Within this framework, IUCN and the General Secretariat for Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Spain (MAPA), signed an agreement to cooperate and develop “Guidelines for sustainable development of Mediterranean aquaculture”. The objective of these guidelines is to propose recommendations for responsible and sustainable aquaculture, giving support to decision makers, aquaculture producers and stakeholders in the Mediterranean region. The guidelines will be made up of a number of individual guides. These guides will address the following issues, amongst others: The Interaction between Aquaculture and Environment; Site Selection; Species and Products Diversification; Animal Welfare and Sanitary-Ethic Aspects; Social Aspects; Food Origin and Quality; Market Aspects; Aquaculture Management. A group of aquaculture experts from the Mediterranean were invited to participate in the development of this document.

The working group, originally named “Aquaculture and Environment”, was set up in 2004 by IUCN’s Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, and is composed of aquaculture specialists from around the Mediterranean region, with differing areas of expertise. After an initial meeting in 2004, the group organised a workshop with the Algerian Ecologic Movement (MEA), and the Algerian Ministry of Fisheries, in Algiers (June 2005). Later, there was a meeting in Barcelona (November 2005) designed to push forward work on the results obtained from the Algerian workshop and plan future activities. This present document is the first in a collection of guides that together will make up the guidelines for the development of sustainable aquaculture, and is devoted to the interaction between aquaculture practices and the environment. This guide does not address the interaction with other human activities taking place in the same environment. Neither does it cover fresh water aquaculture, although some examples are taken from this activity. It addresses finfish and shellfish culture, but mainly focuses on finfish aquaculture, and specifically cage culture.

The present document is the result of a three-day workshop held in Las Palmas de Gran Canarias (26-28 October 2006) and organized by BIOGES (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canarias). This workshop gathered 25 participants representing most of the Mediterranean countries. There were scientists, managers and producers, as well as representatives of governmental and environmental organisations (the participants list can be found in Annex). The compilation of data and drafting of this document have been done by Alex Makol and Ricardo Haroun (BIOGES), with the participation of all workshop participants, and under the coordination of Javier Ojeda (APROMAR/FEAP) and François Simard (IUCN).

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