Local appointees to UK SEAFISH board

Prof Mike Kaiser

Two north Wales based marine professionals have been appointed to the Board of the Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish) by the UK’s four Fisheries Ministers. 

Prof Mike Kaiser of Bangor University’s School of Ocean Sciences will be a non-executive member from 1 April 2012 until 31 March 2015. He was first appointed and has served on the Board since 2008.

Prof Kaiser said: 'I'm delighted to have been re-appointed to the Board of Seafish as the organisation has a key role to play in the future of food security for the UK. Seafish provides a critical link between science, industry and policy hence it will be a privilege to help direct the delivery of the Seafish remit.' Prof Kaiser will serve alongside a new deputy chair, Jane Ryder and six other non-executive members: Clare Dodgson, Peter Hajipieris, Philip Huggon, Michael Park, Stephen Parry and James Wilson. John Whitehead has been reappointed Chairman of the Seafish Board.

Professor Mike Kaiser has also been appointed as an independent member of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), by Richard Benyon, Natural Environment and Marine Minister. The appointment will run from 1 April 2012 for three years.

Mike Kaiser is Professor of Marine Conservation Ecology at the School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University.  He also chairs Defra’s Marine Fisheries Stakeholder Forum and is a panel member of the European Science Foundation Marine Board Working Group ‘Valuing Marine Ecosystems’.  After gaining his PhD he joined CEFAS where he led a research team studying the effects of human activities (fishing and aquaculture) on the marine environment.  He joined Bangor University as a lecturer where he expanded these interests to encompass the social and economic consequences of different approaches of managing fishing activities.  He has been awarded the Fisheries Society of the British Isles medal and a personal Chair in Marine Conservation Ecology.

Joining him on the Seafish Board is Menai Strait mussel farmer and Bangor graduate, James Wilson, who is Director of The Menai Strait Fishery Order Management Association, Director of Bangor Mussel Producers Ltd. and Chairman of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain Mollusc Committee. 

James Wilson said: “I’m obviously really pleased to also have been selected once again to sit on the board. The next few years are looking like exciting ones in respect of the way in which we think about and use our seas, Seafish should have a central role in the development of the vision and approach.”

James Wilson has been involved in the extensive culture of mussels in Wales and Northern Ireland for the past decade.  A marine scientist by education, he has worked in the past for the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisation; the Irish state agency responsible fishing and aquaculture, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM); the Centre for the Economics and Management of Aquatic Resources (CEMARE) in Europe; and alongside DFO/FOC and First Nations on the Canadian Pacific Coast.  He was a Welsh Government appointee on the North Western and North Wales Sea Fisheries Committee.

The appointments follow discussions with the industry on Seafish’s future, which were held last autumn. Seafish was established by the Fisheries Act 1981 for the purpose of promoting the efficiency of the sea fish industry and so as to serve the interests of that industry as a whole.  It is a Non-Departmental Public Body sponsored jointly by the four UK Fisheries Administrations.  For more information go to: www.seafish.org

Publication date: 19 March 2012