Site selection and carrying capacity in Mediterranean ... - FAO Sipam

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Ensuring acceptable
levels of impact on
the environment
130 GFCM:XXXV/2011/Dma.9
130
Description
Ideally, an information and management framework for the protection of inland and coastal environments and resources should be in place capable
of detecting and predicting ecological changes resulting from all human activities in a given area. All environmental impact assessment and
monitoring efforts should be guided by predetermined development priorities and well-formulated objectives for the management of resources and
environments.
However, in the interest of other farmers and water users, and the public in general, government authorities should establish procedures to undertake
appropriate environmental impact assessments prior to establishing aquaculture farms, and to ensure adequate monitoring of water extraction,
effluents, use of drugs and chemicals, and other farm activities that might adversely affect the surrounding lands and waters. Provisions for
obtaining baseline data and for monitoring should normally be established in conjunction with the procedures used to grant and review permits to
engage in aquaculture on a particular site. EIA and monitoring is an important area for collaboration by authorities, researchers and aquafarmers.
Consultations among all concerned should ensure that procedures for EIA and monitoring are sufficiently flexible, taking into account that scale and
cost of such efforts may well have to be adjusted to the scale of the perceived impact of a given aquaculture operation. Criteria should be defined to
establish which procedures for EIA and monitoring would be required from the aquafarmers, when considered necessary. Proposed methods for EIA
and monitoring should be evaluated for their applicability to local conditions and site characteristics.