Aquaculture Affirmative fyi

Thus the plan:

The United States Congress should substantially increase development of offshore integrated multi-trophic aquaculture in the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone through financial incentives and permits regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

Advantage 1 is Food Security:

Food crises are coming- offshore aquaculture expansion is key to food stability

Tiller et al ’13 [Rachel Tiller, PhD, Post Doctoral Fellow with a focus on marine research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Fulbright Scholar, Russell Richards, PhD with research expertise in coastal and ocean management, Griffith University, Rebecca Gentry, former Policy Analyst at the Ministry of Fisheries, New Zealand, PhD student at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, “Stakeholder driven future scenarios as an element of interdisciplinary management tools; the case of future offshore aquaculture development and the potential effects on fishermen in Santa Barbara, California,” Ocean & Coastal Management¶ Volume 73, March 2013, Pages 127–135, ScienceDirect, online]
In light of this, the following paper discusses these challenges looking at the case of future offshore aquaculture development in the US. The perceived effects of this industry are explored from the vantage point of the stakeholders affected. This is important given that some research suggests that 24–36% of wild fish stocks have collapsed worldwide and that 68–72% of global fish stocks are overexploited or collapsed (Worm et al., 2006; Pauly, 2007, 2008; FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, 2010). This global concern has provided researchers and resource managers with a common understanding that capture fisheries have a strong impact on the ecosystem in which they operate. If ‘business as usual’ is continued, serious threats to global food security could be imminent given the downward trend of the capture fishing industry's access to wild fish coupled with an increased global reliance on seafood for protein, largely driven by big emerging economies like India and China (Antunes Zappes et al.). Global fisheries policies have for decades mitigated commercial fishing efforts in an attempt to reduce the rate of fishing pressure on wild stocks. Several solutions have been suggested to stop this downward trend of fish supply, including no-take Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and moving from single species fisheries management to that of EBFM (Ray, 2011). There has been, however, increased attention on more direct adaptation possibilities for ameliorating the juxtaposition between the increased demand for seafood and declining wild supply, and the necessity to find more efficient means of food production to feed a growing population. The primary method has been by aquaculture expansion during the last few decades in the US and beyond (Abdallah and Sumaila, 2007; Olin et al., 2012). Aquaculture already accounted for 46 percent of total global food fish supply in 2008 and is the fastest-growing animal-food-producing sector globally, even outpacing human population growth (FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, 2010). The per capita supply of animal protein from aquaculture has also increased, from 0.7 kg in 1970 to 7.8 kg in 2008, reflecting an average annual growth rate of 6.6 percent although this growth rate is beginning to slow. This adaptation process, thus, has now taken a step further by moving out beyond the sheltered coves, fjords, ponds and lakes where aquaculture has historically occurred. Currently, industry is looking further offshore for future development, which is reflected in the explicit consideration of policy makers to opening up US federal waters to offshore aquaculture in recent years (Varmer et al., 2005; Welp et al., 2006; Abreu et al., 2011; Impson, 2011; Oosterveer and Spaargaren, 2011; Boyd, 2012). This mitigation path by policy makers could be considered a de facto realization that the attempts to mitigate capture fishing efforts to reduce pressure on wild stocks is failing (Kalikoski et al., 2010).¶ Given this, the need to rethink the opportunities for increased global seafood production while still accounting for fisheries management has been realized. The possible interplay that will take place between stakeholder interests when an offshore aquaculture industry goes commercial, however, is imminent and requires addressing. The paper thus first introduces the development of US offshore aquaculture. This is followed by a description of the current state of scenario building in the literature, in both the natural and the social sciences and the differences between these. For the latter, the case of offshore aquaculture development where both Systems Thinking and Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) are used together in a workshop setting is proposed as a method for eliciting stakeholder driven scenarios that are quantitative in output. This method was tested on a core group of stakeholders identified as being likely impacted if offshore aquaculture were to be developed in Santa Barbara, namely commercial fishermen. This research sought to document how fishermen perceive offshore aquaculture