Implementation barriers to establishing a sustainable coastal aquaculture sector

For much of the last century, the prerequisites for establishing a new primary industry were property rights to secure access to the required natural resources, the appropriate technology, brood stock and labour, and a willing investor. In contrast, in many western nations although all these prerequisites have been in place for the establishment of new coastal marine farming sectors, fledgling aquaculture operations have failed to establish. A prime reason for this is that under increasingly consultative integrated coastal zone management regimes, local stakeholders are expressing a desire for prospective aquaculture operations to demonstrate that they will be sustainable. Many potential marine farmers and regulatory authorities have stumbled on this demand and the work presented here aims to elucidate the nature of sustainability in a coastal aquaculture context and provide a framework for investigating these critical ‘non-traditional’ factors limiting the establishment and development of coastal aquaculture activities.     

Securing blue wealth: The need for a special sustainable development goal for the ocean and coasts

The ocean regulates the global climate, provides humans with natural resources such as food, materials, important substances, and energy, and is essential for international trade and recreational and cultural activities. Together with human development and economic growth, free access to, and availability of, ocean resources and services have exerted strong pressure on marine systems, ranging from overfishing, increasing resource extraction, and alteration of coastal zones to various types of thoughtless pollution. Both economic theory and many case studies suggest that there is no “tragedy of the commons” but a “tragedy of open access”. With high likeliness, structures of open access are non-sustainable. International cooperation and effective governance are required to protect the marine environment and promote the sustainable use of marine resources in such a way that due account can be taken of the environmental values of current generations and the needs of future generations. For this purpose, developing and agreeing on one Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) specifically for the Ocean and Coasts could prove to be an essential element. The new SDGs will build upon the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and replace them by 2015. Ensuring environmental sustainability in a general sense is one of the eight MDGs but the ocean is not explicitly addressed. Furthermore, the creation of a comprehensive underlying set of ocean sustainability targets and effective indicators developed within a global Future Ocean Spatial Planning (FOSP) process would help in assessing the current status of marine systems, diagnosing ongoing trends, and providing information for inclusive, forward-looking, and sustainable ocean governance.     

The long and bumpy journey: Taiwan׳s aquaculture development and management

This paper presents an overview of Taiwan׳s aquaculture development and management, focusing on the transition of the industry and the current management measures that particularly address environmental effects, ecolabels and diversification into tourism and ornamental fish business. Since the late 1980s when Taiwan׳s aquaculture in its heyday was pounded by emergent environmental problems, a policy was established on enhancing governance over aquaculture, in seeking to transform it towards an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable industry. The paper shows that positive outcomes have been achieved after the policy measures have been implemented over the past two decades. However, potential challenges of ongoing environmental impacts, conflicts regarding multiple sea uses, concerns on seafood safety, lack of management of “black” farms, low market penetration of ecolabeled products and lack of participative management were identified. It argues for the need to encourage ICZM programs to solve sea use conflicts and minimize environmental impacts, reduce “black farms” to fill the management gap, enhance market shares of ecolabeled products and a transition to a more participative mode of governance.     

Indonesian aquaculture futures: An analysis of fish supply and demand in Indonesia to 2030 and role of aquaculture using the AsiaFish model

This paper explores the seafood sector in Indonesia, using fish supply-demand modeling, with special focus on the growing role of aquaculture in the country's food portfolio. The paper describes six scenarios for future fish supply–demand dynamics and examines the role of aquaculture growth in fish supply in Indonesia. A business as usual scenario (BAU) assumed exogenous variables of our supply-demand model following historical trends. Five alternative scenarios explored the implications of stagnant capture fisheries; export-oriented growth of aquaculture; domestic-oriented aquaculture growth; slow growth of aquaculture sector; and disease outbreaks to key aquaculture species. The BAU scenario projected that fish supply and demand in Indonesia continues to increase over time and strong aquaculture growth is critical to meet increasing demand for fish. Stagnant capture fisheries resulted in increasing fish prices and decreasing fish consumption. Export-oriented aquaculture growth benefitted fish supply and exports, but also helped lower domestic prices and thus increase consumption. An emphasis on domestic aquaculture commodities increased fish supply, providing best domestic consumption outcomes and lower consumer prices. Slow aquaculture growth reduced fish supply and led to undesirable increases in domestic prices and decreasing domestic consumption as a consequence. Disease outbreaks in shrimp and carp aquaculture resulted in a short-term reduction in aquaculture output and increasing fish prices, lowering fish consumption.     

