Thursday, February 12, 2015

12/02/2015: The importance of preserving aquaculture experience and insight


First published in International Aquafeed, January - February 2015
 
The Aquaculture Communications Group, LLC (ACG) has launched a project to capture the experience of pioneering and veteran aquaculture industry members in their own words while there is still time. Many of this generation are either retiring or have retired/passed away.

The modern global aquaculture industry is almost 50 years old, which means that those who were the early entrepreneurs are now approaching or have reached the end of their working lives.

http://issuu.com/international_aquafeed/docs/iaf1501_w1/13

ACG believes it is of great importance to preserve as much of these veterans´ stories as possible before they are lost to history. It is important for current and future generations practicing aquaculture to be able to go back and learn from history in order to build an even better future.

“Aquaculture is full of colorful and spirited, intelligent and persevering individuals that have learned so much from the school of hard knocks; we must capture their experience in their own words before it is too late,” said Tor-Eddie Fossbakk, Founding Partner of ACG.

To date ACG has interviewed and recorded the stories of nineteen pioneers and industry veterans from around the world using high definition video and posted them on the ACG website.

Common for most of the interviewees is how the industry developed from low tech solutions, often engineered on site, to today´s high tech and sophisticated solutions. The early days of ‘trial and error’ have been replaced by solutions based on science, research and development.

“We were interested in finding out how or why these people became interested in an industry most people had never heard of,” Mr Fossbakk said.

“For many of them the answer was short, Jacques Cousteau”.

Their interest was born while watching Cousteau’s television shows while growing up.

The project should also have a wider audience than just the global fish farming community. The general public will find many of the interviews and the stories being told of great interest to understand where the industry started, how it has developed, and all the hard work that has been put into building it to what it is today.

Mr Fossbakk said that this first round of interviews was self-funded by ACG because the company strongly believe in the importance of the project. However, in order to continue recording interviews and bringing them not only to the aquaculture community but also to the general public, ACG needs financial assistance from corporations, institutions, organisations and individuals who share the vision.

Learning from the people that helped build the modern aquaculture industry will enable current and future generations to be better equipped to succeed.

Please contact Mr Fossbakk (tor-eddie@aquacomgroup.com) should you want to contribute to this very interesting and important project.


Read the magazine HERE.

The Aquaculturists
This blog is maintained by The Aquaculturists staff and is supported by the
magazine International Aquafeed which is published by
Perendale Publishers Ltd

For additional daily news from aquaculture around the world: aquaculture-news

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