ADDRESSING NATURAL RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY IN AQUACULTURE CERTIFICATION

Aquaculture certification standards are designed primarily to lessen the possibility of negative environmental impacts of fish and shrimp production at the farm-level. Efficient management minimizes the use of most resources and contributes to resource conservation. Moreover, as a general rule, the more resources that are used to produce a product, the greater will be the possibilities of negative environmental impacts. The standards in certification programs tend to concentrate on documenting resource use and lessening negative impacts at the farm-level. These programs do not focus on improving the efficiency of resource use and conservation of resources. However, greater resource use efficiency should lessen the embodied impacts of resource use as well as minimizing direct farm-level impacts per unit of aquaculture production. Some examples demonstrating the need of including natural resource conservation in aquaculture certification programs are provided in this presentation. Although aquaculture certification is applied at the farm-level, attention to greater resource use efficiency could extend the benefits of certification to various off-farm activities.