The sustainable development goals: A case study

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs [44] are an ambitious step towards sustainable development, taking a much broader view of sustainability than ever achieved previously, yet practical challenges remain, including how to implement change. The aims of this research were to determine how an influential aquaculture company in Australia - Tassal, Tasmania's largest salmon aquaculture company - perceived the SDGs, and to ascertain the motivations and barriers for Tassal to work towards implementing the goals. Interviews were conducted with leaders, employees and external business partners. Tassal was not aware of the SDGs prior to this project, but were open to considering implementing them in their current sustainability practices. The survey responses were analysed using the Values-Rules-Knowledge (vrk) framework of decision making. Key findings were: 1) corporate and personal values were the key component driving Tassal's positive responses to the SDGs; 2) awareness of the SDGs resulted in Tassal recognising the potential gains from engaging with some of the seemingly less aquaculture-related goals (such as health and wellbeing). These findings demonstrate that businesses can fruitfully engage with the SDGs, even without government requirements or societal expectations, if they are prepared to broaden their interpretation of business sustainability and be reflective about their values. The vrk model is a potentially useful addition to current SDG and sustainability tools, such as those of the UN Global Compact, as a way to diagnose organisational barriers to adopting practices aligned with the SDGs. An emerging area of importance to social, economic and environmental sustainability – social license – was also identified as implicit in many, but not explicit in any of the SDGs.     

Assessment of Holothuria arguinensis feeding rate,growth and absorption efficiency under aquaculture conditions

Holothuria arguinensis is a potential species for sea cucumber aquaculture in Europe. In a first experiment, feeding rate (FR), growth, absorption efficiency (AE) and survival of adults (135.01?±?10.87?g eviscerated weight) were assessed under sediment tank conditions. In a second experiment, the feasibility to use sea bream (Sparus aurata) biodeposits as a food source was studied for adults (168.69?±?14.59?g eviscerated weight). Individuals in the first experiment showed an increase of weight (specific growth rate (SGR)?=?0.2% d^?1), positive FRs and mean value of AE close to 80% with a mean organic matter content of 90.07?±?11.5?mg/g in the offered sediment. Sea cucumbers fed with fish biodeposits showed a reduction of weight (SGR??1), low FRs and negative values of AE. The influence of low salinity and temperature during experiments should be considered to explain these results. Indeed, sea cucumbers can be affected by a decrease of these parameters during winter months resulting in a period of inactivity.     

Industrial aquaculture and the politics of resignation

While neoliberalism is often framed as a withdrawal of the state, many scholars have noted that what is occurring is not so much a withdrawal, as a repositioning. Although many social services and regulatory functions once provided by government agencies have indeed been eroded, there has been a simultaneous channeling of new resources into other arenas, in an effort to create conditions in which private corporations can operate more profitably. This, however, often places the state in a contradictory position, simultaneously serving as regulator, investor, and development advocate for the private sector. This can become especially problematic in moments of ecological crisis when decisive and unbiased responses are needed. This paper explores these dynamics through an examination of the cycles of growth and crisis that have characterized the aquaculture industry on the south coast of Newfoundland since the late 1970s as well as the ongoing attempts by aquaculture advocates to characterize industrial-scale fish farming as a sustainable industry, despite evidence to the contrary.     

Occupational health and safety hazards in Atlantic Canadian aquaculture: Laying the groundwork for prevention

The growing aquaculture industry is projected to feature ever more prominently in the lives and economies of rural coastal communities in Atlantic Canada and around the world. Both private industry and government have a responsibility to ensure employment opportunities created in aquaculture take place in healthy, safe environments. However, systematic occupational health and safety (OHS) research within this industry, an important prevention tool, is still in its infancy. With particular emphasis on marine aquaculture in Atlantic Canada, we provide a detailed outline of the structure of the industry from feed production through to processing, identify potential OHS hazards associated with each of these activities and make recommendations for future research and action.     

Norwegian aquaculture expansion and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM): Simmering conflicts and competing claims

ICZM (Integrated Coastal Zone Management) is a decision-making process for sustainable use, development and protection of coastal marine areas and their resources, in continuous realization. Norway is currently dependent upon the commitment and motivations of the municipalities to fulfill its ICZM initiatives. These communities are lacking epistemic communities that can help prevent the simmering conflicts surrounding aquaculture expansion, as demonstrated by media data from 1984–2010. With the forthcoming harvest of the zooplankton redfeed in Norwegian and surrounding waters, the Aquaculture industry could be in a situation of expanded feed resources, which would ensure its expansion if localities are made available. This would also be in line with the Norwegian government's commitment to the expansion of this industry. A government-endorsed growth of the Aquaculture industry will add fuel to these simmering conflicts concerning the use of the eco-system of collective goods and services available along national coastline in Norway for Aquaculture purposes. The suggestions from the recently released report from the Select Committee appointed by the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs in Norway on Effective and Sustainable Area Use in the Aquaculture Industry cab be an aid to supporting the growth of epistemic communities and a subsequent successful national ICZM implementation, thereby paving the way for a conflict-less coastal area management.     

