Innovative organizations and advancements inevitably can be traced back to extraordinary individuals who devoted the time to initiate and sustain new initiatives. We want to take a minute to acknowledge Professor Clem Tisdell for his role as founding coeditor of Aquaculture Economics & Management (AEM) and member of the team that created the International Association of Aquaculture Economics & Management (IAAEM). Professor Tisdell passed away July 14, 2022, following a long and distinguished career at the School of Economics in the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
IAAEM was founded December 17, 1993, during the International Symposium of Socio-economics and Aquaculture, with Professor Yung C. Shang as the first President. The primary goal of IAAEM was “to promote socio-economic research and to exchange and advance state-of-the-art application of socio-economic techniques for addressing effective management of aquaculture development” (Shang Citation1997). Professor Tisdell provided the much-needed leadership during the formative years of IAAEM serving as Vice President and President. Professor Tisdell co-edited the inaugural issue of Aquaculture Economics & Management, first published in 1997 by Blackwell Science Ltd. and subsequently served as coeditor through the end of 2004. Beginning with the first issue of 2000, Aquaculture Economics & Management was published entirely by the association, IAAEM, until the end of 2004 at which time Professors Tisdell and Leung negotiated a publishing contract with Taylor and Francis that has continued to publish AEM to the present day.
Professor Tisdell, in the first ever editorial published in AEM, called attention to the need for a single forum for research on aquaculture economics and management. To quote the editorial, “The importance of aquaculture in providing the much-needed food protein to feed the world’s ever-increasing population cannot be over-emphasized. The understanding of the economic and social dimensions of aquaculture production has become a crucial factor in managing the sustainable development of aquaculture in both the developed as well as developing nations” (Leung and Tisdell Citation1997). His insights are as relevant in 2022 as they were in 1997. All those who work in the economics and management of aquaculture are indebted to Professor Clem Tisdell for his many contributions to IAAEM and to this journal.