by Stella Williams
The 9th Asian Fisheries and Aquaculture Forum of the Asian Fisheries Society (AFS) was hosted at the Shanghai Ocean University (SHOU) in Shanghai, China, from 21 to 25 April 2011 (9AFAF). This international forum brought together leading aquaculture and fisheries scientists and key commercial stakeholders from all over the world to discuss sustainable aquatic resource production and utilisation and management with emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region. The Forum theme is “Better Science, Better Fish, Better Life”. 9AFAF intended to be a meeting place for stakeholders from science, policy, business and civil society to seek jointly solutions to overfishing, pollution and other threats through better forms of stakeholder cooperation and also seize opportunities arising from ecosystem management approaches.
The Forum hosted two major symposia on tilapia aquaculture and on stock enhancement and sea ranching respectively.
It also provided the platform for a special FAO-sponsored symposium, the 3rd Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture & Fisheries (GAF3). This attracted a diverse group of stakeholders, mostly from the Asia-Pacific region as well, but also some from Africa.
The FAO Special Workshop had the purpose of generating strategic ideas and actions that could develop into a 'road map' for future directions on gender in aquaculture and fisheries. It is expected that the output will be a report containing the outcomes highlighting issues, conclusions, recommendations and future actions for gender in aquaculture and fisheries. I represented Mundus maris to make an invited contribution to GAF3.