Do you like your fish meal as I do – however!
The steady increase in consumer demand for seafood and concurrent depletion of many populations of wild fish, aquaculture, or fish farming, "is now used to produce nearly half the world seafood.1 In fact, Aquaculture is currently the fastest growing sector of global food production, as wild fisheries are being overexploited and mismanaged, production Aquaculture is expected to double by 2050.2
Unfortunately, the industrialization of aquaculture has resulted in many of the same environmental health problems human and created by today's factory farms, livestock. As in the case of industrial livestock production, many of the harmful effects of industrial aquaculture derived the concentration of a large number of animals in small installations. In addition to contaminate aquatic ecosystems, with the enormous volume of waste produced by the fish to be limited, aquaculture facilities threaten the environment and human health through the release of hazardous substances such as pesticides, antibiotics and other drugs in the aquatic environment. Industrial operations of aquaculture can also damage the natural fish populations by introducing disease and non-native species in the ocean.
Pollutants emitted by plants aquaculture
Open aquaculture facilities Industrial water fish are confined in crates or netpens, which allow fish waste, uneaten food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other contaminants to pass directly into the surrounding water.
Fish feces.
As in the case of livestock manure, when large amounts of fish feces entering an aquatic ecosystem, the levels of nutrients in the water increase. As described in the Environmental Impact section, the influx of excess nutrients induce algae growth, and ultimately can lead to eutrophication and the reduction of water biodiversity.3
Food uneaten
The constant release of uneaten food causes similar problems, if the feed accumulates on the seabed, over time is decomposed by bacteria that consume the oxygen dissolved in water and therefore can create hypoxic "dead zones" under aquaculture facilities.4 The environmental damage caused by fish feces and uneaten food is particularly serious in enclosed waters with low water exchange rates (eg, lakes, lazy rivers, and shallow bays).
Pesticides and Pharmaceuticals.
In an effort to prevent diseases and epidemics parasites, industrial aquaculture operations use large quantities of drugs, pesticides and other chemicals. Although the environmental and human health many of these substances are not well understood, its use is unregulated, the reporting requirements are insufficient, and federal oversight is inadequate.5 While that some chemicals threaten the health of consumers by leaving harmful residues in fish, drugs and pesticides can also wreak havoc on the environment, since many are toxic to aquatic plants and animals.6, 7 For more information, see Food & Water Watch detailed analysis
The misuse of antibiotics
When thousands of fish are confined in a small space, it is easy for diseases to spread quickly. Often, industrial aquaculture facilities address this problem by using the same antibiotics as irresponsible practices of livestock operations industrial, but reducing the density of fish, fish farms continuously administered subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics. This promotes the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can infect humans.8 The problem is exacerbated by allowing netpens cages and antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria to move freely in the surrounding waters.
Runaway and Biodiversity
Aquaculture facilities also threaten ecosystems natural, facilitating the introduction of non-native marine species (or domesticated varieties of native species) in the surrounding environment. As a result of net damage storms, industrial accidents, and attempts to capture marine mammals farmed fish, many aquaculture facilities release substantial number of fish in the environment. For example, the David Suzuki Foundation estimated that in British Columbia, an average of 90,000 farmed salmon escape each year from 1990 and 2000.9
The fish that escape from aquaculture facilities pose a significant threat to the viability of existing wild populations – particularly vulnerable populations who have already suffered from overfishing and habitat loss. While non-native fish species threaten native populations competing for food and habitat, breeding varieties of native species also pose a threat to the environment, having escaped the pens, farmed fish can breed with their wild counterparts, thus introducing a farm genetic traits in the gene pool of wild populations. This can dramatically reduce the genetic diversity of the species listed in a short period of time.10
Parasites and disease
Despite heavy use of antibiotics and pesticides, overcrowded conditions within aquaculture facilities to encourage the proliferation of pests and diseases, which may extend to marine wild species.11 The large number of fish in aquaculture farms industry provides sufficient hosts for parasites such as lice sea, epidemics can decimate fish farm, and also affect wild populations – especially when they are aquaculture facilities to along migration routes fish.12
Aquaculture systems can also introduce viral and bacterial diseases in wild fish populations – Disease can be transmitted live on fish that escape from pens, contaminated materials, pieces of fish, sea lice, and humans who handle contaminated fish.13 The risk of transmission of the disease increases when imported, unprocessed fish used as food. For example, sardines fed imported tuna farmed in Australia are believed to have caused outbreaks in 1995 and 1998 virus that killed 75 percent of the adult population in the wild sardine southern Australia.14
The depletion of wild fish stocks
Some aquaculture facilities using large quantities of wild fish, which are processed to create feeding carnivorous fish species such as salmon, trout, tuna, cod and halibut. For example, experts estimate that 2.7 to 3.5 kilos of fish wild are used to produce one pound of farmed salmon, 15-20 kilos of wild fish consumed to produce one pound of tuna.16 This intensive form of production resources depleted stocks of small fish such as anchovies, sardines, sardine and mackerel, which ultimately can affect aquatic ecosystems undermining predators like large fish, marine mammals, and seabirds.17 researchers are seeking ways to minimize the use of wild fish feeding, but not all alternatives are positive. Soybeans are increasingly used to add protein to feed the fish, a practice that could encourage industrial production of genetically modified soybean.
Sustainable Alternatives
Fortunately for seafood lovers, certain forms Aquaculture can be done without creating an ecological disaster. Recycling farming operations on land are able to breed fish in closed systems without emitting pollutants in the surrounding environment, many of these fish farms to refrain from using antibiotics, hormones or chemicals. Aquaponics small-scale operations the fish and vegetables / herbs in the same system, using plants to filter waste and use as fertilizer. sustainable aquaculture facilities can also choose to increase fish species omnivores or herbivores such as catfish, tilapia, carp or minimize (or eliminate) the use of wild fish in feed. Overall, sustainable aquaculture and better management of wild fisheries, we can provide long term access to shellfish.
