Climate Change, Overfishing Drive Rise of Industrial Aquaculture

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization's report "State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture," says existing responsible fishing practices must be more widely implemented and management plans should be expanded to include strategies for coping with climate change.

"Best practices that are already on the books but not always implemented offer clear, established tools towards making fisheries more resilient to climate change," said report co-author Kevern Cochrane.

Trawlers tied up in Dunmore Harbour, Waterford, Ireland (Photo by Dave Hearne)

"So the message to fishers and fisheries authorities is clear," he said. "Get in line with current best practices, like those contained in FAO's Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, and you've already taken important strides towards mitigating the effects of climate change."

Representatives of 80 countries are in Rome this week for the annual meeting of the FAO Committee on Fisheries where they are discussing the issues raised in the new report and the future work of the agency.

Sustainabililty of the high seas fisheries is crucial, but it is aquaculture that now accounts for 47 percent of all fish consumed by humans as food, the FAO reports.

"Many fisheries are being exploited at the top range of their productive capacity," said Cochrane. "When you look at the impacts that climate change might have on ocean ecosystems, that raises concerns as to how they'll hold up."

Areas with the highest proportions of fully-exploited fish stocks are the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, the Western Indian Ocean and the Northwest Pacific Ocean.

Aquaculture continues to be the fastest-growing animal food producing sector and is poised to provide half of all fish consumed worldwide, finds the FAO report, adding that future developments should move towards hatchery-based aquaculture, cutting dependence on wild stocks.

Traditional fishermen in Ghana haul in a catch. (Photo by Shepherd)

With aquaculture set to be the basis of all future growth in global seafood production, the global environment organization WWF responded to the new report with an urgent call to put aquaculture on a more sustainable basis.

The shift to aquaculture is as likely to increase as to reduce the pressure on collapsing ocean fisheries, WWF warned.

"The dramatic growth in aquaculture makes it more and more urgent to ensure that aquaculture becomes more sustainable and that supplying the stock and the feed for fish farming becomes less of a burden on traditional fisheries," said Miguel Jorge, director of WWF’s Global Marine Programme.

"Coastal aquaculture must also stop making inroads into fish habitat such as mangrove areas, it must become less polluting and less of a disease risk and it must be carried out without making communities more vulnerable to natural disasters," said Jorge.

A series of aquaculture dialogues, coordinated by WWF and involving more than 2,000 farmers, nongovernmental organizations and scientists are currently creating global standards to minimize environmental and social impacts associated with aquaculture - initially for the 12 species with the greatest economic and environmental impact.

The aquaculture dialogues are now considering whether the standards should be administered by an Aquaculture Stewardship Council - a body similar to the Marine Stewardship Council, the leading sustainability certification system for marine capture fisheries.

The WWF proposal to certify farming of one of the 12 species - shrimp - is opposed by an international NGO network.

Representatives of local communities, NGOs, social movements and researchers from 17 countries of Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America signed a declaration against industrial shrimp aquaculture in Lampung, Indonesia in September 2007.

Destruction of mangrove areas for shrimp farming in East Kalimantan, Indonesia (Photo courtesy NACA)

With long roots that shelter juvenile fish and protect coastlines from erosion, hurricanes, storm surges, and tsunami, mangrove trees grow in the intertidal areas and estuary mouths between land and water.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of its devastating effects on both coastal ecosystems and local peoples, the NGOs say, the shrimp farming industry continues to expand into new lands and countries, such as Brazil, Nigeria and Kenya, leaving behind degraded land and impoverished communities.

Led by Mangrove Action Project, USA; Asia Solidarity Against Industrial Aquaculture, Bangladesh; African Mangrove Network, RedManglar, Colombia; and Forest Peoples Programme, UK, these and other NGOs expressed their concerns at two WWF aquaculture dialogues last fall in Ecuador and Thailand.

They are still demanding "a moratorium on further expansion of this socially disruptive and ecologically destructive industry" and a halt to the WWF's Aquaculture Stewardship Council initiative.

These groups said last month that they view the proposed Aquaculture Stewardship Council as "yet another attempt by a big international NGO to formulate some ill-conceived plan to remedy the problems of unsustainable industrial shrimp farming."

Saying that there "still is a great need for strict social and rights-based standards, not just environmental and technical fixes at the shrimp farm level," they are seeking "real and meaningful dialogues with affected communities, not just with industry and a few NGOs and academics."

In response, Jill Schwartz, deputy director of the WWF-US Aquaculture Program, told ENS in an interview, "Our feeling with shrimp and all aquaculture is that it is here to stay. Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production system in the world right now - half the fish we eat on the planet is farmed."

"We, like that coalition, recognize that there are some negative environmental impacts assocated with aquaculture, so we are working with industry to set these standards," said Schwartz.

An inland shrimp farmer in Alabama shows a sample of his harvest. (Photo by Aaron McNevin courtesy WWF)

"Industry have been willing participants in this process," she said. "We have a lot of participation from producers, environmental NGOs, scientists, government officials," she said, including the opposition groups.

"Producers want to see some change in the industry," said Schwartz. "They are willing to change farming practices to protect the environment. Shrimp dialogue participants have identified some key impacts they want to try to minimize - water pollution, salt water from shrimp farms can seep into the groundwater; chemicals and antibiotics; destruction of natural habitat; and the clearing of mangrove forests."

Schwartz says WWF will post the draft standards for shrimp farming by the end of 2009, which will begin a six month public comment period. Then the standards will be refined based on public comments, and by the fall of 2010 WWF expects to publish the final shrimp aquaculture standards.

Standards for tilapia aquaculture were posted in 2008 and will be final sometime in May or June 2009.

WWF is funding the business development phase for the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, which is expected to be operational within two years.

"This is an unprecedented effort to ensure that future aquaculture is environmentally sustainable, and well-positioned to meet the growing demand for seafood worldwide," said WWF-International Director General James Leape. "These new standards will raise the bar in the industry, giving consumers assurance that their food purchases are good for the environment."

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