Need for Risk-Benefit Assessment & Management Framework for Healthy Freshwater Ecosystems

With the growing population worldwide, the demand for food is also increasing. But the question is how to find ways of producing food when the agricultural land is shrinking. Here fish farming or aquaculture can be an option.

Keeping this in view, a consultation on Invasive Alien Fish Species: Need for a Risk-Benefit Assessment and Management Framework for Healthy Freshwater Ecosystems was organized by National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources (NBFGR), Lucknow and World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-India) at WWF-India, Lodhi Road in New Delhi.    

The Chief Guest, Dr. M.V. Gupta, World Food Prize Laureate applauded the organizer’s efforts to flag such important global issue of aquaculture sector and initiative for developing a model. 

Dr. J.K. Jena, Deputy Director General (Fisheries) also marked his presence during the function and supported the theme for developing the appropriate mechanism for alien fishes. 

Dr. Kuldeep K. Lal, Director, National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources (NBFGR) initiated the discussion with context setting remarks and various components of the consultation. 

Mr. Suresh Babu, Director, WWF-India welcomed the delegates and provided a brief synopsis of activities of WWF-India in general and e-flow assessment in particular.  Dr. Eduardo Leono, from NACA, Bangkok and Dr. S.S. Giri, SAARC, Dhaka discussed the issues of alien fishes in their respective regions. 

The main motive of the programme was to discuss the various issues on alien species and seek opinion of the experts and stakeholders for developing a risk-benefit assessment model. 

The experts from International organizations like NACA & SAARC, senior experts of fishery sector and representatives from Wild Life Institute, Dehradun; National Biodiversity Authority, Chennai; Marine Products Export Council, Kochi, etc. participated in the programme.