The workshop focus was on environmental impact assessment and monitoring, and aquaculture licensing for marine aquaculture cage systems and aimed at identifying constraints and shortcomings that required to be dealt with to support the development of the cage industry and facilitate investments from the private sector.
The workshop report that will be released shortly contains a set of suggestions and recommendations with regards to technical and policy requirements needed to support the growth of the aquaculture sector as a whole and more specifically cage fish farming.
The report also contains three review documents on marine cage aquaculture in the region, regulation of Norwegian net-cage fish farming, and a review on cage aquaculture licensing procedures prepared as background discussion papers for the workshop.
With specific regard to environmental impact assessment (EIA) the discussions held at the workshop clearly indicate that there is a need for the region and individual Commission members to develop an ad hoc EIA format based on the conditions of the local marine environment. A proposed cage aquaculture licence procedure was discussed and proposed at the workshop based on the format developed and adopted by the Sultanate of Oman.
Oman Workshop Discusses Cage Aquaculture
OMAN - The Regional Commission for Fisheries (RECOFI) Regional Technical Workshop on Sustainable Marine Cage Aquaculture Development, held from 25 to 26 January 2009 in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, was organized in view of the growing importance and interest of this aquaculture sub-sector across the region.
