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Aquaculture, most simply defined as the rearing or farming of aquatic species under controlled conditions, is a rapidly growing industry, accounting for over one-third of all direct fisheries consumption. It is an important economic activity in many countries and offers a number of opportunities to contribute to poverty alleviation, employment, community development, the reduction of overexploitation of natural resources, and food security in tropical and sub-tropical regions. However, the development of aquaculture has generated debate in recent years over the social and environmental costs and benefits.
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Creating employment for women-shrimp nurseries in Andhra Pradesh, India.
photo: Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific |
Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production system in the world and it accounts for approximately one-third of global fisheries landings. In addition to the production of fisheries products, aquaculture also consumes more fishmeal and fish oil than any other industry. Thus, the combined production and consumption of aquaculture accounts for about half of all fisheries' production in the world. The rapid expansion of the industry has focused attention on the need for effective management strategies. Such strategies are needed to enhance the positive contributions that shrimp farming and other forms of aquaculture can make to economic growth and poverty alleviation, while controlling negative environmental and social impacts which often accompany poorly planned and inadequately regulated developments.
Several hundred different species are farmed around the world both for sale on the international market and for subsistence food production. Global production of farmed aquatic animals and plants in 2003 reached 55 million metric tons with an on-farm value of $67 billion. Like agricultural farms, aquacultural farms range from small-scale operations for local food production to intensive, mechanized operations geared towards export. Farmed species that are traded in volume on the international market include oyster, tilapia, catfish, trout, clams, tuna, mussels, and scallops. Shrimp and salmon, two of the most valuable species, are also traded widely.
This growing aquaculture industry is associated with a number of environmental and social issues, including:
- Aquaculture at inappropriate sites can lead to habitat conversion and on-going operational impacts.
- Aquaculture potentially has several adverse effects on wild species, including disease transmission, escape, and capture for broodstock or rearing among others.
- Production of nutrient-loaded effluent can lead to eutrophication of nearby waters.
- Prophylactic use of chemicals, including antibiotics can harm wildlife and the environment, and may lead to antibiotic resistance.
- Massive water use can result in water shortages as well as salt water intrusion and other hydrological changes or waste disposal issues.
- Reliance on high protein, fishmeal-based feed for carnivorous species often requires many pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of edible aquaculture product.
- The conflict over the use and conversion of natural resources as well as access to remaining resources and the privatization of public commons has resulted in physical conflict and even murder in some countries.
- Inflation in the cost of key local goods (e.g. food, labor, land or other inputs) disproportionately affects those not associated with the industry, particularly the poor.
- The decline in fisheries in some areas is due to direct environmental impacts of aquaculture or its indirect impacts on the market price of local catch.
Aquaculture concerns a number of the ecoregions, biomes and threats that WWF has determined to be critical to conservation. For example, effluents from shrimp aquaculture can threaten the Mesoamerican Reef in Central America, the Gulf of California, and the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Trout are farmed throughout the Appalachian mountain range in the United States and effluents could adversely affect southeastern rivers and streams. Aquaculture also relates to a number of WWF's thematic priorities: shrimp farming contributes to mangrove deforestation; non-native salmon and tilapia have escaped in volume from farms and become invasive species; and effluents, including toxic chemicals and antibiotics, are released into both marine and freshwater environments.
WWF's Aquaculture Program in the Center for Conservation Innovation is working to help the aquaculture industry minimize their environmental and social impacts and grow in a sustainable manner. This work recognizes that the challenges facing aquaculture management around the world are complex, and that improved practices often result from identifying and analyzing the major impacts of each aquaculture production system as well as the lessons learned about better management practices (BMPs) and the exchange of such information.
Aquaculture Dialogues Overview
For more information, please contact us at Aquacultureinfo@wwfus.org.
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