Abstract

Food from the sea can make a larger contribution to healthy and sustainable diets, and to addressing hunger and malnutrition, through improvements in production, distribution and equitable access to wild harvesting and mariculture resources and products. The supply and consumption of seafood is influenced by ‘drivers’ including ecosystem change and ocean regulation, the influence of corporations and evolving consumer demand, as well as the growing focus on the importance of seafood for meeting nutritional needs. These changes need to be examined in a holistic way to develop an informed understanding of the needs, potential impacts and solutions that align seafood production and consumption with relevant 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper uses an evidence-based narrative approach to examine how the anticipated global trends for seafood might be experienced by people in different social, geographical and economic situations over the next ten years. Key drivers influencing seafood within the global food system are identified and used to construct a future scenario based on our current trajectory (Business-as-usual 2030). Descriptive pathways and actions are then presented for a more sustainable future scenario that strives towards achieving the SDGs as far as technically possible (More sustainable 2030). Prioritising actions that not only sustainably produce more seafood, but consider aspects of access and utilisation for all, particularly those who are food and nutrition insecure, is an essential part of designing sustainable and secure future seafood systems.

Key words

Food and nutrition security; equity; mariculture; wild capture fisheries; blue food; food system

Introduction

Food from the sea has been crucial for human survival for over 150,000 years (Marean et al. 2007) and has helped to shape human evolution (Crawford and Broadhurst 2012). Seafood plays a particularly important role in food and nutrition security through its high concentrations of bioavailable minerals and vitamins, essential fatty acids and animal protein (Hicks et al. 2019; Thilsted et al. 2016). For many countries, including some Small Island Developing States, seafood contributes, or exceeds, 50% of total animal protein intake (FAO 2018). Seafood is also vital for the almost 30 million coastal Indigenous Peoples who consume nearly four times more seafood per capita than the global average, and 15 times more per capita than non-indigenous peoples in their respective countries (Cisneros-Montemayor et al. 2016). However, terrestrial-bias remains evident in debates on food and nutrition security (Béné et al. 2015) and on mechanisms to end hunger (see for example Nature 2020). Promotion of seafood as an important component of a healthy and sustainable diet (Bennett et al. 2018; Bogard et al. 2019a; Farmery et al. 2017; HLPE 2014b), due to its nutritional profile and comparatively favourable environmental footprint (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2019; IPCC 2019; Willett et al. 2019), is helping to overcome this bias. Food from the sea can make an important contribution to improved food outcomes, however, it will require careful management of marine and terrestrial resource use in combination with efforts to ensure efficient and equitable distribution of resources, products and benefits (Österblom et al. 2020). Conversely, reducing the supply of seafood will potentially contribute to malnutrition and hunger, as well as lead to potentially negative environmental impacts related to replacing seafood with food produced on land (Barange 2019; Golden et al. 2016).
Seafood, defined here as any edible form of marine life (plant, animal, bacteria), that requires sea water for at least part of its life cycle, is predominantly sourced through the wild harvest of a broad range of plants and animals.  Approximately half of 79.3 million tonnes of wild harvest seafood landed in 2016 (FAO 2018) was from small-scale fisheries (SSF), which typically operate close to shore with relatively simple gear and catch fish for subsistence or local markets. SSF are fished by a diverse group of men and women and are embedded in local economies, traditions and values (FAO 2015). They are particularly important for livelihoods and income generation, supporting 88% of fish workers globally (FAO 2018). It is estimated that production of food from the sea can increase substantially (Costello et al. 2020; Cottier-Cook et al. 2016; Gentry et al. 2017; Schubel and Thompson 2019; World Bank 2013) through a combination of improved management of wild harvesting and increased growth of mariculture. We define mariculture as the cultivation of marine plants and animals for food and other products in the open ocean, enclosed sections of the ocean and bays, or in tanks, ponds or raceways containing seawater. However, mariculture systems have not accelerated at the same pace as freshwater aquaculture (Tacon et al. 2011) with 28.7 million tonnes of fish and invertebrates and a further 30 million tonnes of seaweed produced in 2016. This production represents less than half of total global animal aquaculture production. In addition, while increased production will raise the global availability of seafood, it does not automatically lead to improved food outcomes, particularly for food insecure people with limited access to seafood resources (Belton et al. 2020; FAO 2009).
The way in which seafood is produced, distributed and consumed is changing rapidly with ecosystem change and ocean regulation, the influence of corporations and evolving consumer demand, as well as the growing focus on the importance of seafood for meeting nutritional needs. Optimising the role of the ocean in sustainably feeding the world’s population has been identified as one of the key challenges for the United Nations ‘Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development’ 2021 – 2030. Meeting this challenge in the coming decade, for a projected 8.6 billion people with varied physical and financial access to seafood, cultural food practices, and food preferences, will require coherent, integrated and flexible solutions that consider the inter-sectoral and cross-national nature of food systems (Bai et al. 2016; Sachs et al. 2019). It will also need to consider the range of trade-offs between food production and other uses of marine space and resources (Cohen et al. 2019; Farmery et al. in review).
Taking a food system approach, which considers the way in which food is produced, processed, delivered and consumed, as well as how these elements intersect with human health, the environment, economics and society (HLPE 2014a; Imagine a world 2020), is important given the historical lack of attention to the ways different people will gain, lose, or be excluded from access to fish resources, or to fish as a food commodity (Belton et al. 2020; HLPE 2014b; Tezzo et al. 2020). This paper examines the anticipated global trends for seafood systems, or seafood within the broader food system (based on our definition of seafood), over the next ten years and identifies key pathways that could shift the current trajectory to a more sustainable 2030, consistent with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, predominantly SDG2 (Zero hunger), SDG3 (Good health and wellbeing), SDG12 (responsible consumption and production) and SDG14 (Life below water).
This paper aims to support the alignment of seafood production and consumption with goals to transform food systems toward healthy diets that both nurture human health and support environmental sustainability (Willett et al. 2019). We firstly identify and describe key ‘drivers’ that influence seafood now and will continue to do so over the next decade. We use these drivers to construct a future scenario based on current trajectories reported in the literature (Business-as-usual 2030). We then present a more sustainable future scenario that strives towards achieving the SDGs as far as technically possible (More sustainable 2030) and descriptive pathways and actions that can be undertaken to achieve this more sustainable future. The two future scenarios are described through three fictional, yet evidence-based, narratives, to demonstrate how the anticipated futures might be experienced by people in different social, geographical and economic situations.

