Working Group on Social and Economic Dimensions of Aquaculture (WGSEDA)

The Working Group on Social and Economic Dimensions of Aquaculture (WGSEDA)addresses the question of how to balance the negative and positive socio-economic consequences of aquaculture development. A special focus is placed on identifying the socio-economic benefits of aquaculture through its supply of food and other commercially valuable products while providing jobs and creating incomes. In this report, the group summarizes their explorative work on social (i) and economic (ii) indicators to assess aquaculture impacts and gives an overview on emerging and COViD-19 (iii) pandemic impacts for the North Atlantic area. In this report, the group summarizes their explorative work on social (i) and economic (ii) indicators to assess aquaculture impacts and gives an overview on emerging and COViD-19 (iii) pandemic impacts for the North Atlantic area. Collated observed effects on aquaculture of the CoViD-19 pandemic (iii) in their respective countries revealed differing impacts, but showed overall that the shellfish sector was more severely affected compared to finfish (salmon) and hereby especially the oyster sector was hit hard. On the other hand, also examples of adaptation to, and within, local marketing, were observed. In order to contribute and expand on the current frameworks, two main work priorities were initiated focusing on: a) social opposition and acceptance for aquaculture production in the North Atlantic area; b) social, economic and ecological implications of regionalized aquaculture value chains arising from the emerging calls for regionality in the context of CoViD-19 restrictions.