The Blue Frontier: Aquaculture and the Green Economy
Dr. Patrick Bresnihan, NESC
Wed, Sept 23, 2015 Resource Room, Auxilia Bldg, North Campus. [Auxilia is where the Sociology Department is. The resource room is on the ground floor].
12:00- 14:00. Light lunch provided.
Please email sociology.department@mu.ie to confirm attendance
This paper is based on ongoing research into the sustainable development of the aquaculture sector in Ireland. The immediate policy context is the recent reform of the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 2013. The CFP makes clear that the European capture fisheries have reached their limit in terms of providing the raw material for a growing, global seafood market. At the same time, aquaculture production in Ireland and across Europe has stagnated and even declined over the past fifteen years. Boosting productivity in this area has thus been identified as necessary for achieving green growth and food security in Europe, particularly for coastal nations like Ireland. The main goal of the current National Strategic Plan for Sustainable Aquaculture Development is to siginficantly increase output in the aquaculture sector. Using a political ecology approach, this paper will trace existing and potential points of contestation as private and public, local and global, human and non-human actors converge on this new blue frontier.
Patrick was an IRC postdoctoral fellow in Maynooth University in 2015.