AQUACULTURE WITHOUT FRONTIERS
News update Standard for Aquatic plant names finalized After three years of development and extensive stakeholder consultation, the first Australian Standard for Aquatic Plant Names AS 5301-2020 has been completed. The standard includes flowering plants, red, green, and brown algae, aquatic protists, and cyanobacteria that naturally require saltwater or freshwater habitats for growth. It provides the scientific and’ common’ or ‘standard’ name for species grown in Australia and imported, which are used commercially as food and in therapeutics, derivatives, and additives. This includes many widely used seaweeds. The standard is expected to support the emerging seaweed production sector in Australia and to provide clarity for consumers, given the growing interest in seaweeds for health and culinary use. View the standard at https:// www.frdc.com.au/ New Zealand – Proposed Science & Technology Precinct The Cawthron Institute is looking to relocate to a new Science and Technology Precinct at Port Nelson to create more space and more opportunities for innovation. Port Nelson is collaborating with Cawthron on the project, along with up to $5 million in support from the Nelson City Council. It has been reported that for Cawthron’s newly appointed chief executive Volker Kuntzsch, relocating was an opportunity to upgrade the institute’s facilities and collaborate with other organizations. Kuntzsch said Cawthron’s investment in the new site would likely be $20m-plus, but the total cost of the new premises would depend on who the other partners were and what they wanted. He said from a pragmatic perspec34 »
tive, Cawthron had also outgrown its current facilities, and they need to be looking at facilities that will last 50 years into the future, with the opportunity to have flexibility. Kuntzsch said the company settled on the preferred location at the port, after looking at about 30 different sites across Nelson and Tasman. He said engineers were still doing their due diligence at the site, with factors like sea-level rise and seismic activity to be considered. The Namibian-born Kuntzsch comes from a scientific background, gaining a Masters of Zoology from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. His move to Cawthron comes after an extensive career in the seafood industry, most recently coming off a seven-year stint as the chief executive of Sanford Ltd, before which he was the president of both Nippon Suisan (USA) and King & Prince Seafood Corp (USA). He said while his commercial background was probably the “elephant in the room” for scientists, his vision for Cawthron was creating value in a much bigger sense than just the bottom line. Part of that vision was using science to make a difference with New Zealand’s vast ocean resources.
Australia - New national marine research hub The Australian Government has announced $ 45-million investment in a new national Marine and Coastal Hub as part of the second phase of its National Environmental Science Program (NESP) from 2021 to 2027. The hub will be hosted jointly by the University of Tasmania and Queensland’s Reef and Rainforest Research Centre. The six original NESP hubs will transition into four new hubs during the year. The original hubs were: Clean Air and Urban Landscapes; Marine Biodiversity; Threatened Species Recovery; Earth Systems and Climate Change; Northern Australia Environmental Resources; and Tropical Water Quality. The four new hubs are: Marine and Coastal; Resilient Landscapes; Sustainable Communities and Waste; and Climate Systems. Research across the four hubs will focus on pressing environmental management and policy needs, with an emphasis on climate adaptation, threatened species, protected places, and waste impacts. They are expected to work collaboratively, while researching practical environmental science strategies within their own field. APRIL-MAY 2021
