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Coastal populations of shellfish have been exploited by humans for millennia as an easily accessible source of fresh protein. Unfortunately, because the intertidal zone and the shallow coastal margins are so intertwined with man's activities, these shellfish stocks are now severely threatened around the world. Issues such as anthropogenic pollution, harmful algal blooms, overfishing, loss of habitat, and local stakeholder conflicts are all contributing to an alarming decline in the natural productivity of these regions. There have now been five International Conferences on Shellfish Restoration (ICSR) since 1996, which have focused the attention on transferring scientific knowledge into practical remedial and restorative actions for shellfish populations. This volume represents a selection of contributions from the third meeting in Cork, Ireland, 1999. It includes papers on lobsters, sea urchins, whelks, clams, mussels, and scallops, with a thematic emphasis on ranching, disease, environmental interactions, fisheries management, aquaculture, restoration, toxic algal blooms, and toxicity testing.

Sustainable agriculture is a rapidly growing field aiming at producing food and energy in a sustainable way for humans and their children. Sustainable agriculture is a discipline that addresses current issues such as climate change, increasing food and fuel prices, poor-nation starvation, rich-nation obesity, water pollution, soil erosion, fertility loss, pest control, and biodiversity depletion. Novel, environmentally-friendly solutions are proposed based on integrated knowledge from sciences as diverse as agronomy, soil science, molecular biology, chemistry, toxicology, ecology, economy, and social sciences. Indeed, sustainable agriculture decipher mechanisms of processes that occur from the molecular level to the farming system to the global level at time scales ranging from seconds to centuries. For that, scientists use the system approach that involves studying components and interactions of a whole system to address scientific, economic and social issues. In that respect, sustainable agriculture is not a classical, narrow science. Instead of solving problems using the classical painkiller approach that treats only negative impacts, sustainable agriculture treats problem sources. Because most actual society issues are now intertwined, global, and fast-developing, sustainable agriculture will bring solutions to build a safer world. This book series gathers review articles that analyze current agricultural issues and knowledge, then propose alternative solutions. It will therefore help all scientists, decision-makers, professors, farmers and politicians who wish to build a safe agriculture, energy and food system for future generations.