Aquaculture and biodiversity to 2050

ABSTRACT

This article presents an analysis of aquaculture at the global level, stressing the extent to which the sector faces a range of challenges, among them a rising demand for seafood products in response to demographic growth, a global biodiversity crisis and planet-wide changes that include the effects of climate disruption. At the same time, it does not seem that we are currently on course to meet the international biodiversity objectives we have set ourselves wide-ranging changes are needed in many sectors of production to achieve this. And the COVID crisis has revealed the low resilience of globalized production systems and shown why it might be advantageous to repatriate some production. Though aquaculture still has important environmental problems to resolve before it is sustainable, it has some competitive advantages by comparison with other animal products that ought to enable it to confront the food security challenge in the period to 2050. Various scenarios are proposed, including an increase, on a trend basis, of 44% in global aquaculture production. All these scenarios will require political choices (given that conservation and sustainable-farming approaches can rarely be fully reconciled) and the public will need to be provided with honest information, while biodiversity is prioritized as both a universal common good and a source of future solutions.