World Aquaculture Magazine -December 2021

26 DECEMBER 2021 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S .ORG (Fig. 2). Rather than halt all aquaculture using the precautionary approach, a new vision would be to develop multiple, well-planned and agreed-upon sites as testing platforms where the table is set properly to have the platform as a strong, science-based international to national partnership between industry, academia, civil society, NGOs, citizen science groups and government at all levels, as necessary. These platforms would be developed, not at a pilot scale, but as cooperative industry development platforms at meaningful commercial scales. They would incorporate the best available participatory knowledge tools for improving knowledge exchange through wider engagement. As stated by Stead (2019), these could develop good governance principles in the context of strengthening evidence-led aquaculture policies. The Bremerhaven Declaration on the Future of Global Open Ocean Aquaculture called to the world for these platforms to be established, stating the need to “organize international R&D platforms involving countries active or intending to initiate…offshore development projects” (Rosenthal et al. 2012). For a farm to be established where right whales could be an issue, the best available monitoring, acoustic and other needed and innovative bioengineering technologies would be employed; aquaculture experts would interact with whale experts, government regulators would get real-time in-the- field data for decision-making and everyone would be responsible to the process for full knowledge exchange. In aquaculture development, the interactions of trade, logistics and infrastructure are oftentimes elements in the matrix of scaling that aquaculture developers neglect but must address. Pro-active planning to realize this and the mechanisms that need to be created to collaborate strategically to exert influence are often afterthoughts in the scaling up of aquaculture developments. Radical Transformation—AquacultureLeadsResearch, Development andPractice (R & D & P) inOcean/ AquaticFoodSystems Imagine a meeting of town managers in 1903. They are trying to think of innovative ways to create property rights that will internalize the externalities created by the waste left by horse-drawn carriages in town. As they are deliberating, a noisy new gasoline powered Oldsmobile Curved-Dash Runabout interrupts their debate. They pause for a minute, then resume talking. They have heard and seen the future of transportation and the new problems it will bring, but they continue to discuss the soon-to-be past. Now, fast forward to the present day and consider a meeting of fisheries experts. They debate fisheries management and innovative solutions to the great open- access problems. When they break to eat dinner, it is likely to consist of salmon and/or shrimp. Yet they seem oblivious to the fact that the seafood they are consuming is farmed. They eat the future of fisheries but continue to discuss its past. (Anderson 2002) More comprehensive training in both fisheries and aquaculture would result in the development of a cadre of transdisciplinary decision-makers who could use systems thinking and approaches (Stead 2019) to conduct the integrated planning necessary for the future of ocean/aquatic foods to meet sustainable development goals. Such plans would include comprehensive considerations of the complex interactions between agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, natural ecosystems and their allied, place-based, social-ecological infrastructures. None of this will happen overnight, as a much larger investment in education is required. Cooley and Kohl (2016) estimate the average time for scaling a successful pilot or concept to national application is 15 years. FAO (2012) stated that “fisheries and aquaculture interact with increasing intensity as fishers shift from fishing to aquaculture and by 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.” Aquaculture sites are not only economic engines of primary production that can meet the needs and regulations of society but can be sites of innovation and pride if they can be well designed as community-based, aquaculture farming ecosystems. Using systems thinking (Stead 2018) with the ecosystem approach to aquaculture (EAA) can inspire planners and environmental decision-makers at national, regional and local societal scales (FAO 2010). Sophisticated site planning of aquaculture can occur so that farms “ t with nature” (McHarg 1969) and not displace or disrupt invaluable natural, aquatic ecosystems or conservation areas. Ecological aquaculture provides the basis for developing participation with the goal of developing a new social contract for aquaculture that is inclusive of all stakeholders and decision-makers in sheries, agriculture, ecosystems conservation, restoration and tourism. (Yes, I call for the incorporation, not isolation, of peoples “from away.”) Aquaculture needs to be better integrated into overall shery societal plans for securing sustainable seafood supplies, supporting and restoring sheries ecosystems; as such, aquaculture’s full growth potential lies in its development as a leader of more comprehensive “ocean/aquatic food systems” for “blue bioeconomies.” Radical Transformation—AquacultureasRuralDevelopment andConnecting toCities Bailey (1997) stated that aquaculture developments must include the need for economically viable communities, especially in rural areas where most aquaculture production occurs. The gap between rural and urban areas has grown to dangerous levels, with rural poverty increasing markedly and health and education indicators falling dramatically. The spatial inequality between rural and urban peoples has led to alarming political upheavals. These are global phenomena, with rural communities in rich countries experiencing similar conditions to rural people in developing countries, albeit there are much higher rates of rural poverty in developing countries than in developed countries. Aquaculture can improve livelihoods substantially by bridging the gap between urban consumers and rural producers. Rural planners and citizens need to take note: this requires leaders to examine closely proposals coming to their communities for medium- to larger-scale food systems, both aquatic and terrestrial, which involve not simply the siting of food production systems on their lands, coasts and oceans, but also the proposals for investments in the localization of allied support services and the building of an educated workforce. The world’s current population is estimated at 7.3 billion persons. Contrary to previous projections, demographers now predict that the global population will not stabilize, and that by 2050 Earth may be home to an estimated 9.7 billion people and upwards of 11.2-12.3 billion by 2100 (Gerland et al. 2014). By 2050 the distribution of humans across Earth will be skewed, with most of humanity living in Asia, but Africa will be growing the fastest, followed by Latin/South