'Environmental impact assessment and monitoring in aquaculture

Requirements, practices, effectiveness and improvements'

FAO Technical Paper 527

The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) have recently published a review of EIA and monitoring in aqauculture as part of the FAO project “Towards sustainable aquaculture: selected issues and guidelines”. In particular, the report focuses on the relevant regulatory requirements, the practice, the effectiveness and suggestions for improvements. The report includes four regional reviews on EIA and monitoring in aquaculture in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. The report includes a special study (prepared by Averil Wilson, Shona Magill and Kenny Black of SAMS) on EIA as applied to salmon aquaculture.

EIA
Where EIA is applied there is mixed experience. Several weaknesses were identified in the regional reviews, including lack of consistency in assessment; lack of appropriate standards; lack of integration between levels and divisions of government; inadequate or ineffective public consultation; lack of assessment skill and capacity; limited follow-up in terms of implementation and monitoring; and excessive bureaucracy and delays. There is very little hard evidence on cost effectiveness.

Monitoring
Monitoring is of fundamental importance to effective environmental management of aquaculture, and without which EIA itself is largely pointless. The main weakness identified was limited implementation of monitoring requirements as developed in EIA environmental management plans, and limited analysis, reporting and feedback of farm level and wider environmental monitoring programmes into management of individual farms and the sector as a whole.

The key to more effective use of both EIA and monitoring procedures will be to nest them within a higher level strategic planning and management framework, including clear environmental objectives and quality standards. More rigorous risk analysis should be used to inform the focus of both EIA and monitoring. The report recommends that more emphasis needs to be placed on environmental management frameworks which can address the environmental issues associated with large numbers of small-scale developments – including strategic environmental assessment, risk analysis, management plans for waterbodies and/or groups of farms, monitoring and response procedures.

The full report is available on the FAO website