Terminology

Capture fishing
Capture fishing is the largest extractive use of wildlife in the world, and one of the largest uses of an ecosystem “good.” It is a critical source of protein and livelihood, employing over 40 million fishers in Africa alone, and representing more than 20 percent of the animal protein in the diet of 2.6 billion people. In developing countries, where the vast majority of fishing communities and fishers are located, fishing is uniquely important to livelihoods, food security, and poverty alleviation.

Aquaculturist
A scientist responsible for the farming, culturing and growing aquatic organisms.

Capture Fisheries
This includes the capture or harvesting of all the animals and plant resources in fresh waters and ocean waters for human use. It is a very unsustainable use of marine and fresh water resources because there is usually a lot of by-catch and often uses methods kill undesired species.

Intensive Aquaculture
The practice of culturing massive densities of fish in relatively small units, with high quality feed as the primary source of nutrients.

Polyculture
This is an practice where more than one species of aquatic organisms are cultured in the same pond, in order to effectively utilize the full ecological niches of the pond ecosystem.

Marine aquaculture
This refers to culturing species that live in the ocean. Species include oysters, clams, mussels, shrimp, and salmon.

Freshwater aquaculture
This refers to culturing species that are native to rivers, lakes, and streams. Species include trout, catfish, tilapia, and bass.

Mariculture
Raising plants and animals that do well in marine (salt water) and brackish water environments. Examples are clams, oysters, tuna, mussels, and shrimp.