Blue Economy

Can blue food help save the planet?

Sasha Cohen Ioannides — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 10:05:06 +0000

Can blue food help save the planet?

Tags

Blue Economy

Food

Innovation

Ocean

Topic

Blue Economy

Innovation

Globally, three billion people rely on fish and seafood for 20% of their animal protein intake, which means that around 6.5% of all protein consumed comes from fish, based on figures released by the World Bank.

Seafood consumption has doubled within the past fifty years due to wealth increase and the desire to decrease other animal protein sources.

This rapidly growing trend has led to over 90% of fish stocks being over or fully fished and disrupting marine ecosystems.

The demand is expected to be doubled again within the next 50 years.

Seafood-based proteins produce much less environmental impact than terrestrial-based ones, primarily due to the lack of land required to grow them.

Thanks to the diversity of blue foods, including fish, many invertebrates, aquatic plants, algae, and other aquatic animals, this diet can also impact humans’ health positively.

Due to the overfishing of predators, similar to overhunting on land, many otherwise hunted species begin to overpopulate, which can easily unbalance fragile and complex underwater ecosystems.

Turning challenges into opportunities there are areas where innovative and sustainable solutions are popping up thanks to impact-driven leaders.

One such case is with sea urchin populations that overgraze kelp and seagrass forests, turning the water into a desolate wasteland.

Startup Urchinomics is managing urchins populations while producing premium seafood products. Image: Pexels

Norwegian-based startup Urchinomics solves this problem by rehoming the urchins into ranches, where they go from annoying pests to a premium seafood product that can be consistently supplied year-round.

This way, food is farmed while positively affecting the environment, recovering a healthy ecosystem with a particular focus on sea kelp forests.

Addressing harmful urchin overpopulation with an innovative solution that preserves marine life by creating food is also proven to be a viable business model.

While sea urchins face overpopulation, other marine animals, such as sea oysters, have been underpopulated. This results in undersupply and also negative environmental impacts.

Oysters might not be as famous for their critical role as coral reefs. Still, they provide multiple benefits, such as water quality improvement, nursery habitat for fish, and reduced nitrogen levels, while contributing to the local economy and culture.

A sustainable farming business, The Oyster Restoration Company, based in the United Kingdom, aims to fix this problem by providing 150 million native oysters annually.

They are working on this by selectively breeding oysters to create disease resistance, a common problem in aquaculture.

They work to bring balance back into the environment and improve farm yield to reduce dependency on pacific species.

Oysters are overlooked for their ability to improve water quality, provide fish nurseries, and reduce nitrogen levels while contributing to the economy and culture. Image: Pexels

Although farming fish and invertebrates is becoming more popular, seaweed farming is getting more attention as this plant absorbs carbon dioxide and nitrogen while protecting seabeds.

Oceanium, a Scottish enterprise, is a sustainable seaweed farm that meets many industries’ needs by producing food, feed, and biomass. They launched the “KELP-EU” or “Kelping the EU”, an 18-month project with multiple partners that allows them to study seaweed further.

However, not all farming has to be nature-based.

German-Thai company HydroNeo brings the process of shrimp farming to the future through Internet-of-Things technology. They have developed a smart farm management system that allows farmers to check pH and water temperature while remotely feeding and aerating their farms.

Seafood may have a lower environmental impact than land animals, we need to be aware that the pollution produced by this industry is still not as low as it is with plant-based products.

Consumers may still yearn for a fishy flavour but want plant based sourcing, as they are concerned about the effects of microplastic pollution in the ocean or have ethical issues with fishing.

Swedish company, Hooked offers a 100% plant-based substitute for tuna and salmon. Image: Hooked

Swedish-based enterprise Hooked provides a terrific substitute for tuna and salmon through a combination of sustainable soybeans, sunflower oil, and algae.

They list all ingredient sources on their website for a completely transparent and traceable product.

By providing a plant-based vegan substitute for fish, they are reducing microplastic consumption in humans and greenhouse gas emissions from the industry, while reducing the need for fishing.

According to Hooked, canned tuna has 6.06 kg of CO2 equivalent emission per kilo of product, while their product, Toonish only produces 2.7.

It is no question that there is a huge potential for using blue foods to address many challenges.

Still, the seafood industry needs urgent re-examination to create sustainable and regenerative solutions.

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Water ChangeMaker Awards

Szilvia Szabó — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 22:23:59 +0000

Water ChangeMaker Awards

Tags

Climate Change

Blue Economy

Topic

award

We need smart decisions on how we use and safeguard our water and how we protect ourselves from water-related hazards.

This award aims to make visible the teams and organizations who shape water decisions that build climate resilience. They will collect the journeys of change-makers who work impacts water because, at times like these, learning from and celebrating those who have made things happen is more important than ever.

“We are very proud to be partners in the Water ChangeMaker Awards, because climate resilience is absolutely urgent and fundamental to utilities, sustainability and the achievement of all the Sustainable Development Goals. We believe very strongly that peers and peer professionals can inspire and empower and change like nothing else.”, says Julie Perkins is Officer in Charge of the Secretariat at UN-Habitat's Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance (GWOPA)

You can submit your ChangeMaker journey until 7 June 2020.

ChangeMaker initiatives should be about decisions involving water that have contributed to building resilience to climate change. The application is open for all organisations, entities, and individuals associated with the public, private, and non-profit sector organisations.

Initiatives can be from anywhere in the world, they must be either ongoing or concluded within the last five years.

The international independent expert jury, including leaders in water management and climate resilience, will be looking for:

Climate Resilience built through Water Decisions
Depth of Learning
Magnitude & Longevity of Change
Breadth of Collaboration

Water ChangeMakers Award

The Global Water Partnership’s Technical Committee will engage with Semi-Finalists, Finalists and Winners in publishing an analysis of the ChangeMaker Journeys – to be launched in March 2021.

The Global Water Operators’ Partnerships Alliance (GWOPA) is an international network created to support water operators through Water Operator’s Partnerships (WOPs), peer support exchanges between two or more water operators, on a not-for-profit basis, with the objective of strengthening their capacity, enhancing their performance and enabling them to provide a better service to more people.

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Global Water Operators’ Partnerships

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The Planet Calls short documentary on ocean plastic

Szilvia Szabó — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 16:16:16 +0000

The Planet Calls short documentary on ocean plastic

Tags

Blue Economy

Ocean Action Conference

Szilvia Szabó — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 15:58:45 +0000

Ocean Action Conference

Tags

Ocean

Blue Economy

Conference

Date

5th February 2020

Venue

Brussels, Belgium

Our future depends on the protection and restoration of our seas and ocean. The Ocean Action! conference will bring together a wide variety of key players to chart a new route for our blue future.

OCEAN ACTION! is an all-day event hosted by Seas At Risk, the European association of 32 marine NGOs spanning 17 countries.

Here you can meet with activists, researchers, policy-makers, artists all working on issues related to our oceans and seas.

Alongside speakers, artists and visionaries have been invited to give their perspective of our ocean. Live art and demonstrations will be going on throughout the day, giving you the chance to interact and feel the ocean in a different way.

Our future depends on the protection and restoration of our seas and ocean. A healthy ocean is our best ally in the fight against the climate crisis. Yet, despite long-term political and legal commitments to protect and restore our marine environment, we are still not doing what needs to be done.

So what needs to change for seas and ocean to get better? This is the question that Ocean Action! will aim to answer.

Ocean Action! will bring togetherkey players to call on the EU for action on its commitment to protect and restore our seas and ocean. We will discuss the cost of inaction and chart a new route out of the crisis.

Join us: we need all hands on deck!

Ocean Action! Conference

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