Tilapia talks: WWF's Tilapia Aquaculture Dialogues yield specifics on farming standards

摘要

Under scrutiny for the past 20 years, Regal Springs Tilapia in Bradenton, Fla., has run its farms in public waterways in Indonesia, Mexico and Honduras. So Mike Picchietti, Regal's president, knows the basics about environmentally and socially responsible fish farming: Treat workers right, don't feed the fish too much and don't pollute the water. Then Picchietti spent four and a half years talking regularly with academic experts and environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as part of the Tilapia Aquaculture Dialogues organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). With input from one-dozen tilapia producers and 200 NGOs, the process yielded standards, finalized in late December, which set specific measurements and practices to define environmentally and socially responsible tilapia farming.