Did you know You?
In 2002, over 630,000 salmon escaped from aquaculture facilities in Norway – which is more than the total number of Atlantic salmon generated naturally in the rivers of Norway! 18
In 2005, 51 953 Atlantic Salmon in a leak sites in Scotland treated with Slice / benzoate emamectin 22
15-20 percent of all feed can pass into the surrounding waters not used, thus creating a substantial flow of waste.19
Currently, Asia is the world leader in aquaculture, which represents more than 90 percent of total tonnage, while North America produces only 1.6 percent.20
More than 80 percent of seafood consumed in the United States is imported, and U.S. exports 70 percent of what is caught or farmed here in countries with higher import rules remain in the US2121
For more information:
Food & Water Fish Watch Program (www.foodandwaterwatch.org / fish)
Information on open ocean aquaculture, seafood safety, management of the oceans and sustainable solutions for aquaculture.
Aquaculture Network Information Center (ANIC)
Created by the USDA Extension Service, this site provides access to a wide selection of national and international aquaculture resources electronically.
SeaWeb Aquaculture Resources
A comprehensive collection of aquatic resources regularly updated SeaWeb, a nonprofit organization that works to promote ocean conservation.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Veterinary Medicine – CVM and aquaculture
The FDA is responsible for overseeing the use of drugs administered to fish in aquaculture facilities. This site contains guidance documents, sections of the Policies and Procedures Manual, research projects, and other information used in support of the aquaculture program CVM and the drugs approved for use in aquaculture.
Consumer Seafood Buying Guides:
Provides instructions to clean up the election, seafood green, safe. Card printer includes a seafood substitutes sustainable alternatives to popular seafood dishes, a book sustainable fisheries with recipes and detailed information about why the various types of fish and shellfish are or are not good choices for consumers.
Food and Water Watch
Basic guidelines for buying fish safe, sustainable raised. It also includes a restaurant card printing, which can be used to request that your favorite restaurant to change to fish and shellfish caught in nature.
Sources
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations United Nations. Paper of aquaculture in sustainable development. FAO in September 2007.
- Medical News Today, "The critical sustainable aquaculture to feed the world" February 21, 2007.
- Scottish Association for Marine Science and Napier University. Analysis and synthesis of the environmental impacts of aquaculture. Scottish Executive Central Research Unit. 2002.
- Weber, Michael L. What Price farmed fish: a review of social and environmental costs of farming carnivorous fish. SeaWeb Aquaculture Clearinghouse. 2003.
- Food and Water Watch. Yuck! Harmful chemicals and waste products from aquaculture. Food and Water Watch. May 2008.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Fish and Risks Fisheries and Controls Guidance: Third Edition. Accessed June 2008.
- Weber, Michael L. What Price farmed fish: a review of social and environmental costs of farming carnivorous fish. SeaWeb Aquaculture Center. 2003.
- Cabello, Felipe C. "The intensive use of prophylactic antibiotics in aquaculture: a growing problem for human and animal health and the environment. "Environmental Microbiology. Vol. 8, 7. July 2006.
- The David Suzuki Foundation. Escaping from farmed salmon pose a risk. 2007.
10. Weber, Michael L. What farm price of fish: a review of environmental and social costs of farming carnivorous fish. SeaWeb Aquaculture Center. 2003.
11. Scottish Association for Marine Science and Napier University. Review and synthesis of the environmental impacts of aquaculture. Scotland Central Executive Unit Research. 2002.
12. Weber, Michael L. What Price farmed fish: a review of social and environmental costs of fish farming carnivores. SeaWeb Aquaculture Center. 2003.
13. Weber, Michael L. What is the price of fish farming: a review of social and environmental costs of farming carnivorous fish. SeaWeb Aquaculture Center. 2003.
14. WWF, the World Conservation Organization. The problems of aquaculture: parasites and disease. 2008.
15. David Suzuki Foundation. Net Loss of wild fish to farmed salmon production. Accessed June 2008.
16. SeaWeb Aquaculture Resources. Feed for aquaculture. Accessed June 2008.
17. SeaWeb Aquaculture Resources. Feed for aquaculture. Accessed June 2008.
18. WWF, the World Conservation Organization. The problems of aquaculture: Exotic Escapees. 2008.
19. Weber, Michael L. What is the price of farmed fish: a review of social and environmental costs of farming carnivorous fish. SeaWeb Aquaculture Center. 2003.
20. FAO, "Regional Review on Aquaculture Development / 7. North America – 2005." 2005.
21 calculations. Undertaken by Food & Water Watch based on data for: "Fisheries of the United States 2007." Office of Science and Technology, National Service Marine Fisheries, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Silver Spring, MD, July 2008. For methodologies, please contact jwilliams@fwwatch.org
Note that the statistics listed here are based on 2007 data, which is the latest available in synthesized form of the Office of NOAA Fisheries Science and Technology. -Ate the most advanced U.S. aquaculture statistics production, which are included in these calculations are taken from the USDA 2006 Census.
22. Summary of reported data on the companies to open net cage fish farming in Scotland (raw data provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Scotland (SEPA) and Scottish Executive)
About the Author
He has a background as civil engineer and geoscientist. He has worked mainly within the oil and gas industry from the mid 1980s. He has written a few fictional novels as well as being the author of some professional litterature within oil and gas sector, he is now an editor of some web sites.
