Aquaculture

Through a series of roundtables, called Aquaculture Dialogues, WWF works with farmers, retailers, NGOs, scientists and other aquaculture industry stakeholders worldwide to develop standards for responsible aquaculture. The standards will minimize the key environmental and social impacts associated with aquaculture.

More than two dozen standards or certification programs for aquaculture exist. However, none of the programs are effective at making the aquaculture industry more sustainable. The standards created by the Aquaculture Dialogues will be credible because they will be:

• Science-based: The Dialogue standards are being developed with input from the world’s leading aquaculture scientists and will be updated over time to reflect the newest scientific findings.
• Performance-based: The standards will not tell producers what practices to use to reduce or eliminate the impacts of aquaculture. Rather, the standards will provide targets to reach if producers want to address the impacts. How they do so will be their choice. This will encourage innovation and continual improvement on the farm.
• Metrics-based. By being measurable, the standards will be objective and, therefore, more credible.
• Created by a diverse and balanced group of stakeholders. More than 1,000 people are participating in the Dialogues because they want something different – and more sustainable – than what is out there. They have a stake in the outcome.
• Focused on minimizing or eliminating the key environmental and social impacts of aquaculture, not a laundry list of impacts..

The goal of the Dialogues is to create draft standards for 12 aquaculture species. Standards for Pangasius, abalone, tilapia, mussels, clams, scallops are oysters are finalized. Standards for shrimp, salmon, freshwater trout, Seriola and cobia will be finalized by early 2011. Final standards are given to a new organization, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, that will be responsible for working with independent, third party entities to certify farms that are in compliance with the standards.

The Aquaculture Dialogues build off of previous work done by WWF. Since the early 1990s, WWF has spearheaded the creation of certification programs for forestry (the Forestry Stewardship Council), fisheries (the Marine Stewardship Council), agriculture (Protected Harvest) and climate (the Climate Savers Program).

Each Dialogue strives to meet the guidelines for standard setting that have been developed by the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling Alliance. 

Learn more

• Dialogue process guidance document
  English | French | Spanish | Thai
• Aquaculture Dialogues overview fact sheet
  English | Spanish
• Find out how WWF is engaging with business in aquaculture

For more information, please contact us at aquacultureinfo@wwfus.org