Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Systems: The Need for a New Social Contract for Aquaculture Development

Abstract

Ecohistories of aquaculture suggest that aquaculture is a natural part of human development throughout history and that modern, industrial aquaculture could strengthen its social and ecological roots by articulating its evolution along a sustainability trajectory and by adopting fully the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) ecosystems approach to aquaculture (EAA; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bib121">Soto et al., 2008</xref>). The EAA creates a new code for global aquaculture development, combining into one common framework the two most important social‐ecological trajectories for global aquaculture—aquaculture for the world’s rich and aquaculture for the world’s poor. Knowledge of the rich archeology and anthropology of aquaculture connects this FAO code to antiquity, creating a single development pathway for aquaculture throughout human history. Without widespread adoption of an EAA, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bib50">FAO (2009)</xref> projections of aquaculture development over the next 30 years may provide a far too optimistic scenario for its global growth. In this regard, aquaculture over the last 20 years has been criticized as lacking adequate attention and investment in developing grassroots, democratic, extension processes to engage a broader group of stakeholders to evolve the “blue revolution.” As an example, there has been a failure of fisheries and aquaculture to plan together to ensure sustainable supplies of seafood—the world’s most valuable proteins for human health—for seafood-eating peoples. Nonfed aquaculture (seaweeds, shellfish) has received worldwide attention for its rapid movement toward greater sustainability, which has led to more widespread social acceptance. For fed aquaculture, recent trends analyses have suggested that aquaculture is turning from the ocean to land-based agriculture to provide its protein feeds and oils. As such, more sophisticated, ecologically planned and designed “aquaculture ecosystems” will become more widespread because they better fit the social‐ecological context of both rich and poor countries. Ecological aquaculture provides the basis for developing a new social contract for aquaculture that is inclusive of all stakeholders and decision makers in fisheries, agriculture, and ecosystems conservation and restoration.

Limiting Size of Fish Fillets at the Center of the Plate Improves the Sustainability of Aquaculture Production

“…Currently over 17 [5,6] seafood sustainability certification programs exist for fisheries or farm level aquaculture operations. However, seafood sustainability is not a singular end point, but rather a series of continual improvements through efficiency and innovation that is guided by certification and influenced by the market and societal demands [7,8]. In this "shades of grey" seascape, even proclaimed "sustainable" products can be improved upon at some point.…”

Refocusing Seafood Sustainability as a Journey Using the Law of the Minimum

“…The single reductionist phrase "this fish (or fishery) is sustainable" lacks general meaning because differential experiences result in personal or group specific sustainability trajectories [24], and operational definitions defining end goals. Any operational definition of sustainability can be categorized by two factors, the scale and scope.…”

Ecological Environmental Protection Strategy Based on Big Data Analysis

“…Since these data have a high correlation, all kinds of information collected from environmental protection work can be served in big data technology and eventually help better unfold ecological environmental protection in China. Combined with relevant literature and my own knowledge, the author summarizes the role of big data technology in ecological environmental protection into three aspects: to identify a development goal, to control the overall layout and to build a big data application center (Costapierce, 2010).…”