Ethical Responsibilities for Aquaculture- Considerations from a Governmental Perspective

Governments have ethical responsibilities to produce fish, regulate aquaculture-associated activities and to the fish themselves.  It is unethical for agencies or personnel to break laws and for the latter to not follow agency regulations. Particular objectives for which fish are cultured are central to determining if practices are ethical.    Are the fish being raised for food, profit, conservation or other reasons (serve as model or ornamental organism)? These objectives may conflict with other societal values.  Government has a responsibility to all stakeholders.  Different governmental entities have different objectives; therefore ethical conflicts could arise.  For example, aquaculture for economic development appears ethical for Commerce. However, so does curtailment of aquaculture if it negatively affects endangered species, an Interior concern.  There can be ethical concerns within an agency since agencies serve multiple, often different publics.  Other consequences of aquacultural practices need to be considered, such as the potential for pollution, spread of disease, depletion of wild populations of ornamental fish, and fishing down the trophic web for feed production. Ethics provides us with a method to weight alternative outcomes or the rightness of alternative procedures.  I argue that there is a moral obligation to incorporate ethics in aquaculture actions and decision making.