Protecting the oceans with sustainable fish farming

The over­fi­shing of the world’s fish stocks has been an explo­si­ve topic for years, which many of us are alre­a­dy awa­re of. The glo­bal demand for fish is con­stant­ly incre­asing and, accor­ding to United Nati­ons figu­res, the world­wi­de per capi­ta fish con­sump­ti­on today is alre­a­dy over 20 kilo­grams. Around one third of fish stocks are at the limit, which in con­cre­te terms means that we are rob­bing our­sel­ves of the food­s­tuff „sea fish“ in the long term – pro­vi­ded that ever­y­thing con­ti­nues to run as it has done up to now.

What is end­an­ge­ring the fishing industry?

Ille­gal fishing is a dan­ge­rous fac­tor for mari­ne eco­sys­tems and con­tri­bu­tes signi­fi­cant­ly to over­fi­shing of the oce­ans. „Ille­gal fishing is defi­ned as for­eign ships fishing wit­hout per­mis­si­on in the ter­ri­to­ri­al waters of ano­ther nati­on or other­wi­se dis­re­gar­ding the fishing laws of the coun­try“ (World oce­an review). Ille­gal fishing also means that fish are fished during clo­sed peri­ods or with unaut­ho­ri­zed fishing gear. A major pro­blem is that ille­gal fishing is not docu­men­ted and hap­pens in are­as for which the fisher­men do not have a licen­se or whe­re the­re is even a ban on fishing. In addi­ti­on, it is also impos­si­ble to con­trol whe­ther end­an­ge­red spe­ci­es of edi­ble fish are caught and how lar­ge the quan­ti­ties actual­ly are. Accor­ding to a stu­dy by an inter­na­tio­nal rese­arch team in the trade maga­zi­ne „Sci­ence Advan­ces“, bet­ween 7.7 and 14 mil­li­on tons of fish are ille­gal­ly and uncon­trol­led taken from the sea every year.

Eco­no­mic fac­tors also play a major role, as ille­gal fishing cau­ses bil­li­ons of dol­lars in los­ses every year. Ille­gal trade end­an­gers food and eco­no­mic sys­tems, espe­ci­al­ly in the hea­vi­ly affec­ted count­ries like Afri­ca, Asia and South Ame­ri­ca. But pira­te fishing also cau­ses a lar­ge annu­al loss for Ger­ma­ny. To com­bat ille­gal and unre­gu­la­ted fishing, the Euro­pean Com­mu­ni­ty has laun­ched its own legis­la­ti­ve initia­ti­ve – the „IUU Regu­la­ti­on“ – which has been in force sin­ce 2010. The regu­la­ti­on stops imports of ille­gal fishery pro­ducts into Euro­pe. In order to suc­cessful­ly imple­ment the IUU Regu­la­ti­on, the Com­mis­si­on is actively working with all stake­hol­ders in this field.

How can natu­ral resour­ces be protected?

The pro­tec­tion of the oce­ans is also one of the pri­ma­ry goals of envi­ron­men­tal and deve­lo­p­ment poli­cy. Inno­va­ti­ve con­cepts and alter­na­ti­ves to con­ven­tio­nal fishing are essen­ti­al to achie­ve this goal. An ade­qua­te solu­ti­on for the envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly bree­ding of fish are clo­sed recir­cu­la­ti­on sys­tems in which the water is con­ti­nuous­ly cir­cu­la­ted and clea­ned with the latest fil­ter tech­no­lo­gy. This enables spe­ci­es-com­pa­ti­ble, relia­ble and loca­ti­on-inde­pen­dent fish pro­duc­tion. With the SEAWATER Cube, we would like to con­tri­bu­te to the pro­tec­tion of natu­ral stocks and enable sus­tainable, con­trol­led and regio­nal fish far­ming. We attach gre­at importance to con­scious nut­ri­ti­on and respon­si­ble con­sump­ti­on. With our con­cept we would also like to encou­ra­ge con­su­mers to rethink. The fish is fished fresh to order out of the SEAWATER Cube. Thanks to regio­nal pro­duc­tion, con­su­mers know exact­ly whe­re the fish comes from and can see for them­sel­ves how the fish is kept.

Of cour­se, one per­son or one com­pa­ny alo­ne can­not chan­ge the world, but a lot can be achie­ved if each indi­vi­du­al makes his or her own per­so­nal con­tri­bu­ti­on to the over­all suc­cess. Many lar­ger com­pa­nies and start-ups are con­scious­ly addres­sing the issue of sus­taina­bi­li­ty, alig­ning their stra­te­gies accor­din­gly and thus actively con­tri­bu­ting to the pro­tec­tion of our planet.