FUTURE OF OCEANS AND FISHERIES – WITH WILLIAM CHEUNG
HOW DO WE FEED ANOTHER 2 BILLION AND PRESERVE THE FUTURE OF OCEAN ECOSYSTEMS?
3 June 2025—This article is about a meeting with Professor William Cheung at the University of Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who graciously agreed to brief me on the current state of the oceans and his thoughts on pathways to a better future for fisheries and ocean ecosystems. We recorded our discussion for the FutureBites podcast, for which you will find a link below together with key messages and further reading, but first, some context:
OCEANS CONNECT TO EVERYTHING
We are inclined to think of the sea, if we think of it at all, as somehow enduring because of the sheer awesome volume of it. We assume a certain abundance and resilience and recoverability, even if we cannot penetrate the depths to count fish for ourselves. It should be more central to our thoughts. Consider this:
The future of oceans is the future of food. In 2025, over three billion people rely on seafood as a significant source of protein. A multitude of ocean ecosystems are already in crisis mode. By 2086, the global population is projected to increase from 8.1 billion to 10.4 billion. That’s 2.2 billion more people with a proportionate increase in seafood demand.
The future of oceans is the future of weather. Ocean temperatures and currents are hugely influential in determining rainfall distribution and local weather patterns. Greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere AND the oceans faster than at any time previously (90% of trapped heat is stored in the oceans), altering currents like the Gulf Stream, the Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation, the Brazil Current and the Eastern Australian Current. Will the future weather be better or worse where you live? End-state weather patterns are too complex to model. But we do know they will be VERY different.
The future of oceans is the future of fresh water. See rainfall distribution, above. We are seeing dramatic changes to rivers, lakes, dams and city reservoirs. Plus, in some coastal regions, rising sea levels are causing salination in water tables.
The future of oceans is the future of farming. Yep, that rainfall thing again.
The future of oceans is the future of cities. Rainfall, fresh water and weather, plus rising sea levels increasing king tides and storm surge inundations in coastal cities like Miami, forcing population re-distribution in low-lying countries like Bangladesh, and placing an end-date on island/atoll cities like Malé, capital of the Maldives.
The future of oceans is the future of logistics. Over 80% of global freight, by volume, is transported by sea. Ocean warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of weather impacts on ship movements and port facilities. Changed rainfall distribution has throttled traffic through the Panama Canal.
The future of oceans is the future of life. Terrestrial and ocean ecosystems are tightly inter-connected. Over 80% of the world's biodiversity comes from oceans. Threats to ocean biodiversity translate to threats to ALL ecosystems.
I could go on – I haven’t even mentioned the moral imperative of looking after a resource we share with species that we are discovering are more intelligent than we previously thought, some with languages all of their own – but hey, you get the picture. The oceans connect to everything.
DIVING DEEPER
To be a better futurist, I need to do a better of job of understanding those connections. My principal lenses for exploring the future have historically been technological and social. What are the emerging game-changers? What are the opportunities and pitfalls? How can we apply them? How will we apply them? My explorations of the ecological are biased towards terrestrial agriculture and biodiversity, and when I do think of the oceans my focus has been on the intersection between oceans, atmosphere, greenhouse gases and impacts. Repeat visits to the Great Barrier Reef have given me a first-hand look at the devastation wrought by ocean warming and acidification, for example, and a visit to the Maldives helped me understand at a deeply emotional level the real human costs of sea-level rise, and what’s coming to the rest of the world through 2150 and 2100.
But of the interconnections between fishing and ocean ecosystems? Not so much. And for a topic of such importance, this is not good enough.
Hence, this month I journeyed down the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean from Anchorage, Alaska to the mouth of the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon to start educating myself on the state of ocean ecosystems and fisheries, and the positive pathways we can take to a better, more sustainable future.
Which brings us back to my discussion with the wonderful William Cheung.
MEETING WILLIAM
William is Director and Professor of the Institute of Oceans and Fisheries and Principal Investigator for the Changing Ocean Research Unit at the University of British Columbia. We met at the mid-point of my journey in Vancouver, Canada, and recorded in his office in the Aquatic Ecosystems Research Lab at UBC. William was generous to a fault, and answered all my many questions with patience and good humour. What particularly struck me was the great care he took to acknowledge the legitimacy of all the different uses, and users, of the sea. If the more egregious failings of big fisheries upset him (as they must!) he is disinclined to dwell on the negatives. Instead, he stays focused on positive, practical strategies that might coax all stakeholders towards better outcomes. I respect that quality immensely. I also loved his passion for sharing all the positive lessons to be learned from small and traditional fishing communities.
