ECOLOGICALLY RESTORATIVE URCHIN RANCHING: LEVERAGING AQUACULTURE TECHNIQUES TO RESTORE KELP ECOSYSTEMS AND GENERATING PROFITS

Suggest Contents

Below are the topics I believe I can cover in the talk:

• Problem Statement
• Overfishing, climate change and pollution has set the stage for sea urchins to explode in population, overgrazing entire kelp forests in Canada, USA, Japan, Norway and Australia (to name a few)
• After having eaten all the kelp around them, the urchins become empty and valueless to fishers and predators, resulting in desert-like barren conditions to persist for decades or centuries
• Solution
• Removing urchins and reducing grazing pressure will bring kelp forests back
•  Restored kelp forests contribute to improved marine biomass, marine biodiversity, carbon binding and sequestration, absorption of nitrogen and phosphorus run off, protect from wave related erosion and ocean acidification. 
• Removed urchins can also then be ranched using aquaculture techniques to turn into premium, exportable seafood (uni)
• Methodology
• Fishing, ranching, and exporting
• Drill down on the ranching part to show how the combination of aquaculture systems, feed and well handled urchins make the business case
• Results so far
• Show kelp restoration in practice in California and Northern Norway
• Highlight results from our pilot ranching operations in Japan, USA, Norway and Canada
• Highlight efforts in Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Quebec
• Opportunities and Challenges
• Highlight what makes this kind of utilization model possible in some parts of the world, and less so in others

Additional Angle

•  Perhaps we can also arrange a tasting event of our ranched, Canadian urchins at some point in time during the conference. 
• Perhaps we can also use this event as an opportunity to announce the first shipment of commercially ranched urchins from Newfoundland to NYC