Chapter 1
Introduction: New Approaches
to Sustainable Offshore Food Production
and the Development of Offshore
Platforms
Poul Holm, Bela H. Buck and Richard Langan
Abstract As we exhaust traditional natural resources upon which we have relied
for decades to support economic growth, alternatives that are compatible with a
resource conservation ethic, are consistent with efforts to limit greenhouse emissions to combat global climate change, and that support principles of integrated
coastal management must be identified. Examples of sectors that are prime candidates for reinvention are electrical generation and seafood production. Once a
major force in global economies and a symbol of its culture and character, the
fishing industry has experienced major setbacks in the past half-decade. Once
bountiful fisheries were decimated by overfishing and destructive fisheries practices
that resulted in tremendous biomass of discarded by-catch. Severe restrictions on
landings and effort that have been implemented to allow stocks to recover have had
tremendous impact on the economy of coastal communities. During the period of
decline and stagnation in capture fisheries, global production from aquaculture grew
dramatically, and now accounts for 50% of the world’s edible seafood supply. With
the convergence of environmental and aesthetic concerns, aquaculture, which was
already competing for space with other more established and accepted uses, is
having an increasingly difficult time expanding in nearshore waters. Given the
P. Holm (&)
School of Histories and Humanities, Trinity College Dublin,
2 College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
e-mail: holmp@tcd.ie
B.H. Buck
Marine Aquaculture, Maritime Technologies and ICZM, Alfred Wegener
Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI),
Bussestrasse 27, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany
B.H. Buck
Applied Marine Biology, University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven,
An der Karlstadt 8, 27568 Bremerhaven, Germany
R. Langan
School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering,
University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03854, USA
© The Author(s) 2017
B.H. Buck and R. Langan (eds.), Aquaculture Perspective of Multi-Use Sites
in the Open Ocean, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51159-7_1
1
Introduction: New Approaches
to Sustainable Offshore Food Production
and the Development of Offshore
Platforms
Poul Holm, Bela H. Buck and Richard Langan
Abstract As we exhaust traditional natural resources upon which we have relied
for decades to support economic growth, alternatives that are compatible with a
resource conservation ethic, are consistent with efforts to limit greenhouse emissions to combat global climate change, and that support principles of integrated
coastal management must be identified. Examples of sectors that are prime candidates for reinvention are electrical generation and seafood production. Once a
major force in global economies and a symbol of its culture and character, the
fishing industry has experienced major setbacks in the past half-decade. Once
bountiful fisheries were decimated by overfishing and destructive fisheries practices
that resulted in tremendous biomass of discarded by-catch. Severe restrictions on
landings and effort that have been implemented to allow stocks to recover have had
tremendous impact on the economy of coastal communities. During the period of
decline and stagnation in capture fisheries, global production from aquaculture grew
dramatically, and now accounts for 50% of the world’s edible seafood supply. With
the convergence of environmental and aesthetic concerns, aquaculture, which was
already competing for space with other more established and accepted uses, is
having an increasingly difficult time expanding in nearshore waters. Given the
P. Holm (&)
School of Histories and Humanities, Trinity College Dublin,
2 College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
e-mail: holmp@tcd.ie
B.H. Buck
Marine Aquaculture, Maritime Technologies and ICZM, Alfred Wegener
Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI),
Bussestrasse 27, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany
B.H. Buck
Applied Marine Biology, University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven,
An der Karlstadt 8, 27568 Bremerhaven, Germany
R. Langan
School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering,
University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03854, USA
© The Author(s) 2017
B.H. Buck and R. Langan (eds.), Aquaculture Perspective of Multi-Use Sites
in the Open Ocean, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51159-7_1
1