Assessing prospects for shrimp culture in the Indian Sundarbans: A combined simulation modelling and choice experiment approach

India's Sundarbans region lies within the state of West Bengal and is part of the world's largest mangrove ecosystem. Low-intensity shrimp aquaculture is present, but the potential exists for more intensive development. We argue for avoiding environmental damage and social conflict by adopting appropriate policies now. In this study, we combine ecological simulations and a choice experiment to evaluate several policy scenarios. Such comparative evaluations combining different disciplinary tools are rare. While our ecological modelling supports severe restrictions on shrimp farming activities, local stakeholders prefer a more diverse strategy. Both models indicate that large-scale commercial shrimp aquaculture is least desirable.     

Privatization,financialization and ocean grabbing in New Brunswick herring fisheries and salmon aquaculture

The growing literature on individual transferable quotas (ITQs) and on intensive salmon aquaculture and its negative impacts on the environment and other users of related marine space has been little connected to the developing literature on financialization and to the literature on ocean grabbing within fisheries. This paper seeks to address this gap through a case study of the recent history of herring fisheries and intensive aquaculture in New Brunswick, Canada, exploring how specific neoliberal processes – including privatization and marketization (in herring fleet ITQs and aquaculture lease systems), (re)regulation, financialization and globalization – have interacted to support the reshaping of regional fisheries from mixed small-scale, family-based, petty commodity fisheries towards vertically-integrated, corporate, financialized fisheries characterized by ocean grabbing.     

Using normative evaluations to plan for and manage shellfish aquaculture development in Rhode Island coastal waters

As shellfish aquaculture activities grow in the US, researchers, practitioners, resource users, and others have questioned how much development can be accommodated by natural and social systems. In a unique application of the normative evaluation approach to shellfish aquaculture development, this study uses data from a mail survey to (1) examine Rhode Islanders’ support for aquaculture in general and in RI waters; (2) investigate how different features of an aquaculture farm influence normative evaluations; and (3) explore areas of agreement and disagreement among stakeholder groups for social carrying capacities associated with aquaculture in RI coastal waters. Findings demonstrate that respondents do not strictly support or oppose aquaculture development; instead support depends on the waterbody where the aquaculture is occurring, the amount of area used for aquaculture, and ways in which aquaculture is conducted. Social norm curves show that levels of acceptabilities for shellfish aquaculture development in two RI waterbodies decline with increasing levels of aquaculture activities. Comparisons among sub-sets of respondents highlight disagreement among groups on the level beyond which shellfish aquaculture development is no longer acceptable (social carrying capacity). Results from normative evaluation studies can be used in combination with physical, ecological, and biological carrying capacities; management goals and objectives; other resource uses and values; and desired social and ecological conditions to inform policy discussions about shellfish aquaculture development in coastal waters.     

FAO's statistic data and sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture: Comments on Pauly and Zeller (2017)

In a recent commentary, Pauly and Zeller disagreed with the Food and Agriculture Organization's interpretation of its global capture fishery production records, arguing that trends were distorted by unreliable statistics in some countries. They criticized FAO for not having used their “catch reconstructions” in the 2016 State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) report and questioned the interpretation and significance of FAO's aquaculture production statistics. In this paper, we refute their claims and demonstrate that their critique is based on fundamental misunderstandings caused by mixing up statistical metrics and using simple normative explanations to interpret highly complex datasets. We explain how FAO maintains, curates and updates the only validated source of global fisheries landings, describe our capacity building projects and activities underpinning the annual updates for the over 231 different sources of fisheries data, and clarify such updates include dialogues with member countries to improve and revise present and historical records. FAO will continue to work closely with member states, IGOs, NGOs, academia and civil society, to further improve fishery and aquaculture databases, while calling on states to make renewed efforts to improve data quality. It also welcomes research efforts that contribute to the improvement of statistical data which are critical to the sustainable management of fisheries and aquaculture.     

Political regulation and radical institutional change: The case of aquaculture in Norway

This study investigates the transformation of the political regulation of the Norwegian aquaculture industry. The study is conducted as a historical-institutional analysis of industrial development combined with analyses of the multiple impacts of directives produced by changes in international political institutions. We describe a transformation from a corporate regulation regime to a new regime based on control and monitoring. The origin of these changes is very much a result of the interplay between actors and organizations at separate but interconnected levels. Our empirical discussion is informed by the neoinstitutional organization theory.     

