Review: Matthias Gross on Young & Matthews, The Aquaculture Controversy in Canada

Nathan Young and Ralph Matthews. The Aquaculture Controversy in Canada: Activism, Policy, and Contested Science. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010, 312 pp. $34.95 paper (978-0-7748-1811-7), $85.00 hardcover (978-0-7748-1810-0)

Does cultivating freshwater and saltwater fish populations under controlled conditions instead of harvesting wild fish make practices of aquaculture or aquafarming part of the solution to the decline of global wild fisheries? Or does the farming of fish, shrimp, oysters or algacultures foster overfishing and pose unacceptable risks to ecological integrity and human health? In their engaging book, The Aquaculture Controversy in Canada: Activism, Policy, and Contested Science, Nathan Young and Ralph Matthews analyze a classical clash between proponents of a novel technique and the critical stance that points to its unintended (mainly negative) side effects. Read more