Listen below, and scroll down for my key takeaways and links to further reading, as well as a full transcript of our conversation. You might also consider subscribing to “FutureBites with Dr Bruce McCabe” on Spotify or Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Enjoy!
CURRENT STATE OF OCEANS AND FISHING
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = completely unsustainable; 10 = comfortably sustainable) William scores the oceans overall as “less than 5” and getting worse based on the data. The number of endangered fish species is increasing. Our oceans are deteriorating.
Ocean warming and ocean acidification are significantly impacting ecosystems and fisheries. Exceptionally hot oceans are driving massive coral bleaching events. Marine heat waves are increasing in frequency and intensity and expected to increase further. Fish body temperatures are dependent on the environmental temperature and particularly sensitive to these changes. Direct mortality is one impact. Disruptions to growth stages, breeding cycles and migration are equally important; many species cannot shift their distribution or the timing of biological events quickly enough to survive.
Other significant non-fishing induced pressures include pullutants (chemicals, plastics and other types), and eutrophication (fertilizer, human waste and organic runoff promotes algal blooms, which when they decompose suck oxygen from the water, suffocating other forms of marine life) in coastal and estuarine areas.
A new threat is deep sea mining. We only touched on it briefly in our conversation, but there are extensive unknowns and very real risks of long-term impacts on marine ecosystems. This Scientific American article gives an excellent primer on the current gold rush mentality and what’s at stake.
With regards to wild fishing, there is no more room for expansion of wild fish capture from the oceans. We have reached a limit. Further increases will tap unexploited biomass in the deep ocean, with potentially very serious ecological consequences. Climate change will reduce abundance and place further pressure on current volumes. The plan needs to be scaling down wild fishing.
More aquaculture (fish farming) is NOT necessarily the only or best way to feed humanity through peak population, but it IS the current trend. Marine and freshwater aquaculture are expanding. In the last couple of years, aquaculture biomass production overtook ocean fishery production. Most aquaculture is concentrated in China and East Asia.
There are multiple concerns about the sustainability of aquaculture in its current form, in particular because most aquaculture is focused on fin fish production. Fin fish production requires feed, and fish farmers are taking millions of tons of nutritious fish from the oceans to make fish meal and fish oil to feed other fish. For example, one of the biggest fisheries in the world is the anchovy fisheries in Peru, the majority of which goes into feed for aquaculture. This is a huge and unnecessary pressure on ocean fish stocks. It is also analogous to the inefficiencies I’ve covered in terrestrial agriculture, where 80% of arable land is dedicated to feeding livestock to provide us with just 18% of our calories.
Other fin fish sustainability concerns include large-scale releases of fish faeces and pollutants including chemicals and antibiotics into the oceans, accidental releases of farmed species into wild populations and (for fresh water aquaculture) competition with other fresh water needs which will intensify with climate change.
PATHWAYS TO A BETTER FUTURE
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an obvious and critical pathway to sustainable ocean ecosystems.
Marine protected areas (which allow limited specified fishing) and marine reserves (more strictly limited) are a known, effective pathway to restoring overexploited fish stocks and making ocean ecosystems sustainable. They work.
Shifting the emphasis from finfish production towards more shellfish aquaculture and seaweed farming (which filter organic matter and require no feeding and produce very nutritious seafood with a much lower environmental footprint) is an important pathway. See the paper William and his colleagues authored on trait-based framework for selecting sustainable aquaculture species.
With careful planning, multi-species farming (eg the Chinese operations farming abalone alongside seaweed) is a more sustainable pathway.
Finding mechanisms to price-in costs to the environment, which are currently wholly unaccounted for by most governments, is a pathway to making more sustainable forms of aquaculture more price-competitive.
Gene editing for size and speed of growth is likely NOT a pathway to solving large-scale ocean challenges. Gene-edited fish are not typically tailored for biodiversity conservation, nor to support food security in the communities most dependent on seafood and most at risk. This is a significant takeaway for me, as I regularly present to audiences who seek technological solutions.
Moving more aquaculture inland to facilitate separation from ocean ecosystems is likely NOT a pathway (for example some salmon farming has been done inland in Canada) because it competes for real-estate and quickly gets very costly.