will affect them. While stakeholder perceptions of impact are not necessarily accurate in terms of likely actual impacts, it is perception that often gives rise to conflict, and therefore understanding and addressing these perceptions is essential for any successful policy process (Adams et al., 2003). The paper then proposes moving from an eco-systemic to a socio-ecological system of managing the marine environment by including expert data elicited from the stakeholder workshops into existing biological prediction models, or by specifically creating new models. The scenarios extracted from the stakeholder participatory workshop and the follow up interviews describe the possible impact of a future offshore aquaculture development off the coast of California from the vantage point of a potentially affected stakeholder group. We suggest that in a more comprehensive interdisciplinary model, an early warning system for managers can be developed as a policy recommendation tool, delimiting the variable paths toward each stakeholder driven scenario. We also suggest that this type of stakeholder driven information would be critical for policy makers to understand where potential future conflicts are likely to occur, in order that identified or perceived conflicts can be investigated, addressed, and resolved or mitigated in the planning stages for offshore aquaculture.¶ 2. US offshore aquaculture developments¶ The United States is a major consumer of seafood, including aquaculture products. In 2010, however, 86% of seafood consumed in the US was imported with half of this produced through aquaculture. This import of 5.5 billion pounds per year was valued at $14.8 billion in 2009 (Abdallah and Sumaila, 2007). The necessity for import stems from the US aquaculture production, both fresh and marine, accounting for only 5% of US seafood supply, with marine-based aquaculture supplying less than 1.5%. Furthermore, US aquaculture production is ranked 13th globally after countries such as China, Canada, Norway and Chile. Indeed, the US imports about 300 million pounds of farmed salmon every year, primarily from Canada, Norway, and Chile. This dependency on imported seafood leads to an annual seafood trade deficit of over $9 billion (Antunes Zappes et al.; U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004; Santa Barbara Mariculture, 2011).¶ Until recently, there has been no universal method of obtaining permits for aquaculture in US federal waters beyond the 3-mile state waters to the limits of the US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Access to sites in coastal areas under state jurisdiction face challenges of their own with competing claims to coastal usage as well as a plethora of local, state and federal permits under the existing US laws and regulations ( Welp et al., 2006). The US EEZ is large however, and setting aside 500 km2, which accounts for 0.01% of the entire area under federal marine jurisdiction, would allow for an additional 600,000 metric tons of additional seafood to be produced annually ( Carr and Heyman, 2012). The lack of a regulatory framework in US federal waters has thus effectively prohibited aquaculture ventures and the expansion of the industry for domestic seafood needs to be met with national products ( Edelman, 2012). In 2004, however, it was recommended by the US Commission on Ocean Policy that there be established a regulatory framework for aquaculture licensing in federal waters. A National Offshore Aquaculture Act would clarify federal regulatory requirements, allowing businesses and individuals to obtain a permit to operate in federal waters ( Welp et al., 2006). In lieu of this, however, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the primary federal agency, under the Department of Commerce, charged with overseeing and permitting aquaculture production in the US ( Santa Barbara Mariculture, 2011) has taken charge. In working toward lessening the trade deficit in seafood commerce, the Department of Commerce and NOAA released national sustainable marine aquaculture policies during the summer of 2011. One of the implementations toward this goal is the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Plan for Aquaculture, which includes the required regulatory framework for offshore aquaculture production in the Gulf ( Abreu et al., 2011). Starting up offshore aquaculture could potentially not only increase domestic seafood production dramatically, but also provide job opportunities among others to U.S. fishermen, in for instance jobs that involve vessel maintenance and maintenance of offshore operations ( FAO, 2005–2012).

Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2014
2014 -> For want of a nail
2014 -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014
2014 -> Ihbb asian Championships 2014 middle school bowl Round 4 First Quarter
2014 -> Ihbb european Championships 2014 Bowl Round 4 First Quarter
2014 -> International History Bee and Bowl 2013-14 Asian Division Question Set Bowl Round Six
2014 -> United states patent and trademark office
2014 -> Coffs harbour eisteddfod vocal syllabus
2014 -> Listen News Programs Schedule pledge now
2014 -> Slow club announce third album complete surrender

Download 0.81 Mb.

Share with your friends: