The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the worlds largest conservation NGOs, is changing how it sees aquaculture. For many years the organization has sounded alarms about the dangerous impacts of aquaculture to the environment, but recently has been involved in a number of aquaculture partnerships.
TNC has realized the important role of ecosystem services that some aquaculture can provide, specifically seaweed and shellfish. For example, they found that changing from fishing to seaweed farming, not only takes carbon and nitrogen out of the water, but also promoted more fish and lobsters in the surrounding water. TNC has released a promotional video of a seaweed farming success story (posted below).
“This is kind of a paradigm shift in how we’re trying to understand aquaculture, at least in the conservation world,” said Robert Jones, global lead for aquaculture at TNC. “We’re trying to turn this on its head.”
This is a big step in moving the conversation from aquaculture being dangerous to aquaculture being environmentally friendly.
Read a detailed article here from the Global Aquaculture Advocate
Read an article here from TNC “Sustainable Aquaculture: A viable economic alternative to fishing”