Small fisheries are underestimated as a resource for solving big problems. Small fisheries are run by the people most dependent on the oceans, and most in need of solving the problems.
Similarly, there is much to learn from traditional communities that embrace integration with the oceans in their culture. Such communities often employ adaptive fishing practices that shift target species, for example, to follow the natural fluctuations of species and environment, thus buffering against fluctuations in abundance.
Certification schemes, and schemes providing consumer guidance on the most sustainable choices, are an important pathway (see below for links to useful schemes).
SUMMING UP
As at 2025, global ocean ecosystems are in poor health and deteriorating. The primary causes are well understood. There are multiple known-to-science pathways we can take to return to sustainability, yet the vast majority of us know almost nothing about them, and spend no time at all thinking about all the complex ways we connect with the oceans. Like the great Rachel Carson, who did so much in the 1950s to engage the public with the importance of conserving marine life, William’s work to illuminate the connections is of lasting and profound value; the more we know, the better our choices, and the more sustainable our stewardship will be.
Thank you, William.
RESOURCES AND FURTHER READING
William kindly supplied the following links to useful resources and further reading:
This paper by William and his colleagues evaluates and compares different types of aquaculture against the UN Sustainable Development Goals on food security, climate change, and biodiversity:
Wong, A., Cheung, W.W.L., Oyinlola, M.A., et al. (2023). A trait-based framework for selecting sustainable aquaculture species. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44183-024-00065-7
Case study on developing seaweed and shellfish aquaculture in China for food, climate mitigation and biodiversity.
https://solvingfcb.org/case-studies/china/
A recent paper detailing the state of global oceans and fisheries:
Cheung, W.W., Pauly, D. and Sumaila, U.R., 2025. Hope or Despair Revisited: Assessing Progress and New Challenges in Global Fisheries. Fish and Fisheries, 26(2), pp.257-269: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/faf.12877
Paper on 2 principles and 11 actions required to transition to sustainable marine fisheries:
Roberts, C., Béné, C., Bennett, N., Boon, J.S., Cheung, W.W., Cury, P., Defeo, O., De Jong Cleyndert, G., Froese, R., Gascuel, D. and Golden, C.D., 2024. Rethinking sustainability of marine fisheries for a fast-changing planet. npj Ocean Sustainability, 3(1), p.41: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44183-024-00078-2
Examples of marine projects solving food security, climate and biodiversity challenges around the world in this brochure.
Certifications and consumer programs:
Marine Stewardship Council (MSC): https://www.msc.org
Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC): https://www.asc-aqua.org
Seafood Watch (Monterey Bay Aquarium): https://www.seafoodwatch.org
Additionally, I recommend reading the latest UNESCO State of The Ocean Report.
WERE THESE INSIGHTS USEFUL?
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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Please note, my transcripts are AI-generated and lightly edited for clarity and will contain minor errors. The true record of the interview is always the audio version.
BRUCE MCCABE: Hello, and welcome to FutureBites, where we explore pathways to a better future. And my guest today, here with me to talk about the future of sustainable ocean ecosystems and fisheries, is Professor William Cheung. And we're here at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Professor Cheung, welcome to the podcast.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Oh, thank you very much for having me.
BRUCE MCCABE: It's an honor to have you and to talk to you. You're a professor of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries here at the University of British Columbia. And I believe the principal investigator of the Changing Ocean Research Unit. But most importantly, when I look at your enormous research contributions, you have a real focus on the balance and the compromises and trade-offs and understanding those between using marine resources and preserving those ecosystems. Would that be a fair summary?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: That's correct. Yeah, I think the ocean is so important for us. It moderates our climate, provides food for us, an important part of our culture, and providing benefits for us, like tourism and things like that. At the same time, we are also affecting the oceans, and there are huge amounts of wildlife, organisms, biodiversity in the oceans. And that is also being impacted by human activities. And ultimately, that affects the ocean's ability to provide services or to provide benefits to us. So all of these are interlinked with one another. And one of the key challenges right now is how we can continue to benefit from the oceans, but then also accounting for the need to take care of the organisms in the oceans, as well as the whole ocean system that can sustainably provide that benefits to us.
BRUCE MCCABE: Yeah. So I think I read somewhere 3 billion people on the planet, may have even been in your website, but 3 billion people are in some way dependent on food supply from our oceans.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes.
