World Aquaculture March 2019

10 MARCH 2019 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S.ORG C H A P T E R R E P O R T S L ooking ahead, the year 2019 promises to be an exciting inception year for us in the African Chapter and I’m looking forward to working with my team to get the Chapter to another level. No doubt there are many milestones ahead, we are just four months old, but we shall strive to work on the best solutions to get us moving forward. As part of our growth strategy, we will be focusing on initiatives that will build us, shape us and ensure our presence and visibility is felt within Africa and beyond. In this regard, we kick-started the year right in the Horn of Africa, in Ethiopia, where we participated in the “International Conference on Aquatic Resources and Aquaculture” themed Aquaculture for Sustainable Development (ICAR-AQUA 2019), that took place in January in Hawassa, Ethiopia. WAS co- sponsored the event, which was attended by over 200 delegates from Africa and beyond. I was delighted to meet my esteemed principals there: our current WAS President Maria Célia Portella and Immediate Past President Bill Daniels. We all gave speeches, built relationships through engagement with the various aquaculture actors there, largely researchers, scientists and government and industry players. I was honored to deliver a well-received keynote speech on “Opportunities and challenges of the African aquaculture and how the African Chapter-WAS can support a new industrial strategy.” Thereafter, a number of individuals and institutions, including Hawassa University, expressed interest in joining the African Chapter and walking with us on the journey ahead. We aim to ensure that a strategy of collaboration with many of these parties is developed during the year. So, things are happening! We are continuing with plans to host our First WAS African Chapter Conference in 2020. We would like to make the event a key opportunity to converge our WAS members with African aquaculture players (governments, developmental agencies, NGOs, industry stakeholders, researchers, experts, students, other value chain actors and collaborators) to enhance and inspire the continent’s aquaculture developmental agenda. We are in the process of identifying a host country and currently Egypt, Ghana and Zambia are shortlisted. An official announcement of the host country is expected in early March 2019. Thereafter, and with guidance fromWAS Home Office and conference management, we expect to establish the necessary conference committees to lead the organizational processes forward. We will welcome all WAS members, partners and interested parties from around the world to come to Africa and join us for this prestigious event. As mentioned previously, this year we will accelerate our efforts in building partners and collaborators. The reasons for this are to mobilize resources and to utilize many of these African organizations African Chapter ( C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 2 ) W e are proud to celebrate the 50th anniversary of WAS, and the Asian Pacific Chapter, being one of the chapters of this international organization that works through a commitment to excellence in science, technology, education, and information exchange, through a network of professionals, will endeavor to contribute to the progressive and sustainable development of aquaculture throughout the world. We have our major celebration scheduled in NewOrleans on March 7-11 and plans are underway to celebrate in the APC chapter as well. Asian Aquaculture 2018 was hosted and organized by the Asian Institute of Technology from 3-6 December 2018. WAS-APCwas a supporter of the event, including sponsoring a speaker and a booth. The program enabled delegates to attend all talks, with no concurrent sessions, providing an important forum for information sharing across diverse species sectors and research themes. As the Asian Pacific region produces the lion’s share of global aquaculture, Asia and the Pacific features an array of aquatic farming systems operated as extensive, semi-intensive and/or intensive production practices, in all major aquatic environments including freshwater, brackishwater and marine. The APCwas proud to be a part of this event. The time has come to request nominations for APCOfficers and Directors. This year we are inviting nominations for President- Elect, Treasurer, two Directors and a Student Director to stand for election and begin their Board term at our APA2019 upcoming annual meeting in Chennai, India. I request all members to nominate high-quality professionals to stand for election. The APC is organizing a major event in India at the Chennai Trade Centre from June 19-21. Tamil Nadu Dr. J. Jayalalithaa Fisheries University is hosting APA2019 in association with ICAR-central institutes and state fisheries universities. The abstract submission has been extended until February 28, 2019. Asian Pacific Aquaculture 2019 encourages the submission of high quality oral and poster presentations. All abstracts must be in English-the official language of the conference. We will have the Abstract App and the abstracts online for presenters. Booth bookings for the trade showwent really fast and now exceed 200, representing national and international companies. Many session sponsors such as Shenglong, Blue Aqua, Kemin, Aker Biomarine, Evonik and Unipresident have already confirmed their technical sessions in APA19. Program chairs Dr. J.K. Jena, DDG Fisheries, Dr. A.G. Ponnaiah, Dr. Mohan JosephModayil, Dr. Indrani Karunasagar and Dr. J. Stephen Sampath Kumar are contributing much to APA19 Asian Pacific Chapter ( C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 2 )