How we can feed the planet while saving the oceans
“Our
vision is to stimulate a ‘race to the top’ among investors in which sustainable
aquaculture and the wider ocean environment are the ultimate winners.”
Commentary
By Maria Damanaki
Global Oceans Director, Nature Conservancy
What if I showed you evidence suggesting
the global supply of beef, chicken or pork could collapse over the coming
decades? You might well panic at the thought.
This threat, while not eminent for
land-based animals, is very real for the ocean and the critical sources of wild
seafood that we harvest from them. While most of us may think of land-based
sources as providing the majority of our animal protein, the ocean’s
contribution to human nutrition is incredibly important.
Seafood provides as many as 3 billion
people with their principal sources of dietary protein. And with the United
Nations predicting a global population of 9.7 billion by 2050, and potentially
as many as 11 billion by the end of this century, the number of people reliant
on seafood for their diets is only likely to grow.
All of which makes the current state of the
ocean – and warnings about what this could mean for many of our most
significant fisheries – all the more worrying. Industrial-scale fishing has led
to 90% of global fish stocks being fished to their maximum. This, combined with
added stressors such as ocean acidification, climate-driven coral reef
diebacks, microplastic pollution and coastal habitat destruction, is making it
even more difficult for our oceans, one of Earth’s primary life-support
systems, to produce food for a growing population. These pressures are
unparalleled in human history, and the results could be devastating for many of
the fisheries on which so many communities depend.
The situation becomes even more worrying
when one bears in mind that many of the more seafood-dependent nations also
tend to be small islands or coastal states in the relatively underdeveloped
global south. These areas are expected to suffer disproportionately from the
impacts of climate change, like rises in sea level, and also often lack the
economic resources necessary to prioritise the development of alternative food
sources.
These challenges combine to create what
might feel like an insurmountable development challenge – but all is not lost.
There is a secret weapon in our arsenal of sustainable solutions that you may
not expect. It has the potential to meet the global demand for seafood and can
have a positive impact on the wider environment and marine ecosystems when done
well.
I’m referring to aquaculture – the
commercial farming of fish, shellfish and seaweeds. As one of the most
efficient ways of producing animal protein, aquaculture is the world’s
fastest-growing form of food production and is the source of half the world’s
seafood. Already, the sector is worth an estimated $243 billion globally and
employs some 20 million people. But the contribution of aquaculture to global
food security from ocean and marine farming – where there may be the greatest opportunity
– is still relatively small in comparison to the global challenge we face.
Unfortunately, various historic and some
current examples of environmental harm have also harmed this sector’s
reputation, with issues ranging from pollution and habitat destruction to
negative impacts on surrounding wild fish populations and other marine species.
This stigma is unfortunate, given that
there are also plenty of examples where aquaculture operations are practiced in
an environmentally responsible manner and which provide benefits to indigenous
populations and some of the world’s most impoverished areas. But at a time when
the resiliency of our food chains is being tested like never before, it is
urgent that the industry moves to address environmental impacts and prioritise
the most sustainable aquaculture practices available.
The solution to increasing seafood
production sustainably will require a combination of low-and high-tech
solutions. Increasing production of bivalves and seaweeds, nature’s
purification systems, in strategic ways could actually help provide ecological
benefits to surrounding environments, while providing food and jobs.
By utilizing the latest engineering tools
and technologies, we can re-invent fish farming by moving fish farms into deeper,
offshore waters, and onto land through recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS),
enabling us to produce more fish with less impact on fragile coastal ecosystems.
- Fish replacement may be the
next big wave in alternative protein development - Rising ocean temperatures are
putting stress on sustainable fisheries - Ocean warming has fisheries on
the move, helping some but hurting more
None of this comes for free – but there is
enough money in global financial markets to fund everything needed, many times
over. We need to create incentives that divert private capital markets into
these forms of sustainable aquaculture. And investment will certainly be
needed, with current forecasts suggesting producers will need to find somewhere
between $150-300 billion in capital investment over the next decade to develop
the infrastructure required to meet the rising global demand for seafood.
Investors of course require guidance in
order to enjoy the best returns, whether financial or in terms of impact – or
both. This was the thinking that underpinned our recent partnership with
Encourage Capital, the key output of which was a comprehensive guide to impact
investing in aquaculture. Published in May, this guide – Towards a Blue
Revolution – represents the first-ever attempt to comprehensively assess
sustainable investment opportunities in aquaculture through both a financial
and environmental lens. Conceived from the outset as an open-source document
that will spread the latest best-practice thinking to investors worldwide, our
vision is to stimulate a ‘race to the top’ among investors in which sustainable
aquaculture and the wider ocean environment are the ultimate winners.
Human society will face unprecedented
environmental and social development hurdles as this century progresses. And
while we don’t yet have all the solutions to tackle these challenges, when it
comes to securing a supply of seafood sufficient to feed billions worldwide
sustainably, the beauty is that we already largely know what we need to do.
All we need now is for investors to jump on board with this vision. Who’s first? – As published in the World Economic Forum