World Aquaculture Magazine - June 2021

26 JUNE 2021 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S .ORG RealityCheck#4: Aquaculture developments are not needed due to the collapse of theworld’s capture fisheries. Edwards et al. (2019) state that “aquaculture overtook capture fisheries as the main source of fish for human consumption for the first time in 2013 was shown to be incorrect.” Fisheries have problems but they are not the faded past of dying generations. All fishery stocks are not dead and dying everywhere despite the emotional exaggerations and lies in a recent movie on Netflix (Figs. 3 and 4). Fisheries are one of the greatest global opportunities as a low- cost renewable resource providing food for billions. There are very well-managed fish stocks that set out examples for others everywhere that are poorly managed (Hilborn et al. 2020). Most overfishing is in the economically developing nations, with Northern nations helping in their unsustainable exploitation (China in the Pacific, EU inWest Africa), but fishery managers knowwell how to recover damaged fisheries technically, despite the lack of political will to do so in many places. Aquaculture, especially coastal aquaculture, has more social- ecological constraints and equity issues to its expansion than do capture fisheries (Farmery et al. 2021) and aquaculture’s growth is slowing down due to these (FAO 2020). Why do aquaculture promoters/advocates and scientists use the levelling off of global fisheries production to justify their local proposals for new aquaculture developments? Aquaculture developments should be justified on their own merits, for their potentials in sustainable rural development (for example, Weaver et al. 2020), not on global fishery data that have little to no relevance to proposed local aquaculture developments. Professional fishery managers are working everywhere to recover damaged capture fisheries in developed and developing nations. These professionals need our engagement, understanding and technical support in all technical-social-ecological-economic innovations that can deliver more food to humanity than just aquaculture alone (Farmery et al. 2021). There are emerging scientifically-based ocean food production systems that merge aquaculture and capture fisheries that have the potential to change the future of both sectors, such as capture-based aquaculture opportunities (Lovatelli and Holthus 2008), and, for the environment, restoration/conservation aquaculture opportunities that interact intimately with both aquaculture and fisheries (Jones 2017, Theuerkauf et al. 2019). “An enormous cultural shift will be required in these areas if mariculture is to replace wild-capture fisheries as the main source of food from the ocean” (Farmery et al. 2021). Recovered capture fisheries will certainly add price and volume competition to aquaculture in many regions of the world. If we can achieve this, then we can have a sophisticated discussion with policymakers and investors as to the best options for investments to deliver an accelerated amount of ocean foods to consumers. In some cases, aquaculture developments will not be economically feasible, or preferable. For example, despite large investments, cod aquaculture in the North Atlantic became uneconomic over the last two decades as rapidly expanding fisheries for cod and haddock in the Barents Sea added ~1 MMT to the world’s whitefish markets (FAO 2019). This large amount of whitefish has affected USA seafood markets dramatically, especially on the East Coast, increasing the supply available (Fig. 5) due to the rapid development of lower-cost sea transportation, refrigeration and freezing systems. States the FAO (2012), “Fisheries and aquaculture interact with increasing intensity as fishers and aquaculturists shift from fishing to aquaculture and vice versa, competing in the same markets with similar products. The need to integrate planning and management of the two sectors seems vital to their future development and sustainability.” Our world needs all of the ocean foods it can produce sustainably from both capture fisheries and aquaculture in the midst of the acceleration of climate and social changes. Management conflicts and educational deficiencies between fishery and aquaculture managers need to end. Valuable products for both local and global economies and for human health and wellness that sustain ocean livelihoods will be needed from both. RealityCheck#5: Aquaculture does not needmore space. Perceptions of aquaculture among the publics in its new geographies persist that aquaculture is asking for large new spaces for proposed developments and that traditional uses will be overtaken (displaced, crowded or regulated out). Although aquaculture is worthy of getting more space because it can be among the world’s most sustainable food-producing systems (Hilborn et al. 2018), aquaculture occupies, and plans to occupy, very small areas FIGURE 3. Global capture fisheries stock status. About 70 percent of known stocks are sustainably fished or underfished. The number of overfished stocks have increased steadily over the past 20 years, deeply concerning fishing interests, markets, governance bodies, scientists and the public (Barange 2019). Note the color orange for overfished. FIGURE 4. Global capture fisheries stock status by FAO Statistical Areas. Note that all ocean areas of the world are not overfished (orange-colored segment). The most concerning areas are the Mediterranean Sea, the Southeast Pacific and Southwest Atlantic Ocean areas (Barange 2019).