Report of the Working Group on Environmental Interactions of Mariculture (WGEIM)

The meeting (Chair: Chris McKindsey) was held on 29 March–2 April 2010 at the Ma-rine Institute in Galway, Ireland, and was attended by 7 participants from 5 countries. It had two objectives (1) to have a joint meeting with the WGMASC to discuss topics of mutual interest, increase collaboration, and reduce overlap between the two groups, and (2) to work on the Terms of Reference. The ToRs were addressed sepa-rately, followed by plenary sessions. Because of limited time due to holding a joint meeting with the WGMASC, that half of the participating members were new to the EG process, and the work involved in providing OSPAR advice (ToR g), it was de-cided that only a selected number of ToRs would be addressed (ToRs a, c, and g). That being said, 3 participants who were to work on ToR c could not attend the meet-ing at the final minute and thus this ToR was also postponed. Although not ad-dressed directly, information for the SSGHIE on potential and current contributions of the WGEIM for the SICMSP and for plans to collaborate with the WGMASC on similar issues were discussed in the context of the joint meeting with the WGMASC and are reported within the deliberations (ToR i). Because of the timely nature and joint interest by the two EGs, the Bivalve Aquaculture Dialogue, a WWF certification process for best practices for bivalve aquaculture, was also discussed and joint com-ments by the EGs are included as a final ToR (ToR j).