Alessandro Perolo - President of the FEAP and professional eel farmer

I thank very much the organisers of the Profet Workshop also for including the present session on water re-circulation among the topics to be presented and discussed.

Water re-circulation as a tool for farming fish up to market size was developed in this country and in The Netherlands and has reached so high a standard of technology it can be presented worldwide as a means of efficient and sustainable fish farming from the environmental and productive point of view.

I myself have farmed fish in flow water systems and recently in re-circulation systems and have proved how production can be boosted having regard of the environmental situation and fish welfare.

I do not have definite ideas regarding all the species suitable to be reared in re-circulation systems but as far as eels and juveniles of salt water fish are concerned, I am convinced that wherever either the disposal or quality of water is not up to the topic needed, re-circulation will provide a good tool for the production of good quality fish for the consumer and for re-stocking.

One particular aspect which I like to underline is the necessity for the farmer to pay the utmost attention to the new legislation which will be implemented in all the Community Countries and which stems from the new Directive called “Framework for Community action in the field of water policy” or Water Framework Directive, published at the end of the year 2001.

The idea which must have influenced the legislator and which compounds the first lines is “Water is a heritage which must be protected, defended and treated as such”   and a few lines after “ the need is recognised for action to avoid long-term deterioration of freshwater quality and quantity”

The first Article – Purpose – states that the Directive “promotes sustainable water use on long-term protection of available water resources”.

The legislator felt the same principle which we farmers keep observance of when he wrote those sentences, that’s in fact really what we strive to perceive in our re-circulation systems.

On October 1^st 2002 the Committee on Fisheries of the European Parliament invited representatives of the aquaculture sectors to present the status of the industry during a public hearing and on December the Committee published the Report on aquaculture in the European Union: present and future. In point 8 of the report we read: “The European Parliament supports the development of new technologies for fish farming, such as intensive water recycling systems”

That’s to say that we are not alone in fostering the re-circulation as a modern system of fish farming.