Total Ecosystem Aquaculture Feeds All

Terrestrial food sources are damaged by climate change. Oceans are polluted. Fish are overfished and catches are diminishing. But floating artificial reefs growing a combination of seaweed, shellfish, finfish, and other marine animals and plants can form highly productive, profitable ecosystems that could produce a billion tons of seafood per year, enough to provide every living person 300 grams per day of high quality protein and sea vegetables. As global hunger is solved, the reefs would also utilize pasteurized human and animal wastes, cleaning up land sanitation issues while restoring ocean ecosystems, including coral reefs and beaches, increasing sustainable tourism. Every coastal country could have many reefs, feeding its own people and gaining income from exports.

In many developing countries, the sale of fishing rights to foreign fishing nations, unregulated exploitation of fisheries, increases in population, runoff from fertilizers, release of insufficiently treated human and animal wastes, loss of corals and mangroves, and other degradation of the environment have led to the decline in marine resources and food sources. Islands that were once self-sufficient are now dependent on importing less healthy Western food, leading to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc.

Total Ecosystem Aquaculture (TEA) is the needed innovation.  TEA involves establishing a complete ecosystem that cycles “wastes” into increased multi-product seafood production, while cleaning up pollution and restoring the natural environment.

For example, reefs in Oceania might harvest giant clams, oysters, crabs, shrimps, lobsters, octopus, squid, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sponges, and free-range finfish, including milkfish, perch, grouper, snapper, sea bream, etc. Our scaling and economic analysis suggest that globally 60,000-km2 of new fishing reefs could feed 10 billion people 300 grams of seafood every day. The seafood would cost US$1 to $2 per kilogram at the dock and could be sold for more than double that.

Polluted Laucala Bay, adjacent to the USP campus, provides an excellent initial demonstration and teaching site, since it presents a typical example of the issues found in many other countries.

TEA will harness the excess nutrients in Laucala Bay to produce 4,000 tonnes/year of diverse seafood, directly addressing the declining and limited selection of seafood.  USP will refine TEA production and management techniques specifically for Fiji and other countries while training islanders how to employ those techniques throughout the region. 

Initially the solution will serve the half million people living in the Suva, Fiji area by providing good paying jobs that provide the people with abundant inexpensive variety of kinds of seafood.  It will also restore an important local fishery for local fishers to earn money in addition to the products of the artificial reefs. Replanting mangroves will provide habitat for delicacies such as shrimp and mud crabs while protecting the shore from storms.

Analyses of ocean protein (fish, shellfish, etc.) compared to terrestrial protein sources, show the current global mixture of beef, lamb, pork and poultry consumption average 18 tons of CO2eq GHGs per ton of food, compared to 4 tons of CO2eq GHGs per ton of seafood.  Thus every ton of seafood replacing a ton terrestrial meat saves 14 tons of CO2eq GHGs.

Our solution reduces loss in the seafood supply chain by providing safe, productive local fishing reefs so fishers don't risk going far out to sea in search of dwindling populations and returning empty handed or with low grade fish.