Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science
Encyclopedia
The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) is an executive agency
Executive agency
An executive agency, also known as a next-step agency, is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly or Northern Ireland...

 of the United Kingdom government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the government department responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the United Kingdom...

 (Defra). It carries out a wide range of research, advisory, consultancy, monitoring and training activities for a large number of customers around the world.

Cefas employs approximately 570 staff based at two specialist laboratories within the UK. They also operate an ocean-going research vessel Cefas Endeavour
RV Cefas Endeavour
RV Cefas Endeavour is an ocean-going fisheries research vessel which is based at the port of Lowestoft and is operated by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science ....

.

Customers

The primary customer for Cefas is their parent organisation Defra. They also undertake work for international and UK government departments (central and local), the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

, the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), commercial organisations, non-governmental and environmental organisations, regulators and enforcement agencies, local authorities and other public bodies.

There is an increasing focus on commercial research and consultancy as the level of funding available from Defra gradually reduces.

History

Known previously as the Directorate of Fisheries Research, the name and status was changed in 1997 to 'Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science' (Cefas). At this time it became an Executive Agency of what was then the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and is now the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Lowestoft laboratory

In 1902, the Marine Biological Association opened a sub-station in Pakefield
Pakefield
Pakefield is a suburb of the town of Lowestoft in the Waveney District of the English county of Suffolk. Pakefield is located around 2 miles south of the centre of the town. Although today it forms a suburb of the urban area of Lowestoft, it was until 1934 a village and parish in its own right....

 a suburb of Lowestoft
Lowestoft
Lowestoft is a town in the English county of Suffolk. The town is on the North Sea coast and is the most easterly point of the United Kingdom. It is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and south-east of Norwich...

, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

 to research the Fishing industry
Fishing industry
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products....

. This was part of the UK contribution to the newly created International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. By 1921 the station had been expanded to include a laboratory with experimental facilities.

Early research was focused on aspects of the marine biology of the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

. During the 20s and 30s biological studies expanded, the theory of fishing was developed and forecasting fish stocks became a routine.

After the second world war, radiobiological
Radiobiology
Radiobiology , as a field of clinical and basic medical sciences, originated from Leopold Freund's 1896 demonstration of the therapeutic treatment of a hairy mole using a new type of electromagnetic radiation called x-rays, which was discovered 1 year previously by the German physicist, Wilhelm...

 facilities were installed to advise on the safe disposal of radioactive substances at sea. Research aboard the newly acquired Arctic-going Research Vessel Ernest Holt established an important link between fishable cod
Cod
Cod is the common name for genus Gadus, belonging to the family Gadidae, and is also used in the common name for various other fishes. Cod is a popular food with a mild flavor, low fat content and a dense, flaky white flesh. Cod livers are processed to make cod liver oil, an important source of...

 concentrations and water temperatures and identified cod migration routes. The migration routes of plaice stocks were identified and the deterioration in the North Sea herring fishery was investigated. From this ground-breaking work came theories of fishing and fish population trends that have become international recognised.

The laboratory moved to its current site on the cliffs in the Kirkley
Kirkley
Kirkley is a place within the town of Lowestoft in the Waveney District of the English county of Suffolk. Kirkley is located south of the centre of the town. Although today it forms part of the urban area of Lowestoft, it was originally a village....

 area 1955. The site was expanded in the 60s and 80s to meet the needs of emerging work programmes monitoring the quality of the marine environment. Although the period 1964–1982 probably saw the fullest flowering of fisheries research, per se, at Lowestoft, the increasing awareness of both politicians and the public about the importance of maintaining the quality of the marine environment, meant that an increasing proportion of the work programme of that period was devoted to problems associated with investigating both radioactive and non-radioactive contamination at sea.

Conwy laboratory

Research at Conwy
Conwy
Conwy is a walled market town and community in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales. The town, which faces Deganwy across the River Conwy, formerly lay in Gwynedd and prior to that in Caernarfonshire. Conwy has a population of 14,208...

 started in 1918 to find a more effective method of mussel
Mussel
The common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...

 purification. The Conway Corporation mussel purification tanks were taken over by the then Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and research. Research expanded into developing hatchery
Hatchery
A hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial conditions, especially those of fish or poultry. It may be used for ex-situ conservation purposes, i.e. to breed rare or endangered species under controlled conditions; alternatively, it may be for economic reasons A hatchery is a...

 culture techniques, initially on the native oyster
Oyster
The word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....

