Matthias Kaiser
University of Bergen, Norway
Title: Social and ethical dimensions of future food from the oceans: Highlights from a high-level EU background paper
Biography
Biography: Matthias Kaiser
Abstract
Author was appointed a member of a high level European expert group to provide The European Commission a state of the art report and advice on the following question: How can more food and biomass be obtained from the oceans in a way that does not deprive future generations of their benefits?- The group included natural and social scientists, including some from the humanities. The interesting aspect about the report is that it is very explicit about the fact that higher productivity of seafood is indeed partially constrained by limits of the natural resources and partially by technology and its environmental impacts, but that a huge challenge for further growth and development is due to social and cultural factors. Society and people’s attitudes and values are bottlenecks for some technological developments. The task for the future is to align these forces to a much greater extent, and this means also a significant challenge to our social and humanistic sciences. Author will deepen these points with examples from the report.