WWW.WAS.ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • MARCH 2017 7 CHAPTER REPORTS One of the most rewarding benefits of WAS and LACC membership is to attend the annual conferences, where we catch up with friends and colleagues, learn about the latest research, and get updated on projects, products and services. In the last few months I was fortunate to attend two such conferences: LACQUA16 in Lima, Peru, and Aquaculture America 2017 in San Antonio, Texas. I am happy to report that LACQUA16, our yearly Latin American and Caribbean Aquaculture Convention, took place 28 November to 1 December 2016 in Lima, Peru and was a great success. The conference had more than 700 participants and included 189 oral presentations, 134 posters, and 35 commercial booths. I want to express my appreciation to the Peruvian Ministry of Fisheries, the Instituto del Mar del Peru, and Nicovita for their enthusiastic support and sponsorship. I heard many good comments about the quality of the conference and I was especially gratified to see strong student participation and student activities, including an aquaculture trivia quiz with cash prizes. Our Peruvian hosts were amazing and most of us were blown away by the delicious Peruvian food. On the professional side, I believe the conference attained its goal of helping producers, educators, researchers, planners, and regulators to focus efforts on developing, teaching, applying, and overseeing technologies to improve the development and sustainability of aquaculture in the region. I would like to congratulate the US Chapter for recently hosting a great Aquaculture America meeting. My takeaway from three days of fun and learning in San Antonio is that there is renewed interest from producers and regulators to promote aquaculture as a means of reducing the shocking $11.2 billion annual US seafood trade deficit resulting from importing 91 percent of the country’s seafood supply, half of which comes from non-US aquaculture. Meetings like this are helping these new interests and initiatives gel into reality. Back to our chapter, LAQCUA17 is now set for 8-10 November 2017 in Mazatlan, Mexico. The conference is already generating a lot of interest for several reasons: the city is a well-connected beach destination, has a brand new, world-class convention center, and is located in the heart of Mexico’s shrimp farming area. I lived and worked there from 2003 to 2007 and can attest to the city’s appeal to national and international tourism. Please plan your attendance early as space is limited. The board of WAS recently authorized that LACC-country registrants to LACQUA17 will be offered WAS membership at half-price for one year as part of the conference registration if they are becoming members for the first time, so please tell your non-member friends that this is also a great opportunity to join WAS and LACC at a reduced rate. I hope to see you all in Mazatlán! Finally, I want to remind all that World Aquaculture magazine continues to be translated into Spanish and is available to members on our website. To access, please visit: www.was.org/ LACC/en/publications.aspx Very best to all! — Lorenzo Juarez, President Latin American and Caribbean Chapter The Journal of the World Aquaculture Society’s highlighted article for this issue of World Aquaculture is “Impact of the Community-based Fish Culture System on Expenditure and Inequality: Evidence from Bangladesh” by A.B.M. Mahfuzul Haque and Madan Mohan Dey. This paper was published in volume 47(5):646-657. Aquaculture production contributes to society in a variety of ways, but its contribution to social well-being is less wellstudied than its other impacts. Haque and Dey compared the effects of a Community-based Fish Culture (CBFC) system in three project sites with control sites in similar floodplain communities in Bangladesh, with a particular focus on inequalities in household expenditures in those communities. Study results showed that the CBFC system had a significant and positive impact on expenditures on food, clothing, housing, education, healthcare, and other household expenditures. In addition to increasing household spending, an analysis was conducted of effects on economic inequality. A Gini index of total expenditure was calculated to compare economic inequality between the CBFC project and control households. Results showed that expenditures were distributed more equally among fishers and landless workers in the CBFC project households than among the control households. This study suggests that Community-based Fish Culture Systems have improved the lives of poor fishermen and landless workers in floodplain resource areas in Bangladesh. This paper is available to all members of the World Aquaculture Society at the Society’s website (was.org) under the Publications tab. — Carole R. Engle, Executive Editor, JWAS Recent Research Highlight from the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society
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