A Joint European Certification System for Sustainable Non-Intensive Aquaculture: a proposal from the SEACASE project

The European project Sustainable extensive and semi-intensive coastal aquaculture in Southern Europe (SEACASE) included the proposal of 6 Codes of Conduct for the aquaculture systems studied during the project work. These case studies are typical of the countries involved, namely semi-intensive polyculture (Portugal and Spain), extensive polyculture in esteros (Spain), integrated systems (France), valliculture (Italy), nursery ponds (Greece, Portugal, France and Italy) and eel ponds (France). This article was written having as objective the providing of a concise summary of the characteristics that SEACASE collaborators found to be central to build a complete and trustable Certification system for products of sustainable non-intensive aquaculture (for “certification of sustainability”, see Ojeda, 2008). The 6 Codes of Conduct are the basic information to build such a system in the future.This study has been carried out with the financial support from the Commission of the European Communities, specific RTD programme “Specific Support to Policies”, SSP-2005-44483 “SEACASE - Sustainable extensive and semi-intensive coastal aquaculture in Southern Europe”, and does not necessarily reflect the European Commission views and in no way anticipates the Commission’s future policy in this area.Peer reviewe