World Aquaculture Magazine - September 2021

44 SEP TEMBER 2021 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S .ORG This raises a couple of questions: Is a new food systems model of aquaculture needed to reform the seafood system to more comprehensively consider production (aquaculture, fisheries, plant-based seafoods), processing innovations, trade, processing, etc.? How does aquaculture distinguish itself if it cannot use the well-worn political and advocacy platforms it has relied upon for almost 20 years? More on Aquaculture’s NewGeographies Almost 90 percent of all global animal aquaculture production is in Asia (60 percent of global aquaculture is in China), with only 3 percent in Africa, 4 percent in Europe, 5 percent in the Americas, and virtually nothing in Oceania. But, aquaculture is not only rare outside of Asia; surprising to many, aquaculture is still quite rare in Asia. Edwards (1993) stated that “Aquaculture is far less widespread in Asia than is widely supposed. Perhaps less than 1 percent of farmers are involved in aquaculture in the region.” Aquaculture has been touted as the world’s fastest-growing food production sector for more than four decades (Tveterås et al. 2012). Applied science has well documented that fed and unfed aquaculture developments are very efficient food-producing systems in comparisons with terrestrial alternatives (Fig. 1). Aquaculture is by all accounts a very rational investment in the future of food production for governments and entrepreneurs concerned with agriculture’s many problems with expansion. However, aquaculture growth globally and regionally has slowed, and the large growth over the past years has been from a very low baseline of near nothing to impressive amounts over 40 years in regions where aquaculture is “new.” For example, examine closely the FAO-reported growth (2020, their Figure 12) in Myanmar, Vietnam, Egypt, Brazil, Ecuador and Nigeria from 2003 to 2018. Where aquaculture has developed outside of Asia, it has been met with social opposition, leading to legal and regulatory complexities slowing or halting its growth, especially when proposed at any significant scale in the “commons” (in public trust resources) such as nearshore oceans and lakes. Opposition is not limited to rich countries in the temperate zone. Notable examples of these conflicts have been (and continue to be): 1) shrimp aquaculture in South Asia and Latin America, 2) salmon aquaculture in cold temperate oceans, notably in the Broughton Archipelago, B.C., Canada, in Alaska and Maine, USA, and in Tasmania, Australia, 3) Nile tilapia in nations of the African Great Lakes and in Brazil. Thus, while growth has occurred, most of these places remain minor aquaculture producers globally. For example, Brazil is ranked 13th and the USA and Canada are 16th and 20th in global aquaculture production 2018 (FAO 2020, OECD 2020). In Costa-Pierce and Chopin (2021), we asked, as many have before us, “Why is the public opposing aquaculture’s obvious sane and more sustainable food developments/choices in these new geographies that have, according to the experts, seriously exciting, large new areas of potential for accelerated aquaculture developments?” Hargreaves (2021) and many others have posed this as the “social license to operate.” There is much to learn in this “evolution of the Blue Revolution.” In this article I examine some of important transdisciplinary learning and effective methods being used in community management, conservation and governance that may be helpful in enhancing the social license for aquaculture. Social Ecology of Aquaculture “ Perhaps the greatest single role an ecological ethics can play is a discriminating one - to help us distinguish which of our actions serve the thrust of natural evolution and which of them impede it. That human interests of one kind or another may be involved in these actions is not always relevant to the ethical judgments we are likely to make. What really counts are the ethical guidelines that determine our judgment.” Murray Bookchin (1982) Ethical andValueGuidelines forAquaculture There have been many papers published on the reasons why aquaculture development has been stymied in its new geographies, many emphasizing policy failures. In the USA, aquaculture is seemingly opposed by everyone, according to Knapp and Rubino (2016), who state it is opposed by “local and national interest groups and local, state, tribal or national policies.” That should give you pause! But the first ethical guideline emphasized by Bookchin (1982) is that ethics need to be comprehensive to include Nature as well as people and to allow people to speak for Nature. Slater et al. (2013) agree that “...to successfully develop in any country, aquaculture must be policy- led.” However, they go further and state that “...policy must be built on an understanding of the socio-economic drivers, resources (human and natural), and the constraints of community members intended to be involved.” Robertson and Hull (2003) called for a “public ecology” that have both process and content that emphasizes the participation of extended peer communities of a diversity of research specialists, policymakers and concerned citizens. Bailey (1997) defined constituents that are often left out, stating that “Aquaculture must be understood as a human enterprise designed to meet human needs, including the need for economically viable communities, especially in rural areas where most aquaculture production occurs.” I believe we can all agree on one commonsense, ethical principle. Aquaculture is not suitable for all areas of common property resources FIGURE 1. Feed Conversion Ratios (FCRs) for selected aquaculture species compared to terrestrial protein sources (Fry et al. 2018).