, and subsequently, in the 1960s, on the Pacific oyster
Pacific oyster
The Pacific oyster, Japanese oyster or Miyagi oyster , is an oyster native to the Pacific coast of Asia. It has become an introduced species in North America, Australia, Europe, and New Zealand.- Etymology :...

, work which now forms the basis of the UK bivalve cultivation industry.

The laboratory was expanded in the 70s in order to increase the capacity to research other aspects of shellfish cultivation. This included responsibilities for dealing with ecological and management problems in various shellfisheries. More recent research shifted emphasis away from shellfish cultivation to the ecology of coastal waters and coastal zone management. This work was transferred to the Weymouth laboratory when the Conwy facilities were closed in 2001.

Weymouth laboratory

The Weymouth laboratory was established in 1969 with four staff, specifically to study the cause of a disease in salmon
Atlantic salmon
The Atlantic salmon is a species of fish in the family Salmonidae, which is found in the northern Atlantic Ocean and in rivers that flow into the north Atlantic and the north Pacific....

. The laboratory was expanded in the 1970s and 1980s to investigate serious disease risks threatening the expanding fish farming industry. During the 1980s research shifted towards determining drug residues in fish for human consumption and environmental problems associated with release of medicines from fish farms.

Further expansion occurred during the 90s from new inspection and monitoring responsibilities stemming from EC directives
European Union directive
A directive is a legislative act of the European Union, which requires member states to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving that result. It can be distinguished from regulations which are self-executing and do not require any implementing measures. Directives...

. These dealt with marine and freshwater fish health, and microbiological hygiene of molluscan shellfish. This resulted in the existing facilities becoming over stretched. In 1994 a new laboratory, housing state-of the art equipment and the most modern facilities, was opened.

The Weymouth Laboratory is the base for the Fish Health Inspectorate (FHI). FHI's primary role is undertake statutory and inspection duties resulting from the EU Fish Health regime and other national legislation in the area of fish and shellfish health. The Inspectorate also licenses and monitors imports of fish and shellfish from other countries and runs an enforcement programme aimed at preventing the illegal importation of these animals.

Weymouth Laboratory is also the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 and UK national reference laboratory for monitoring bacteriological and viral contamination of bivalve molluscs.

Burnham-on-Crouch laboratory

The Burnham
Burnham-on-Crouch
Burnham-on-Crouch is a town in the Maldon district of Essex in the East of England. It lies on the north bank of the River Crouch.-History:Historically, it has benefited from its location on the coast - first as a ferry port, later as a fishing port known for its oyster beds, and most recently as a...

 laboratory was established in 1953 as the Ministry's first-ever purpose-built fisheries laboratory. The role of the laboratory was expanded in 1957 to cover work on pollution, and by the mid-60s began to take the lead in the investigation of environmental protection problems, with the exception of those arising from radioactive waste
Radioactive waste
Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive material. Radioactive wastes are usually by-products of nuclear power generation and other applications of nuclear fission or nuclear technology, such as research and medicine...

. Early studies concentrated on determining the toxic effects of various contaminants and surveying their levels in coastal waters and inshore fisheries. By 1970, the general aim of the work had become the establishing of the effects on commercial fish and shellfish resources of disposal of wastes, mineral and hydrocarbon extraction, and engineering and development work. This involved environmental impact assessments and a major monitoring programme.

The Burnham Laboratory hosts the UK Offshore Chemical Notification Scheme which manages chemical use and discharge by the UK offshore petroleum industry. The scheme is regulated by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), using scientific and environmental advice from Cefas and the Fisheries Research Services (FRS).

The laboratory was closed in December 2008 and the work moved to the Lowestoft Laboratory.

Cefas Technology Limited

Cefas Technology Limited (CTL) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cefas that specialises in the application of Cefas technology to specific customer needs in a cost effective and focussed manner. CTL was formed in order to utilise the intellectual property of Cefas, something that was difficult to achieve with Cefas's current legal status as an executive agency
Executive agency
An executive agency, also known as a next-step agency, is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly or Northern Ireland...

.

External links

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