Social acceptability of marine aquaculture: The use of survey-based methods for eliciting public and stakeholder preferences

The social acceptability of aquaculture is linked to its perceived environmental impact, and this clearly poses a challenge to policy makers in deciding what weight to attach to such a concern within a governance framework for the industry. Using salmon farming in Scotland as a case study, we have developed a survey-based approach to evaluating public and stakeholder attitudes towards the environmental performance of aquaculture. The survey of the general public finds marked regional variations in attitudes towards salmon farming, while the results of the stakeholder survey raise issues over how far the preferences of particular interest groups are truly representative of the community as a whole.     

无居民海岛资源环境承载力多目标规划模型初探

资源环境承载力是衡量无居民海岛发展是否可持续的重要标尺,在现有的承载力条件下如何设计合理的海岛规划方案,如何分配各资源环境成为海岛健康发展的关键。文章构建资源环境承载力多目标规划方法,以海岛旅游人口和经济总量最大化为目标,从资源、生态、环境的有限性或限制性作为模型约束条件,以期为海岛规划提供技术方法。     

Assessing the potential of REDD+ in a production mangrove forest in Malaysia using stakeholder analysis and ecosystem services mapping

Mangrove forests are ecologically important and carbon-rich coastal ecosystems that provide direct and indirect livelihood support for coastal communities. In recent years there has been increased discussion in the policy and scientific communities over how to include mangrove forests in climate change mitigation initiatives such as REDD+. There are a number of challenges to establishing a successful REDD+ project in mangrove areas, with land tenure and stakeholder entitlements arguably the most challenging. This study examines how REDD+ approaches might be applied to better balance timber production and conservation objectives in the Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve (MMFR), a 40,466 ha mangrove forest area in Malaysia. Stakeholder profiles and needs are linked with ecosystem services to develop an integrated profile of this complex social-ecological system, which has been managed for timber production for more than 100 years, and has recently revealed evidence of declining ecosystem health. The results provide insights into how REDD+ might be operationalised in existing forest areas with traditions of multiple uses, potentially contributing to improved social-ecological outcomes for forests and their diverse stakeholders.     

New Zealand seafood firm competitiveness in export markets: The role of the quota management system and aquaculture legislation

New Zealand's quota management system (QMS) was implemented in 1986 to address problems caused by a regulated open entry management system in place for the previous two decades. Excess capacity in the inshore fisheries caused several stocks to become depleted and conflicts to intensify between fishing sectors. The allocation of individual transferable quota (ITQ) was viewed as the best way to improve efficiency within the over-capitalised inshore fisheries and provide incentives for developing the deepwater fisheries. The expected benefits of the QMS fit with the political climate at that time, as the government was using market forces to address the deteriorating economy. This article outlines the results of a research project that involved four medium to large-sized, highly vertically integrated New Zealand seafood firms. The purpose of the project was to identify these firms’ sources of competitiveness in export markets and the process the firms used to develop sources of competitiveness, while adapting to rapid and radical changes to the political and business environment and transformation of the fisheries management system. The project's results show that the basis to seafood firm competitiveness is the security of supply to the fisheries resource provided by the QMS and aquaculture legislation. The project also outlines the role that government policies have in sustaining firm- and industry-level competitiveness. This article contributes to the broader discussion on the application of ITQ and other types of long-term access rights to the management of fisheries and does not express the views of the Ministry of Fisheries.     

大西洋鲑在封闭循环水养殖模式下的生长和性腺发育研究

本研究探讨了在封闭循环水养殖模式下大西洋鲑(Salmosalar)的生长发育模式,对封闭循环水系统养殖的大西洋鲑重要生长数量性状进行生物学测量,并跟踪性腺发育状况。本研究自2012年1月通过封闭循环水系统进行大西洋鲑养殖,经过周年养殖,体质量平均达到1194.42g,体长平均达到417.00 mm,体高平均达到100.58 mm,体宽平均达到53.52 mm,少数个体在养殖10个月后性腺发育较快,性腺质量达到9.76 g,性腺指数达到1.31%。本研究的研究结果为建立大西洋鲑标准化循环水养殖系统积累资料。     

Monitoring salmon aquaculture waste: The contribution of First Nations’ rights, knowledge, and practices in British Columbia, Canada

British Columbia's current approach to monitoring salmon aquaculture waste is disconnected from political and legal trends towards the recognition of Aboriginal rights in Canada. Drawing on insights from collaborative monitoring in northern Canada and interviews with 23 Kwakwaka’wakw clam-diggers and cultural specialists (2006–2007), preliminary directions for integrating First Nations’ values, knowledge and stewardship practices into marine environmental monitoring are identified. Kwakwaka’wakw monitoring practices include the use of qualitative individual, community and population scale indicators and the integration of traditional knowledge as baseline data about the healthy conditions of traditional food resources.