Aquaculture, long scorned by the environmental community, may play an important role in meeting the world's growing appetite for sustainable seafood. While large-scale aquaculture (the cultivation aquatic organisms for food) has had its share of environmental debacles, scientists, NGOs and industry representatives are nearing agreement on a common standard for responsible management.
The need for additional sources of sustainable seafood is clear. Thirty five percent of key commercial fish stocks are currently in danger of being overharvested, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This decline is happening as the world's population is predicted to add 3 billion people over the next 30 years-not to mention the additional pressures that oil spills, dead zones and climate change have on fish stocks.
Aquaculture has potential to help bridge the gap between the demands of a growing population and production from wild fisheries. By volume, almost half of the seafood the world consumes comes from aquaculture and it's one of the fastest growing food production systems in the world. As the practice has grown in scale, however, some severe environmental impacts have arisen. Some of these impacts include increased incidence of diseases, parasites and concentrations of organic wastes that cause fish-killing algal blooms.
Some aquaculture practices have taken a toll on wild fish stocks as wild juvenile fish have been overharvested as stock for farms. In some cases, large numbers of farmed fish have escaped from their pens, competing for food and habitat with wild populations. Some fishing communities have been adversely affected because aquaculture operations used cheap, "throwaway" fish for fishmeal, taking away locally important food sources, resulting in the displacement of coastal communities.
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