Feeding the Future: How Strategic Mariculture Can Boost Seafood Production and Protect Marine Life
New research led by the University of Michigan suggests a promising path forward for global food security: we can significantly increase seafood production through mariculture (saltwater farming) while *reducing* its negative impacts on marine biodiversity.
However, there’s a crucial caveat. Success hinges on strategic planning and careful consideration of where and how we expand mariculture operations.
The Potential of Sustainable Mariculture
“With strategic planning, we can achieve the goal of conserving marine species while meeting the global demand for the expansion of mariculture,” explains Deqiang Ma, who led the study as a postdoctoral researcher at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability. He notes that sustainable mariculture development is achievable.
Mariculture currently provides about a fifth of the seafood farmed from fisheries, a vital protein source for billions globally. As demand rises, mariculture production is rapidly expanding to keep pace.
Modeling the Future of Mariculture
To understand the potential consequences of this growth, Ma and an international team of researchers created a model to assess mariculture’s impact on over 20,000 marine species. This model allowed them to:
- Establish a baseline of current mariculture impacts.
- Forecast changes by 2050 under various scenarios (e.g., different species farmed in different locations).
- Consider two climate change scenarios (RCP 4.5 and 8.5) with varying levels of warming and greenhouse gas emissions.
Best-Case vs. Worst-Case Scenarios
The results highlight the critical importance of location. In the best-case scenario, where new farms are placed in areas with the lowest environmental impact, the outcomes are remarkably positive:
- Bivalve (shellfish) production could increase by 2.36 times.
- Finfish production could increase by 1.82 times.
- Overall mariculture impacts could *decrease* by up to 30.5%.
These projected increases can be more that is needed to fulfill the projected increase in gobal demand of seafood.
Conversely, the worst-case scenario – placing farms in the most detrimental locations – would have impacts over four times worse than random placement. This stark contrast underlines the urgent need for informed decision-making.
The Importance of Interdisciplinary Collaboration
“It is critically important to leverage the growing insights across disciplines, whether it’s climate change science or economics or marine production,” states U-M senior study author Neil Carter, associate professor of environment and sustainability. The research involved experts from the University of Washington, the University of Freiburg in Germany, Hokkaido University in Japan, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“The cross-disciplinary nature of the questions that can be addressed and the ability to look at them for every patch of ocean in the world makes the research much more relevant and impactful to society and the scientific community,” said study co-author Benjamin Halpern, a professor at UCSB.
Challenges and Trade-offs
The researchers emphasize that this study is a crucial first step. The model can be refined with more data, and the findings highlight the need for region-specific solutions. For example, opportunities for sustainable mariculture development differ significantly between the South Pacific and the coast of France.
Even the best-case scenario presents trade-offs. All scenarios analyzed showed negative impacts on important marine mammals like whales, seals, and sea lions. Acknowledging these limitations allows for more informed and proactive mitigation strategies.
Moving Forward: From Research to Action
“With these insights, we can see that it’s not a foregone conclusion that the expansion of an industry is always going to have a proportionally negative impact on the environment,” Carter adds. The next critical phase involves bridging the gap between research and policy, fostering collaboration between policymakers and communities to implement these findings and prioritize marine biodiversity.
The project was funded by the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability and the U-M Institute for Global Change Biology.
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