As I write this, Christmas decorations are starting to appear in the gardens of Adelaide and what looks like being a long dry summer is about to descend on us as the year spins by. South Australia is the driest state in Australia and yet, along with Tasmania, has the greatest aquaculture activity. It’s somewhat counterintuitive to think of aquaculture expanding in dry areas but here at WAS we are seeing a significant growth of interest in aquaculture in arid areas, particularly in the Middle East. A reliable source of quality water is a pre-requisite for any aquaculture operation and a basic fact is that our animals live in water. Thus, as aquaculturists, we treasure that water and invest heavily in conserving it and maintaining a quality conducive to profitable production. Aquaculture is actually one of the most drought-resistant forms of primary production!

The Asia-Pacific Chapter organized an Aridland Aquaculture Symposium and Workshops last year. Also, our immediate Past President Michael Schwarz is heavily involved and formally representing WAS in the Global Forum for International Agriculture (GFIA) initiative, which is emphasizing climate-smart agriculture with a focus on the Middle East and Africa, and also in the upcoming Middle East Aquaculture Forum (MEAF). The second GFIA meeting is being held next year on March 9-10 in Abu Dhabi and the first MEAF meeting follows in Dubai April 5-6. These are meetings towards which WAS is contributing and sponsoring and, in the case of GFIA, ensuring that aquaculture has a profile as an important component of climate-smart agriculture.

Shifting attention farther south, and a development that I am following closely, we are moving forward in the planning and organization of our first WAS conference in Africa. This will be held in Cape Town, South Africa from June 26-30, 2017. I signed the agreement for this conference with Roger Krohn of the Aquaculture Association of Southern Africa during the conference in Adelaide earlier this year and the first steering committee meeting was held last month in Cape Town. The conference in South Africa will represent an exciting opportunity to bring together the global aquaculture community with aquaculturists throughout Africa to discuss the latest technologies and opportunities for aquaculture development. The conference theme is Sustainable Aquaculture - New Frontiers for Economic Growth. My personal interest comes from having spent some considerable time in the region working on an aquaculture development project with the University of Stellenbosch in the late 1990s. In addition to the interest around this being our first meeting in the region, this happens also to be a spectacularly beautiful part of the world with plenty to interest delegates outside of aquaculture. Nonetheless, the conference will have a significant challenge in encouraging and supporting participation from aquaculturists throughout the sub-continent, in particular, which includes some countries that remain among the least economically developed in the world.

Shifting gears, many of you may have heard of predatory publishing, where journals, usually new open-access journals, will approach academics seeking submission of manuscripts, which often turn out to have significant page or publication charges and lack the editorial and publishing services associated with quality, legitimate journals. A regularly updated on-line report lists nearly 500 such journals and it is inevitable that one or more will encompass the field of aquaculture.

I recently became aware of a similar phenomenon of predatory conferencing, with organizations seeking to organize fee-paying conferences, principally for income generation. This is different from the scams many of us are aware of with invitations to bogus conferences that never actually occur. (Most of the invitations that I receive seem to arise from China). These predatory conferences may actually take place if sufficient interest is garnered but are likely to turn out to be something less than they are made out to be.

A common practice of predatory conferencing is to seek endorsements from well-known people in the field, who are often not aware that their interest in the conference is being used to promote the event. Senior figures in WAS are prime targets for such practice. So, when these tempting invitations drop into your inbox, it pays to do a bit of due diligence. Things to look out for that might set alarm bells ringing include a lack of any obvious cooperation with local organizations and a lack of organizational endorsement rather than individual endorsement. Fortunately the brand and reputation of WAS is such that, as an organization, our participation in or endorsement of an event can be seen as a measure of its authenticity and legitimacy.

I mentioned in my last column about the two important decisions taken by the Board in Adelaide to reinvigorate the journal and to support the development of chapter home offices for the APC and LACC. On the journal, our first step is to recruit an Executive Editor. This process is travelling a bit slower than hoped but we have a number of promising candidates for the position and will soon be shortlisting. Hopefully I will be able to provide an update in my next column.

We have made better progress on the development of chapter home offices, with appointments made for both executive officers, who will take up their positions this December. Further details will be provided by the chapters but I would like to welcome Pornnatcha Klinsorn (Genie) and Nashieli Rodriguez (Nash) to the WAS executive team representing the APC and LACC respectively. Genie will be based in Bangkok and will be working full time with the APC while Nash will be based in La Paz, Mexico and will initially be working on a part-time basis. These appointments will enable those chapters to be more proactive and to engage more effectively with their members. Hopefully these executive officers will gain a better understanding of the most effective value proposition of WAS membership in their respective regions, enabling us to better tailor and adapt membership features and services to deliver better value from membership.

I would like to end by wishing all WAS members an enjoyable and productive festive season, which here in Australia is a key time of year for the seafood industry, with a major peak in consumption.

— Graham Mair, President