BRUCE MCCABE: Three out of 8 billion on the planet. My goodness.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes. And lots of them particularly really dependent on the oceans for food and nutritional health are living in coastal communities, particularly in the global south, where those communities do not have alternative to nutritional food, like protein, micronutrients, besides seafood. So I think, we all enjoy seafood, but I think for those communities, they are actually an essential food for them for maintaining their health.
BRUCE MCCABE: Yeah. So if we start top level, just really, really high level, the health of global oceans today, or more importantly, the sustainability, how would you score let's say on a scale of one to 10, where one is completely unsustainable, it's a red alert, we're in 2025, we're in huge problem territory. We may be, I'm not sure. And 10 is “we are comfortably sustainable with our practices today.” Where would you put the planet on that scale?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Well, I think for the oceans, we are actually at the definitely is passed through the lower end of five. So I would say and further to seven or eight. And the trend is actually going to the not still not in the right directions.
BRUCE MCCABE: So seven out of 10, 10 being good, sustainable.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Okay, so if it is 1 being the worst, and 10 being the best. Yeah. I think right now the ocean is less than five. So less than a pass mark.
BRUCE MCCABE: And getting worse.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: And getting worse. And the, it's not just based on my own perception. It is based on evidence, scientific evidence. There are lots of different indicators about the health of the oceans. For example, we are still seeing the number of fish stocks that are being overexploited, which is continuing to increase. And that the number of species that are considered to be endangered in the oceans are also increasing. There are species that recover, but then there are more species that becomes endangered than those recover. So altogether, there are more of those species being endangered in the oceans. And we still see lots of pressure on exploiting marine resources. And there are new pressure as well, like deep sea mining that are being discussed.
BRUCE MCCABE: Yes, now very topical.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Exactly. Lots of interests on there. And pollution, like we've discovered more and more of the human footprints from our chemicals and other ways that go into the oceans. I think the latest one that has been a lot of awareness is plastic pollution, but then there are a whole sort of other kind of pollutants that go from human activities, from cities, through rivers, to the oceans.
BRUCE MCCABE: And one that comes up a lot in the other conversations I have, especially with atmospheric scientists and so forth, when we look at ocean acidification and when we're not traveling, doing what we do, our home base is Sydney, Australia, and the reef and what's happening, the barrier reef. It's very clear when we visit, the impacts of ocean acidification. That's a big one too, isn't it?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: It is and one of the big effects of all these human activities is to climate change and also the emissions of greenhouse gases. And as you mentioned, ocean acidification and also in general ocean warming really have been already impacting the ocean ecosystems and as well as all the services and activities that we depend on the oceans, like fisheries as well. For example, you mentioned about the coral reef. This year is one of the big years of massive coral bleaching events happening and that's primarily driven by the exceptionally hot oceans that we have experienced last year. And this kind of extreme high temperature events, marine heat waves, are increasing in their frequency and intensity and we expect them to continue to increase in the future.
BRUCE MCCABE: This is an area I'm very blind to and so I'm quite naive in some of these questions, but those warming events in the oceans, when we look at the warming there, is it having a direct impact on fish populations or is it more about patterns of movement of fish and they're changing where they … destroying their habitat? What's going on there?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: It has direct impacts on the fish populations as well as other marine life. I mean, fish and shellfish and many of the most of the other marine organisms, their body temperatures are dependent on the environmental temperature. They're a lot like mammals that we regulate our own body temperature. So they are particularly sensitive to the environmental temperature and when ocean warms up, the body physiologies are being challenged. Most of the marine species will have their own range of temperature where their body functions well. I mean, species in hot tropical waters will prefer warmer waters, species living in the Arctic, they prefer the colder water. But when temperatures increase further from their preferred temperature range, the body functions start to be impacted like growth, reproductions, and if the high temperatures is high enough and that's sustained for a long time, they die. So that's tough, direct impacts on them. Some species can...
BRUCE MCCABE: That's interesting, it's not just direct mortality, it's interfering with the life cycle or the breeding cycles and that sort of thing.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Exactly, yeah. And you would see all sorts of responses because of that. Some species can shift their distribution and so they try to move away from the environment that becomes not suitable for them to somewhere that they can still find suitable, while some species may change the timing of their biological events like the reproductions, migrations, and some organisms that do not have the ability will die, particularly when the changes are happening really fast.
