Conference Chairman: Alessandro Lovatelli
A marine biologist and aquaculturist, he obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the universities of Southampton and Plymouth (United Kingdom), respectively. He started his professional aquaculture carrier in the European private sector working on the artificial production of commercially valuable bivalve species (several clam and oyster species, mainly Ruditapes philippinarum and Crassostrea gigas), on-growing applications and commercial depuration. He collaborated closely with the Italian National Research Council (CNR) on the reproduction of the kuruma shrimp (Marsupenaeus japonicus) in the Mediterranean context and the development and design of industrial hatchery model.
He joined the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) back in 1987 working initially as bivalve expert attached to an FAO/United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) regional project implemented by the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (www.enaca.org). His subsequent FAO assignment was in Mexico working on a regional aquaculture development project funded by the Italian Government covering almost all the Latin American countries and the Caribbean. From 1993 to 1997 he worked in Viet Nam, Somalia and then again in Southeast Asia. In Vietnam he headed the aquaculture and fisheries component of a large European Union project developing, among many other activities, 10 regional aquaculture demonstration, training and extension centres and expanding considerably the use of small- and medium-sized fish cages in both the marine and freshwater environment. In Somalia, he consulted for the European Commission analysing in depth the status of the fishery and aquaculture industries and proposing follow-up long-term actions.
Following an additional year in Vietnam as one of the team leaders under the Danish-funded Fisheries Master Plan Project, he joined again by FAO as the Aquaculture Advisor attached to the EASTFISH project in Denmark (now Eurofish – www.eurofish.dk). In 2001, he moved to the Department of Fishery and Aquaculture of FAO in its headquarters in Rome, Italy. The main activities currently focused on are marine/offshore aquaculture development, transfer of farming technologies, resources management and planning. Mr Lovatelli geographical coverage is global, but acts as the departmental focal point for the North Africa and Near East region. He has considerable experience with a number of regional fisheries management bodies.
Mr. Lovatelli moved from the FAO Headquarters in Rome to the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (RLC) in Santiago, Chile, at the end of 2016 as the Regional Fisheries and Aquaculture Officer covering South America. In this new capacity he is providing technical support on fisheries and aquaculture development in the region.
