First of all, I want to thank you who have elected me to become president of the World Aquaculture Society — Asian Pacific Chapter. I have been a member for over 25 years and I had the privilege to serve as a Board member for the past three years. I am now honored to follow Dr. Diana Chan Pek Sian, who has done tremendous work as president of WAS-APC and will act now as past-president.

The annual meeting of the 2020 Board of Directors was held virtually on November 25, at which time the elected new board members joined our team. The new Board of Directors are:

• President – Dr. Jean-Yves Mével
• Past President – Dr. Diana Chan Pek Sian
• President Elect – Dr. Salin Krishna
• Treasurer – Dr. Ruth Garcia Gomez
• Director – Dr. Alistair E. Douglas
• Director – Dr. Belinda Yaxley
• Director – Dr. Sagiv Kolkovski
• Director – Dr. Bibha Kumari
• Student Director – Dr. Menaga Meenakshisundaram
• Chapter Secretariat Executive Officer – Natchavee Angsuwattananon

I want to welcome aboard the new members, Dr. Ruth Garcia Gomez, Dr. Alistair E. Douglas and Dr. Belinda Yaxley.

Today, I am looking forward to entering the post-covid-19 pandemic era and hope we can move toward a brighter time with new, highly successful international meetings for WAS-APC. Almost two years of activity in isolation has taken its toll on the entire world and in particular on the Asia-Pacific region. The lessons brought by this pandemic are numerous and far reaching. The difficulty in exporting worldwide has been damaging for all industries, and of course for aquaculture production as well. Today in supermarkets, products are not as abundant as before covid 19, prices are increasing at a frightening pace everywhere, whether in Laos where I should be living with my family or in France where I am forced to remain because of very strict travel restrictions to Laos.

This crisis has forced us to rethink our way of producing and eating food. Although the pandemic has made everyone’s life difficult and hurt aquaculture export businesses, it has demonstrated the fragility of food self-sufficiency and forced us to question the resiliency of the food distribution system. The result is an increased interest in local food production, reducing transportation, promoting circular economy and demonstrating a better response to climate change challenges. Today I see an increased interest in recirculating aquaculture systems and in urban aquaponics associated or not with vertical farming. These production systems are largely technology based and I can see the tremendous role WAS-APC will have in disseminating scientific information and linking expertise over international waters.

In response to these challenges and the restrictions on international travel imposed by all countries, WAS-APC has organized webinars to maintain a certain visibility and answer some of the technical questions of importance to the aquaculture industry today. Our first webinar titled “Arising Aquaculture Opportunities Amidst COVID-19” was organized on 19 June 2020, and was overwhelmingly successful. It was therefore decided to plan for regular thematic webinars on sustainable aquaculture innovations and technologies. WAS-APC and the Aquaculture Innovation Centre (AIC), which is the National Centre for Aquaculture in Singapore, have been working closely with WAS-APC to deliver the following webinars:

• Urban Aquaculture (30 October 2020)
• Maximizing the Power of Research Manuscript Writing (26 January 2021)
• Microbial Management in Aquaculture (19 April 2021)
• Nutrition (24 June 2021)
• Digital Technologies for Aquaculture Production: Useful Tools for Farm Management (28 July 2021)

More webinars are in preparation, and we will be trying to get more industry stakeholders to participate in upcoming webinars.

As you know, most events in Asia have been postponed now for nearly two years, including World Aquaculture 2020 in Singapore. however, the WORLD AQUACULTURE 2020 webinar took place on December 14 to 16 as a reminder of WA2020.

The latest initiative, the Aquaculture Innovation Ideation Challenge (AIIC) 2021 has been jointly organized by WAS-APC and the AIC to encourage aquaculture students and young professionals to share ideas toward more sustainable aquaculture. The winners will be featured on the WAS-APC website and social media and receive a certificate of commendation and the opportunity to serve as a moderator at the next WAS-APC student webinar. In the future, the APC Board will continue to work with the AIC in organizing a thematic webinar series on aquaculture innovations and technologies for sustainable aquaculture.

With the end of the pandemic — a small light at the end of a long tunnel — the WA2020 originally planned for 14-18 December 2020 has been postponed to 29 Nov – 2 December 2022 and renamed World Aquaculture Singapore. We certainly hope that people will come in large numbers to catch up after nearly three years of social distancing and frustration.

Similarly, the Asian Pacific Aquaculture (APA 21), organized by the World Aquaculture Society – Asian Pacific Chapter and hosted by the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries has been cancelled, However, I was invited to represent WAS-APC at the Tenth International Conference of Aquaculture Indonesia (ICAI), 10/28/2021 – 10/30/2021, in Semarang, Indonesia. The presentation titled “Urban Aquaponics – Is it Feasible?” was presented as a webinar through a video.

This year, with the team sitting on the APC Board, we hope to build upon the work of the previous presidents with the objective to enhance collaboration ammong our members from academic, research and commercial sectors. With this goal in mind, we will keep organizing webinars, competitions, and working on improving the APC social media platforms to promote interaction with industry stakeholders.

Following up on past president’s proposals, the social media initiative “Ask the Experts” corner will allow specialists to answer questions from APC members and promote interactions between experts from different backgrounds. This was proposed by Dr. Diana Chan Pek Sian and I hope I can finalize a trial program on the APC website to assess the feasibility and the positive outcome of this initiative, which would mainly rest on our members’ willingness to participate.

Finally, as we are approaching the new year, I would like to wish WAS management, members and our readers Happy Holidays and to the world a virus-free new year so we can plan in Singapore for the best WAS meeting we’ve ever had.
— Jean-Yves Mével, President