BRUCE MCCABE: Exactly, and so rapid, isn't it? That's the issue. It's such a rapid change.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Five or six years ago in the Northeast Pacific, there was an extended marine heat wave and millions of shellfish or coastal marine life died. They have mass mortality along the coast, including Vancouver and British Columbia, because of the rapid increase in temperature during the heat waves.
BRUCE MCCABE: Now, I also see the term eutrophication. I have trouble pronouncing that, but this I understand is nutrient runoff, fertilizer runoff in the oceans is causing algal blooms and this sort of thing. How big a problem is that on the scale? Is that a very, very significant problem? I see the term come up when I'm googling and trying to understand the bigger picture.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: It is a very important pressure and problem, particularly in coastal and estuarine areas. It's highlighted that the ocean doesn’t function independently. It is really connected to things happening on land. For example, when we farm, we put fertilizers, and those fertilizers, those couldn't be absorbed by the plants going into the river and then ends up to the oceans going to the estuarine. And so is lot of human waste and other organic waste as well. Those basically provide that nutrients with the wet conditions, with temperature and things like that, lead to massive algal bloom. Those algae, when they die, they would then decompose. When things decompose, they will draw down oxygen in the water. Basically, because of the massive biomass that they are decomposing, it will basically lead to, in many cases, low oxygen or hypoxia that then creates a condition that basically is not suitable for marine life to live.
BRUCE MCCABE: So again, you might get direct mortality or you might get avoidance of the entire habitat because there's not that much oxygen. The fish won't go there. You're breaking the cycles, the chain, if you like, potentially.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Exactly.Yes.
BRUCE MCCABE: That's such a list of problems. Shall we, if we now move into sort of the pathways to a better future, is the focus, I guess, or the right lens for looking at this, the different types of fishing that we do? Is this a reasonable way of doing it? I mean, I know there's wild fishing, there's aquaculture, which is very topical at the moment, because it's growing so quickly. How do we industrialize and “manufacture,” it's a terrible word, but farming and manufacture the feedstock from the ocean? Yeah, is this all about, when we look at pathways how do we do those more efficiently, more effectively without harming the ecosystem? Is that the top level thing here?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, definitely. I think the thing is, like we discussed earlier, the current trends for the oceans is not looking good. And we definitely need to bend the curve so that we go away from the current declining trajectories to something that is better. And the key question is how, what are the things that we can do to get it better and where we want to get to, like what would be our visions for a good future of the oceans? I think that's important because different people can also have different visions as well, and so that's requires some conversations with different people.
I think the good things at the moment is that we actually have lots of knowledge about how we can bend the curve so that we can engage in an upward trajectory rather than the status quo. We know that, for example, protecting the oceans, setting up a marine protected area, effective protected areas can restore ecosystems and increase biodiversity.
BRUCE MCCABE: So this is like allocating ocean reserves that no fishing should occur. Is that what you mean by protecting?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, that's one form of marine protection, marine protected area. And we know that effective, well-planned management with proper stakeholder consultations can actually make a positive effect on restoring degraded ecosystems. We know that reducing fishing effort, better management of fishing would help with also restoring over-exploited fish stocks. We know that reducing greenhouse gas emissions can reduce global warming and that would then have reduced impacts on the oceans as well. And all those things are current knowledge that we know and can be used to inform the actions and the management.
I think the issues right now is how it can be practically implemented and particularly when there are decisions that would then require careful thinking about how to restore environments while also meet with other objectives that people may want.
And then there are also new knowledge that would need, but then I think those are things that we know what would be, what we can do by more investment into new knowledge, new science that would then be able to allow us to do some of those things better. Like you mentioned about aquaculture or some of the maybe ways that we can monitor the oceans better, Those are some of the things that would require some new science to do.
BRUCE MCCABE: So if we might dig into some of these, if we look at reserves, is that the right term? Will we preserve … I think of wildlife preserves, is it the same terminology for fish? Where we say a part of the ocean is off limits for fishing? What do we call that?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, so in the ocean we call them marine protected area. We also call them marine reserve. But marine protected area is a more generic term where it includes different types of protection. Some allow some activities, some allow some fishing, some are strictly protected. And marine reserve, the term usually is reserved for those areas that really have a strict limit of fishing, from fishing and other human activities.
