program, which will be crucial to spread the word about the LACC in the region. In my next column for the magazine I will get into more detail about our plans. In October we will have our first board meeting and the highly anticipated results of the Red Acuicola de las Americas (RAA) meeting that has changed dates and sites but not importance. It is now taking place at the end of August in Santiago de Chile. So, think big, get involved and help us become the actual voice of the sector in the region. See you in Colombia. — Antonio Garza de Yta, President CHAPTER REPORTS LACQUA’13 The IV Conference of Latin America Native Fish Species Aquaculture, the Latin American and Caribbean Aquaculture (LACQUA´13), the XIX Aquaculture Day of the Universidad de los Llanos and the VI Aquaculture Forum in Villavicencio will bring together in Colombia aquaculture farmers, entrepreneurs and experts of the entire Latin American region and the World. The Conference of Latin American Native Fish Species Aquaculture on its 4th edition will be congregate fish farmers, entrepreneurs and experts of Latin America and the World. This event will allow participants to share scientific advances, latest technologies, research results as well as obtain an overview of the actual situation and challenges of the Latin American aquaculture. The organizing team, headed by the Universidad de los Llanos with the support of the Latin American and Caribbean Chapter of the World Aquaculture Society (LACC-WAS) expects more than 600 professionals of the aquaculture sector to be present in the meeting in Villavicencio. The participants will be able to attend several key note lectures offered by well renown experts from around the world, as well as exchange research ideas and analyze business options of an important array of worldwide companies that will be present. In this opportunity LACC-WAS will participate in the event presenting the event LACQUA. The World Aquaculture Society (WAS) organizes several events worldwide. LACQUA ´13 will be the first event of its type in the Latin American and the Caribbean region. “We have been working hard to bring presenters that could offer the participants a general overview of key subjects that need attention on the aquaculture sector. Some of these topics are physiology, nutrition, endocrinology and toxicology, as well as nutrition and feeding, genetics and breeding, aquatic health, animal welfare, water quality and sustainable production systems. This event will also focus on important topics for the productive sector as processing, value added process, marketing and associativity” commented the team of organizers from the Universidad de los Llanos. The organizing committee will like to invite all the aquaculturist of the region to participate in the series of activities that conform the event, which goal is to offer possible solutions to the problems that the sector is experiencing as well as to promote the sharing of knowledge on the culture of fish native species and other species of economic relevance as tilapia, trout, shrimp, among others. The deadline to submit an abstract for the event has been extended until the 29th of July. For more information and to register to participate please visit our webpage: www.was.org and www. conferenciapecesnativos2013.com.
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