A study released by the University of Adelaide and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has shown that aquaculture done right has the potential to actively reduce the drivers of climate change.
The study, titled “Climate-Friendly Seafood: The Potential for Emissions Reduction and Carbon Capture in Marine Aquaculture,” assessed greenhouse gas emissions for marine aquaculture of fed-finfish, macroalgae, and bivalves.
According to the study, mariculture generates 37.5 per cent of all aquaculture products and 97 per cent of the world’s seafood harvest.
Read also: Research: Gas stoves have much more impact on climate change than previously thought
The study revealed that though mariculture already has a lower greenhouse gas emission footprint than terrestrial products, further low-emissions strategies must be implemented as production continues to scale up to meet future global demand.
It further outlined six principles for industry and regulators that the authors say will make “significant and immediate progress in the development of climate-friendly mariculture practices and emissions reductions outcomes.”
A key principle of the study is better placement of mariculture farms away from established sensitive “blue carbon” habitats, such as seagrass fields, and into deeper, faster-flowing water.
According to the study, the current scale of seaweed mariculture is not large enough to make a sizeable difference in carbon sequestration. This means that the fate of seaweed end-products leads to short-term carbon capture instead of the desired long-term capture, reducing the impact it could have on climate change.
The study further found that carbon accounting in mariculture studies, including the full supply chain and standardized reporting, are critical and that studies need to report the positive and negative interactions between mariculture operations and the surrounding marine environment to develop better strategies moving forward.
