This webinar will focus on artemia, a small brine shrimp found naturally in hypersaline ecosystems – salt lakes, salt pans and salt works across the world. Presenters will explain artemia’s unique role in the aquatic ecosystem and explore ways for future investment opportunities. The webinar will be held from 12:30-14:00 GMT on 11 March.

The shrimp has rare biological characteristics that enable it to thrive in saline environments under climate change stress, and special nutritional properties that have made it an essential product for fish and shrimp hatchery production across the world, contributing directly to the sustainable production of over 10 million tons of high-value aquaculture products. Artemia is also emerging as a unique product with applications beyond aquaculture hatcheries, and its potential in animal and human food production in climate-stressed ecosystems. 

In this issue:

• FAO programme supports national innovation and investment plans for aquaculture transformation.
• 14th Asian Fisheries Forum, 12-15 February 2025 register now!
• Saudi International Marine Exhibition (SIMEC) 3-5 February 2025, Riyadh.
• Workshop on Sustainable Brine Shrimp Artemia Cultivation, 17 February, Tashkent.
• Status, technological innovations, and industry development needs of mud crab (Scylla spp.) aquaculture.
• Global Seaweed: New and Emerging Markets Report 2023.

Although the drying up of the Aral Sea and the salinisation of a lot of agricultural lands in different regions in Uzbekistan (UZB) and Kazakhstan (KAZ) have major negative consequences, there is a high potential to develop a new profitable industry and create new job opportunities in this region: the environmental-friendly and sustainable pond farming of brine shrimp Artemia, a wellknown source of food in the farming of fish and crustacean species around the world. This workshop aims to show the outcomes of the implemented Artemia pilot project, present guidelines and recommendations important for such a new business sector, lessons learned and discuss prospects of Artemia production to further develop aquaculture sector in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

In this issue:

• Training Programme on Safeguarding Artemia Resources for Aquaculture held in Rome.
• First International Artemia Aquaculture Consortium Conference and Members' Meeting, Ostend, Belgium.
• Inception workshop: Knowledge brokering for nature-based solutions in aquaculture transformation.
• Reported Aquatic Animal Diseases in the Asia-Pacific Region during the First Quarter of 2024.
• 14th Asian fisheries and Aquaculture Forum, India.
• PhD scholarships: Shanghai Ocean University PhD Programme 2025.

The first ever IAAC conference was a free half day event held in Ostend, Belgium on 9 September, as a prelude to Larvi 2024, which ran from 9-12 September. The conference featured twelve presentations introducing the IAAC and providing an overview of many of the issues surrounding Artemia, including management of salt lakes habitats that still provide the bulk of global Artemia supplies, Artemia biodiversity, hatching optimisation, and aquaculture of Artemia biomass in tanks and ponds. Video recordings of most will be posted shortly (the programme below will be updated with links). Video recordings of the presentations are now available on the NACA YouTube channel.

The first IAAC Members’ Meeting was held in the afternoon following the IAAC Conference. The proceedings involved two panel discussions, by the Academic Sector and Private Sector respectively. The panels included remote members participating via Zoom.