Coastal and Marine

From the 10th - 13th May 2009 postgraduates from nine different countries presented work related to water, energy, climate change, and society in Noosa, Australia. I presented on my masters thesis that focuses on the collaboration of key-stakeholders involved in the Aquaculture and Seafood Trail. I received very good feedback and it was nice to discuss my research with some fresh minds!

Topics were presented at the conference that covered the following themes:

Mark Orams and Michael Lück are on the International Steering Committee for the CMT conferences and both have been invited as keynote speakers for CMT09 in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa on 23-26 June.

In terms of the project 'Exploring the role of innovation in promoting sustainable tourism development in peripheral communities: cases from New Zealand and Iceland' John Hull and Ari Páll Pálsson just published an article in the annual publication of the Food Development Cluster Programme MANUSKELE in Finland. The artcile titled 'Northeast Iceland Culinary Experience (NICE)' is linked to the strategic plan in Northeast Iceland on the culinary experience efforts.

Before the Easter week-end we set up a visitor survey in the Golden Bay/Nelson/Marlborough Region focusing on regional seafood and aquaculture products: www.seafoodtrail.co.nz.

This online survey will run for 1year and is part of the 'Top of the South Aquaculture and Seafood Trail'-project. The results will foster the basis for further developments of the trail.

Since 2007 NZTRI is involved in the development of the Marine Farming Association's "Top of the South Aquaculture and Seafood Trail" project. Our first findings from this project have been presented in an article in the Seafood New Zealand magazine. The article can also be downloaded from here.