BRUCE MCCABE: So if we just talk about that for a second, is there any particularly strong examples where we've done that, of these sorts of marine protected areas and fish stocks have come back? Is there anything to point to there, which is an exemplar, if you like?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes, there are actually quite a number of examples there around the world where effective management including strict protection of human activities, for example, limitations of fishing and with support from coastal communities shows that the biodiversity, the level of species, as well as the abundance of the organisms would actually increase. And that would then benefit also people because with the more biomass and more species, more biodiversity within the reserve area, they have spillover effects. So the importance of big fish in the ocean cannot be [over]stated because they also produce more offspring and that can then help to rejuvenate areas outside of the reserve as well. Some of the animals will also migrate and move in and out of the reserve. So ultimately, also, there are evidence that fisheries around the area would benefit because of those spillover effects. So I think there are examples that help with improving biodiversity, at the same time also benefiting people there with, again, well-managed, effective protected areas.
BRUCE MCCABE: Okay. And on the overfishing front, a lot of people industrially would say, okay, the answer to that is fish farming and aquaculture, it's increasing rapidly. We've got 8 billion people on the planet now, it's going to be perhaps 10 billion if we take the median sort of scenario for peak population by, I don't know, that's 2060, 2070, something like that later in the century. So we've actually got quite a lot more people to feed. So we're going to have to get very efficient. So we're going to have to really become more dependent on fish farming. Is that inevitable? Like we have to do more fish farming to do this sustainably? Is that the right direction or is your mind, we have to do less of it, do more wild fishing? Because obviously wild fishing is more natural, fish farming comes with all these other issues in effluence and antibiotics, which we should get into. But is it inevitable we have to do more of it?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: I don't think it is inevitable, but the current trend is that the aquaculture, both marine and freshwater included, they are expanding. In the last couple of years, aquaculture productions in terms of biomass of fish or aquatic products have met and even overtake fishery production from the ocean. We know the capture fisheries, which is limited, we won't be able to catch more fish from the oceans, but by wild capture fisheries, unless we are tapping into those really unexploited, unknown biomass in the deep ocean, which I think they have then a lot of the ecological consequences, potential ecological consequences if we were to do that. So I think the capture fisheries production side, there is no more room for expansion. And particularly right now, we are thinking about how we can actually scale down fishings and there will be impacts on climate change that would also reduce the abundance of the oceans as well. And potential fisheries catches. So I think in this case, that's why people are interested in exploring the options of aquaculture, which I think is the pathway that on land, that's how human society developed from hunter-gatherers to farming society, agriculture, livestock farming.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: But I think there is, to me, a concern about the sustainability of the development of aquaculture. And particularly the way that we are heading right now. So right now, if we look around the world, although there were a lot of increase in aquaculture, most of them are actually done in China and East Asia. The other parts of the world...
BRUCE MCCABE: Oh, it's quite concentrated, is it? I didn't realize that.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes. It is. And there are some a little bit more in Europe, but very minor in Africa and North America. It's not comparable to China, for example, or East Asia. And also, if you look at the trends of production, many of the aquaculture productions are focusing on fin fish production. And one thing about fin fish production is that we need to feed the fish as well. And right now, a lot of the fish farmers are still using feed formula that required fish from the oceans, that are from captured fisheries.
BRUCE MCCABE: Oh, really? So I think all these pellets that they put in as feedstock, so that's manufactured, obviously, from other fish resources that are taken from the ocean. Is that what you're telling me?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes, at least part of the ingredient. Of course. I know that the industry is trying to...
BRUCE MCCABE: There's no escape what you're pulling out of the ocean.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Exactly. Reduce the amount of wild-captured fish that they need, but they still need that for fish meal and fish oil, particularly fish oil, where it is difficult to get the essential oil from non-seafood products. And for example, one of the biggest fisheries in the world is the anchovy fisheries in Peru. And majority of those fisheries are not for direct human consumptions. They go into factory and then turn it into fish meal and fish oil. And part of those fish meal and fish oils then go into aquaculture.
BRUCE MCCABE: Okay, interesting. So you have to look at the whole chain of feedstock.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes. And then there were also other issues with a lot of those fin fish protection, particularly those happening on the water itself. And like pollution and interactions with wild population ecosystems.
BRUCE MCCABE: There's a lot of escapes, aren't there?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Escape and things like that.
BRUCE MCCABE: They're big. I didn't realize. But sometimes there's a million fish escaping from these things and then interacting with other variations of the species, if you like. But now we're changing fish populations unintentionally. Quite a few of those examples.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes. And so I think those are kind of accidental releases or escape have a lot of potential implications for affecting local ecosystems as well. And so I think if we were to expand further on those aquaculture in the oceans, I think it is putting also a lot of pressure on the ocean ecosystems as well. And then in the freshwater system, there are also competitions with other freshwater users, particularly with climate change, we know that the water resources are becoming more valuable resources and changing participation patterns and things like that.
