ECOAQUA's facilities at the ULPGC Marine Science and Technology Park in Taliarte (Telde) will host a event on 30 November under the slogan ‘Cultivating life, protecting the sea’ with various presentations and a gastronomic tasting of aquaculture products
More than 50% of the quality protein consumed by humanity comes from aquaculture products, characterised by their sustainability and low environmental impact compared to other productive activities
The facilities of the Research Institute for Sustainable Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems (ECOAQUA) of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), located in the Marine Science and Technology Park in Taliarte (Telde), will host, next Saturday, 30 November, a special day on the occasion of World Aquaculture Day.
This event, which will include a full programme of talks, aims to raise awareness among Canarian society of the scientific and socio-economic importance of aquaculture as a key tool for food security and the sustainability of the planet.
Under the slogan ‘Cultivating life, protecting the sea’, the event will be inaugurated by Javier Franco Hormiga, director of the Canary Islands Agency for Research, Innovation and the Information Society (ACIISI) of the Canary Islands Government, accompanied by Juan Manuel Afonso López, director of the Aquaculture Research Group (GIA) of ECOAQUA and responsible for organising the event.
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Juan Manuel Afonso López, director of ECOAQUA's Aquaculture Research Group (GIA) and responsible for organising the event, at ECOAQUA's facilities next to an aquaculture tank.
The programme will include eight short talks on various topics related to aquaculture. Among them: ‘Canarian aquaculture and its impact on society’, presented by Afonso López himself; ‘Circular economy in aquaculture’, by Luis Molina Roque; ‘Commercial shrimp farming’ by Marina Martínez Soler; and ‘Welfare in sea bass’ given by Valery Ravelo Ramírez, all of them students of the PhD programme in Sustainable Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems (ACUISEMAR) directed by the GIA for the ULPGC.
Likewise, there will be talks such as ‘Do sea bass like Canarian dates’, by Charles Joan; ‘Alternative methods of animal experimentation’, by Antonio Gómez Mercader; and ‘Application of artificial intelligence for morphology in prawns’, given by Abiam Remache Díaz.
In addition, the event will also feature a presentation by postdoctoral researcher Álvaro Torres Gómez, who will introduce ‘Cellular aquaculture’.
In the words of Juan Manuel Afonso López, aquaculture ‘plays a crucial role’ on a planet that, ‘with a current population of 8 billion people, is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050’. He also stressed that more than 50% of the quality protein consumed by humanity comes from aquaculture products, characterised by their sustainability and low environmental impact compared to other productive activities.
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Juan Manuel Afonso López, director of the GIA, at the ECOAQUA facilities with a group of students.
The event will take place from 10:00 to 14:00, culminating in a guided tour of the aquaculture facilities of the ULPGC, followed by a tasting of aquaculture products, such as premium Canary Islands sea bass (from the company AQUANARIA), Canary Islands crab (from the ULPGC) and prawns from Ecuador (from RODA International), prepared in culinary creations by chefs from Maraca Las Palmas - Taberna Viajera.
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ECOAQUA facilities at the Marine Science and Technology Park of Taliarte (PCTM-ULPGC).
The Aquaculture Research Group of the ULPGC, active since 1990, has led more than 200 research projects at regional, national and international level. It currently has more than 40 members, including researchers and technicians, and has developed important European projects such as EcoAqua, which gave its name to the institute, Islandap and Islandap Advanced, AQUAEXCEL3. 0, AquaIMPACT, Aquainvert, AquaVitae, AquaWind, BiomedAqu, INDICIT-II, LIFE AQUA, MIMAR+, PerformFISH or StartCircular, as well as two industrial research and knowledge transfer projects, the first one called PMG-BIOGEMAR, carried out together with companies in the sector in Ecuador, and the second one SST-KAUST, with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.