The overall objective of these guidelines, and the associated training initiative, is to improve the environmental assessment capacity for mariculture developments in a variety of stakeholder groups in Eastern Africa. The guidelines and associated technical appendices provide detailed practical and technical information to reduce and mitigate the environmental and social impacts of mariculture developments along the eastern African coast. The emphasis in the guidelines is on those forms of activity likely to pose the greatest threat.
The guidelines should serve as a “hands-on” technical manual that will assist, for example:
- government regulatory agencies to assess and recommend modifications to coastal aquaculture developments;
- policy makers and planners to improve the procedures for the environmental assessment and management of individual coastal aquaculture projects, and the coastal aquaculture sector as a whole;
- coastal aquaculture developers to recognize negative impacts from proposed developments and provide them with practical and cost effective measures to reduce the impacts, and
- NGO’s and community organizations to better assess the social and environmental impacts of coastal aquaculture developments, and the efficacy of government EIA activity in this sector.
While the regional focus of this document is Eastern Africa, it draws heavily on experience from other parts of the world, and in particular SE Asia, where coastal aquaculture is far more developed, and where environmental issues related to aquaculture have already become significant. The document will therefore be relevant and useful to people from throughout the world with an interest in more sustainable coastal aquaculture development