AE2016 was attended by 1700 participants from 65 countries, making it the biggest Aquaculture Europe event to date.
EAS has an award for Distinguished Services that is destined for individuals that have devoted very significant effort and time to the development of EAS and its objectives.
The Award for Distinguished Services has only been presented three times in the 40-year history of EAS.
The first time was to Prof. Guido Persoone, who was one of the “founding fathers” of EAS, its President from 1980 to 1982 and its Treasurer for 6 years.
The second awardee was Prof. Niels de Pauw, EAS secretary for 4 years and the award was recently given to Yves Harache, who played a major role in the governance of EAS with a total of 16 years on its Board of Directors and as its President from 2010 to 2012.
At its annual Aquaculture Europe event, EAS gives several Poster Awards and one of these is the Lindsay Laird Award presented by AquaTT and the Aqualex Multimedia Consortium. Lindsay worked with the expanding Scottish aquaculture industry on different aspects of salmon farming and in 1998, she became the first Chairman of the Organic Fish Producers’ association. She served as Vice-Chairman of the Scottish Fisheries Executive Committee and on the EAS Board of Directors from 1994 to 2000, when she was obliged to retire for health reasons – and she ultimately passed away in 2001.
But she found a young, motivated and brilliant PhD student to take on her role in EAS - not wanting to lose contact with the society and to make sure that the UK - and in particular Scotland - was represented in EAS core activities. This young student was Selina Stead and she became an EAS National Representative from 1998 to 2000 and was subsequently elected to the Board in 2000.
Selina too had a passion for the objectives of EAS and was a Board member from 2000-2012 so a full twelve years! Within this period, she was EAS Secretary 2002-2004 and became EAS President in 2008.
That passion remains and she has even gone beyond it, being part of or leading the Organising Committees of several Aquaculture Europe events and the Steering Committee chair of AE2016.
It was therefore fitting to honour Selina, and also remember Lindsay, at the first EAS event in Scotland.