Environment and aquaculture in developing countries

Table 6 (continued)

System Environmental Impact Bonefits

INTENSIVE

1. Freahwater. brackishwater
   and marina ponds (shrimps
   and prawns; fish, especially
   carnivores - catfish, snake-
   heads, groupers, seabass, ctc.


2. Freshwater, brackishwater
   and marine cage and pen
   culture (finfish, especially
   carnivores - groupers, seabass,
   otc. -but also some omnivores,
   such as common carp)


3. Other - raceways, ailoa,
   tankr, etc.

Emuentsldrninege high in BOD and Income; employment;

suspended solids: market competition, foroign ollchange

especially lor export product;

conflicts/lailures, social disruption

Accumulation oCanoldc sediments below Income; foreign exchanga

cage. due to fecal and waele Bod (high priced carnivores):

build-up; market competition, especially a little employmont

for export produce; conflictdfailures.

social disruption: consumption of wood

and other malerials

Emuentddrainage high in BOD Income; foreign exchange:

and suspcndcd solids; many location- a littlo employment

specific problems

Conclusions

Developing-country aquaculture
development is needed to help alleviate
poverty and increase protein food supply.
Poverty and effective environmental
conservation cannot coexist. Pauly et al.
(1989) illustrate this well for the issue of
prevention of dynamite fishing.
Development must complement
environmental conservation, not compete
with it. Therefore, developing-country
aquaculture development must be pursued
in harmony with realistic environmental
conservation objectives, with transnational
cooperation and with effective legislation.
This will require much more reliable
information on the environmental impact
of developing-country aquaculture than is
available at present. This in turn will
require much more research on existing
and evolving developing-country
aquaculture systems, not just
extrapolations from developed-country
experience.
Above all, developing-country
aquaculture development and its
environmental aspects must be considered
in a broad intersectoral context so that the
use of natural resources to meet evolving
human needs (whether in agriculture,

fisheries, forestry or aquaculture) can be

optimized with respect to environmental

conservation.

Finally, because aquaculture is a

relatively new and underdeveloped sector

in most developing countries, it will come

under increasingly close scrutiny with

respect to its environmental impact,

perhaps even unfairly so in comparison

with the safeguards demanded for better-

known sectors, especially agriculture. This

can lead to incomplete and unbalanced

commentaries. For example, several

agricultural serials publicized the paper

by Scholtissek and Naylor (1988) on the

possibility of new flu viruses from pig-

duck-fish zoonoses in Chinese integrated

farming but omitted to summarize the

rejoinders to this paper published by

aquaculturists (for example, Edwards et

al. 1988b1, who pointed out the

improbability of this in most integrated

farming systems.

For these and other similar warnings

against the possible environmental

hazards of aquaculture development, what

is needed is a balanced view - not

underestimating the environmental

concerns associated with developing-

country aquaculture development but

placing these in a broad rural development