Acronym AQUABEST
Category
Aquaculture
Title Innovative practices and technologies for developing sustainable aquaculture in the Baltic Sea region Programme Interreg IV
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
Strand A
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
Baltic Sea Region
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source European Coordinator Mari Walls Coordinator email mari.walls@luke.fi
Coordinator institution
FGFRI - Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute (Finland)
Institutions involved
GMA - Association for marine aquaculture Ltd (Germany) ,
BSAA - Belarusian State Agricultural Academy (Belarus) ,
NA - Danish Aquaculture Association (Denmark) ,
NA - Government of Aland; Section Fisheries, Section Environment (Finland) ,
BIOR - Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment (Latvia) ,
SPRŁ - Polish Trout Breeders Association (Poland) ,
NA - Regional Council of Jamtland County (Sweden) ,
NA - Swedish Board of Agriculture (Sweden) ,
SLU - Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden) ,
DTU-AQUA - Technical University of Denmark; National Institute of Aquatic Resources (Denmark) ,
Thünen Institute - Thunen Institute, Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries (Germany) ,
UH - University of Helsinki (Finland) ,
UT - University of Tartu (Estonia) ,
Start year 2011 End year 2014 Funding (€) € 3,744,990 Website http://eu.baltic.net/Project_Database.5308.html?contentid=72&contentaction=single Summary Aquaculture has been the fastest growing food production sector globally during the last two decades. In opposite to the global and European trend, the production in the EU and especially in the BSR has stagnated being annually appr. 100.000 tons in the Baltic Sea catchment area of the BSR EU Member States. It is widely accepted that aquaculture has great potential to feed growing human population in the era of declining wild stocks (""Blue Revolution""), but new production has to be built on sustainable practices and technologies. AQUABEST, a continum of aquaculture flagship-project BESTAQ (Priority Area 9, project 9.5), is the first Baltic Sea Region-wide consortium of regional authorities, producer organizations, academy and stakeholders with a mission to develop common strategy for sustainable aquaculture production in the region. AQUABEST will present a toolbox of innovative practices and technologies, test them, and provide a BSR Aquaculture Vision acceptable by stakeholders. AQUABEST will target the following four specific problems and demonstrate practices to solve them. 1) Aquaculture relies upon nutrients imported from oceans thus contributing to eutrophication of the Baltic Sea; 2) Recent spatial planning knowledge has not been transferred to most BSR regions, and aquaculture has therefore not developed in offshore or other remote areas with less environmental effects, competition and conflicts; 3) Feasibility of recirculation farming has not been assessed and technology transferred throughout BSR regions; 4) Licensing systems do not encourage adoption of eco-efficient technologies and practices. The main outputs of AQUABEST are: 1) Demonstration that BSR aquaculture is capable of becoming a nutrient neutral food production system; 2) Demonstration that spatial planning tools can be adapted to create environmentally, economically and socially sustainable aquaculture; 3) Demonstration that new recirculation technologies can be developed and transferred to regions; 4) Mutually agreed position paper on eco-efficient licensing system, that encourages and enables new economical activity. AQUABEST is composed of active aquaculture actors within the region. Project has 14 partners from 8 countries and appr. 15 associated partners representing development and research institutions, national and regional authorities, producer organizations, and NGO's. The current partnership welcomes joint actions during and after the project by organizations not involved in the AQUABEST application phase, thus catalysing establishment of a BSR-wide aquaculture forum.
Keywords
Recirculating systems;
Spatial planning;
Economy;
Open sea aquaculture;
Land-based aquaculture;
Aquaculture industry;
Aquaculture management;
Sustainability;
Marine Region
24
Sound, Belt Sea or Transition Area (27.IIIb,c)
17
Bothnian Sea (27.IIId.30)
27
Bothnian Bay (27.IIId.31)
23
Baltic West of Bornholm (27.IIId.24)
19
Gulf of Finland (27.IIId.32)
16
East of Gotland or Gulf of Riga (27.IIId.28)
20
Archipelago Sea (27.IIId. 29)
14
Skagerrak, Kattegat (27.IIIa)
22
Southern Central Baltic-West (27.IIId.25)
21
Southern Central Baltic-East (27.IIId.26)
18
West of Gotland (27.IIId.27)
11
Marine Region Map