Methods

This study forms part of the Future Seas project (www.FutureSeas2030.org) which aims to improve society’s capacity to purposefully shape the direction of marine social-ecological systems over the course of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The interdisciplinary project involved a three-stage process to explore alternate futures for the world’s oceans in relation to a range of pressing global challenges. Food and nutrition security was identified as one of 12 important challenges facing the oceans and our society during the first stage of the project. More information on this stage and the other challenges identified is available in Nash et al. (in review-b). The second stage of the project, future discovery and development, involved creating the future scenarios for each of the 12 challenges identified. The scenarios were developed based on the perspectives and expertise of groups of cross-disciplinary researchers using an iterative approach (see Nash et al. in review-b this issue for full method). For the challenge that this paper details (sustainable and secure seafood systems), this approach involved identifying the main drivers shaping food and nutrition outcomes from seafood, both now and in the near future, followed by forecasting two alternative 10-year futures based on these drivers: a ‘Food for some’ scenario which maintained a ‘Business-as-usual’ trajectory from 2020 and reflected current inequalities in access to seafood; and a ‘Food for all’ scenario reflecting a more optimistic, sustainable, and equitable 2030 that incorporates activities to move beyond ‘Business-as-usual’ and make seafood more available and accessible for all people. Key pathways and actions to achieve the sustainable 2030 future were then identified and a backcasting exercise was undertaken to check the actions identified were sufficient for realistically achieving a sustainable 2030 (Figure 1). The final step of the project focussed on learning across all the 12 challenges and is discussed further in Nash et al. (in review-b).
We acknowledge that the unprecedented disruptions of 2020, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic, are causing major changes to economies and socioecological systems at the global scale. The Business-as-usual scenario we describe is based on evidence from the recent past before the pandemic, and assumes a general return to this trajectory in the next few years. We note that current disruptions to the global ocean, environment and society because of COVID-19 may present a platform for change and an opportunity to ‘reset’ trajectories in the coming decade (see Pecl et al. (in review), this issue). The sustainable future presented here is one option for such a shift, and should not be viewed as an end goal, but as a research tool to stimulate further investigation and discussion (Evans et al. 2013).