Category Archives: News Releases

AwF Session at Asian Pacific Aquaculture, Ho Chi Minh City – December 2013

The Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) session at the Asian Pacific Aquaculture Conference and Trade Show 10-13 December 2013 in Ho Chi Minh City covered many aspects of both the history of the organisation and the current work and future directions of the organisation.

The overall conference, which attracted about 2,500 delegates, emphasized the need for the whole industry to take a more strategic approach to expansion with the theme ‘Positioning for Profit’. In the AwF session we attempted to show how aquaculture plays a role in alleviating poverty and malnutrition (which is a clear profit for society) through AwF aquaculture activities. It is something of which everyone who is connected with AwF should be proud.

The Session was jointly chaired by AwF Founder, Michael New O.B.E, and Roy Palmer. Michael led the presentations with a founder’s take on AwF’s first ten years, followed by Eddie Pantanella talking about the key role of women in integrated aquaculture in Myanmar – a great story which encompassed other farming activities besides aquaculture.

Aquaculture without Frontiers – helping global food security

By Nicki Holmyard, SeafoodSource contributing editor

Hunger and poverty are words we often hear, but have little — if any — personal experience with. Yet for a large part of the world, it is part of the daily struggle for life.

One in eight people in the world, (around 850 million) are currently estimated to be suffering from chronic hunger and regularly not getting enough food to conduct an active life. Almost all of them live in developing countries.

African countries are particularly affected, with one in four or 239 million people hungry, and this figure has grown by 20 million in just the past few years. In sub-Saharan Africa, a modest progress had been achieved in the early part of this century through a variety of food programs to alleviate hunger, but since 2007 this situation has reversed, with hunger now rising at a rate of 2 percent annually. 

AwF Volunteers update

We are delighted to announce that Cormac O’Sullivan (Canada) and Ignacio Llorente Garcia (Spain) have agreed to work with AwF to ensure that we have a better system and arrangement with the marvellous volunteers who have engaged with our organization. Cormac has spent a lot of time to get the database up to date and this week we will be sending out a survey to these volunteers, and through our connections on Facebook and LinkedIn, to collect current information for future activities.

The survey for volunteers is available via the following link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WTLQHZG

If you are interested in volunteering with us, please complete the survey as quickly as possible so that we can get the records up to date.

AwF making plans in Seattle

Aquaculture without Frontiers is pleased to announce that it will hold an open meeting for all those people interested in sharing ideas for the future activities of the organisation.

Roy Palmer, Chief Executive, said “The meeting will take place between 4 and 6 pm on Sunday 9 February in Room 307 at Washington State Convention Center, Convention Place, Pike Street, Seattle, WA. John Forster, AwF Executive Chair, will be assisting to outline some of the current plans.”

“Additionally, there will be an AwF Session at the Aquaculture America 2014 Conference taking place on Wednesday 12 February from 1.30pm (Room 609) and that will feature Gleyn Bledsoe, Joseph Sullivan, Angela Caporelli, Antonio Garza de Yta, Scott Lindell and me.”

Aquaculture without Frontiers appoints new executive director

Dave Conley, Executive Director

The Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Dave Conley as executive director of Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF). Mr. Conley joined the Board as a director in February 2010 and has been very active over the past 17 months volunteering his time to completely redesign the AwF website, reaching out to other NGOs working in aquaculture/agriculture development, and managing our communications program. He has also undertaken to update our volunteer database with the goal of better utilizing this resource to expand the reach and effectiveness of our organization.

“We are extremely pleased with all the work that Dave has done since joining us,” said AwF Founder and Patron, Michael New, OBE. “He has made numerous suggestions to help us become more efficient and has impressed me with his energy and dedication to achieving the mission of AwF.” 

AwF announces the launch of its redesigned website

Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) is pleased to announce the launch of its completely redesigned website.

This fulfills the commitment to raise the profile of AwF and improve fundraising activities that Dr Barry Costa-Pierce and Dr. Mudnakudu Nandeesha, international co-chairs, made at the AwF Board of Directors meeting 26 September 2009 during the World Aquaculture Society conference in Veracruz, Mexico. The AwF Board of Directors hopes visitors will find the new website informative and that it provides a clear and comprehensive view of our work to date.

Using the WordPress blogging platform will enable Directors to post information from anywhere in the world through a web-based interface, eliminating the barriers of distance and time, and the access bottleneck of relying on the webmaster.

The website redesign and development was undertaken by The Aquaculture Communications Group (ACG), led by Dave Conley and Tor-Eddie Fossbakk, who voluntarily contributed their time and expertise to bring this project to completion. The Board of Directors thanks them for their generous contribution.

Almost US$ 12,000 raised for AwF at San Diego Evening for the World’s Poor

On March 3, during Aquaculture 2010 in San Diego, more than 50 people sat down for a simple meal of fish, rice, bread, a vegetable and water during an event called “An Evening for the World’s Poor”.

Introduced by Michael New (the Founder of Aquaculture without Frontiers – AwF), AwF Co-Chairs Barry Costa-Pierce and M.C. Nandeesha spoke about the goals and impact of the work of this NGO in teaching rural poor in developing countries to grow fish in small-scale aquaculture for family food and income. This introduction was followed by video clips from three of AwF’s projects – AwF-Bishramganj (Tripura, India), AwF-Toleo Foundation (Sunderbans, India) and AwF-Nepal – and statements of support from representatives of some of the major sponsors.

AwF launches online donation appeal

Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) today launched its online appeal to solicit donations from the global aquaculture industry and interested public to support its objective of alleviating poverty by improving livelihoods in developing countries. AwF has created an online secure donor page at its website where companies and individuals can make donations using their credit card.

AwF has new international leadership

During the Board meeting of the international charity Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF), held on 26 September 2009 during the World Aquaculture Society conference in Veracruz, Mexico and attended by the AwF Founder Michael New, OBE, Dr. Kevin Fitzsimmons announced that he was stepping down and that a new international leadership partnership would be replacing him.