The authors conclude with the hope that their efforts to integrate mariculture with its related ecological benefits, such as GHG reduction programs, can “support the advancement of climate-friendly mariculture practices that produce sustainable eco-friendly, social, and financial results.”
Reference: “Climate-Friendly Seafood: The Potential for Emissions Reduction and Carbon Capture in Marine Aquaculture” 25 January 2022, BioScience.DOI: 10.1093/ biosci/biab126.
A normal seafood meal. Credit: Farhad Ibrahimzade
As a significant source of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, food production has long occupied a crucial place in the climate-change discussion. Writing in BioScience, Alice Jones of the University of Adelaide, and an international team of scientists from the University and The Nature Conservancy, talk about the capacity of marine aquaculture, or mariculture, to sustainably feed a growing human population.
Mariculture currently constitutes 52% of the aquatic animal items individuals take in, say the authors, and these products might provide a method to provide high-protein foodstuffs without the high carbon footprint of comparable terrestrial products. “The GHG emissions per system of protein produced by aquaculture normally compare favorably with many livestock production,” said Jones and associates. A significant factor to maricultures climate-friendly profile is that, unlike animals grazing, it doesnt require substantial land-use change such as the taking down of jungle to make room for livestock.
To even more improve maricultures sustainability benefit, the authors describe manner ins which its emissions could be lowered. State Jones and coworkers, there are chances for supply chain enhancements that would permit the transportation of mariculture products to consumers with a considerably improved GHG footprint. Regional markets for mariculture would assist, too, with the added advantage of higher food security. At the mariculture sites themselves, opportunities to improve the carbon profile are plentiful, for circumstances by “cofarming bivalves with seaweed, which can lead to a net reduction in CO2 emissions, and cofarming fed finfish with seaweed or bivalves.” Such steps, say the authors, would result in higher absorption of excess nutrients, minimizing eutrophication and, eventually, the deterioration habitats that currently store carbon.