International Symposia on
Stock Enhancement and Sea Ranching

Background

The First International Symposium on Stock Enhancement and Sea Ranching was sponsored by the Norwegian Program for the Development and Encouragement of Sea Ranching. This first symposium was convened by Erlend Moksness in Bergen, Norway in September 1997. The aim of the symposium was to clarify the biological, ecological, judicial and economic basis for new industries in coastal areas based on sea ranching of Atlantic salmon, Arctic charr, Atlantic cod and European lobster through stocking of hatchery reared juveniles. The symposium coincided with the culmination of the Norwegian program, including the Norwegian cod enhancement project, one of the most systematic and productive examples of investigations of the potential of using releases of reared fish as a means to enhance the yield of natural populations. At the conclusion of the symposium, officials from Japan agreed to host a follow up symposium in Japan.

Peer-reviewed scientific papers on many of the presentations made at the first symposium were published together as the proceedings of the conference in a book edited by B. Howell, E. Moksness and T. Svåsand (Howell et al., 1999).

The Second International Symposium on Stock Enhancement and Sea Ranching was sponsored by the Japan Fisheries Agency and the Japan Sea Farming Association (JASFA). Koji Imamura, President of JASFA, convened the second symposium in Kobe, Japan, in 2002. The aim of the second symposium followed the tradition established by the first symposium in Norway of highlighting scientific developments made around the world in the stocking hatchery-reared organisms to help replenish depleted fisheries and increase yields of recruitment limited stocks. At the symposium in Kobe, officials from the USA agreed to host the third symposium in the US.

The proceedings of the second symposium were peer-reviewed and published in a book edited by K.M. Leber, S. Kitada, H.L. Blankenship and T. Svåsand (Leber et al., 2004).

The Third International Symposium on Stock Enhancement and Sea Ranching was sponsored by the NOAA-NMFS / NOAA Aquaculture Program, an agency program of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Commerce. The third symposium was convened in Seattle, Washington, USA in 2006 by Colin Nash, NOAA - NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

The proceedings of the third symposium were published in Reviews in Fisheries Science in 2008 (see titles of each manuscript).

The Fourth International Symposium on Stock Enhancement and Sea Ranching is now being planned. The fourth symposium will be held in China in 2010 in conjunction with the 9th Asian Fisheries Forum.

Guidelines for Future Symposia

The guidelines and planning protocols for the International Symposium on Stock Enhancement and Sea Ranching were established in Norway by the convener of the first symposium, Erlend Moksness, Director of the Coastal Resources Program of the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research.