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Public attitudes towards marine aquaculture in Canada: insights from the Pacific and Atlantic coasts

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Abstract

With 25% of the world’s coastline, Canada is endowed with enormous potential for marine aquaculture. Its development on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, however, has come under increasingly intense public scrutiny and generated heated debate over many issues including First Nations territorial rights, impacts on wild fisheries, and environmental impacts. Provincial governments, industry alliances, scientists and ENGOs (environmental non-governmental organizations) have become increasingly embroiled in a communication tug-of-war to win the hearts and minds of the public. To date, however, there has been very limited community-level research into the public’s awareness of aquaculture, the information sources viewed as being most credible, and the issues that resonate the most. This paper reports the results of a study undertaken in small coastal communities on Canada’s Pacific (west) and Atlantic (east) coasts that investigated awareness of aquaculture, and the issues that people associate with its development. While many studies have focused exclusively on attitudes related to either finfish or shellfish farming, this study explores community perceptions related to salmon, shellfish and seaweed farming. Significant differences exist between the Atlantic and Pacific coast respondents in terms of their familiarity with and evaluation of different farming systems, the information sources that they rely upon, and their perceptions of the reliability of different information sources.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our interviewers, Breanna Moore, Kurt Simmons, and Nick Sherrington, for their diligence and commitment to teamwork.

Funding

We greatly appreciate the financial support provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) strategic Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network (CIMTAN) in collaboration Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of Victoria, PO Box 1700, STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 2Y2, Canada

    Mark Flaherty & Erin Latham

  2. St. Andrews Biological Station, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 531 Brandy Cove Road, St. Andrews, NB, E5B 2L9, Canada

    Gregor Reid

  3. Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick, Saint John, NB, E2L 4L5, Canada

    Gregor Reid & Thierry Chopin

  4. Department of Biological Sciences, University of New Brunswick, Saint John, NB, E2L 4L5, Canada

    Thierry Chopin

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  1. Mark Flaherty
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Correspondence to Mark Flaherty.

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Flaherty, M., Reid, G., Chopin, T. et al. Public attitudes towards marine aquaculture in Canada: insights from the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Aquacult Int 27, 9–32 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10499-018-0312-9

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