BRUCE MCCABE: So there'll be, yeah, absolutely. The ups and downs will lead to more pressures on every user of that...
WILLIAM CHEUNG: So I think it, I'm not opposed to aquaculture, but I think we need to think about it in a more strategic way. Think about how that can integrate the whole kind of more of a considerations of the earth systems and the ecological systems, how to identify a pathway for developments of aquaculture that would fit with that, reduce the trade off, expand the co-benefits.
BRUCE MCCABE: Is one way to do that ... Is it realistic to try and separate the aquaculture from the oceans completely? – Because clearly a lot of the farming is done in the ocean with some sort of netting or fencing or whatever. Then we get the effluent, we get antibiotics, which is another issue, which bothers me because it's such a significant issue elsewhere – but then theoretically I read, well, we could move aquaculture inland. We could just try and separate it totally. Is that realistic or really does it need to work as a mixed, an open, a partially open system with the ocean? Is it practical to separate it?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, I think it is. It can be done. For example, for salmon farming, it can be farmed inland.
So it doesn't have to be a net cage along the coast of British Columbia. There were known technologies that can farm salmon in contained systems with fully closed water circulation and things like that. I think the issue is the cost. If you, for example, talk with salmon farmers in here, the governments ask them to transition into on-land farming. Lots of them would say that, that's what I heard, that if they were to do that, they wouldn't continue the investment because it's just too costly.
BRUCE MCCABE: The economics are completely untenable. I see.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: And I think that's the issue in here where we need to build in the cost to the environment into the consideration. I mean, if you just look at the market pricing, yes, I mean, it doesn't make sense to have so much high cost on farming and that price. But then when you think about the cost that right now the human activities happening on the oceans that is affecting the wildlife is not accounted as part of the cost of the production. It's just external right now for them. But that's something that is beared by other people.
BRUCE MCCABE: Yes, someone bears that cost.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Exactly.
BRUCE MCCABE: It's so much like carbon pricing and everyone's grappling with that, the externality of that cost.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, so I think that's kind of should be the way to think about how to develop some of these options. When we think about like, okay, the business sectors may think it's too costly, but they should think about the environmental costs as well. Government policies should also provide incentive to them in terms of internalizing those environmental costs so that they can make that decisions about ...
BRUCE MCCABE: And that has to be a government-driven thing. It has to be a policy thing. It can't happen just naturally for the market. You do need some combined community decision-making from a policy level to say, ‘hey, we've recognized this is a cost on the community, therefore, we're changing the dynamics of taxation or incentives or something.’ It really does need to be driven by government, doesn't it?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Exactly, yeah. And then there are also alternative options that could be lower cost but could still be more environmentally friendly or have more co-benefits. For example, although there was a lot of focus on finfish production right now from aquaculture, but then there is also the whole long history of developments of shellfish aquaculture and also farming for seaweed as well. And those also produce very nutritious and delicious seafood, but then with much lower environmental footprint compared to finfish production. I mean, a lot of the shellfish productions like oyster or molluscs, the traditional way of farming is through using collecting larvae from the oceans and then providing a structure for them to stick to and then grow. And they don't then, non-fed aquaculture, meaning that you don't need to put in feed in them. They just filter feed the organic matters in the oceans. And so actually they help with that kind of natural systems circulation as well.
BRUCE MCCABE: So there's almost like a hierarchy of more sustainable choices in what you can farm where, okay, there's certain, maybe we can tease it out a bit more, but there's obviously a whole bunch of different fish species here, but molluscs and shellfish are sort of better ... Plants are best? Would we say that in terms of sustainability in general, as a choice? If you're going to get calories and dietary inputs, the choice to do seaweed would be a more sustainable choice than molluscs, which would be more sustainable than fish? Would there be a hierarchy like that? Or it's not that simple?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, I won't want to generalize it, but like I can say something about a recent research that my student and I did. So we use various information about the biology of different farm species, and then we try to score them according to how good they are for food security, for climate mitigations and for biodiversity conservation. It does show that seaweed rank the highest in terms of those three items. Shellfish is good as well. And then finfish score, the current types of finfish that we found scored the least in terms of those things.
BRUCE MCCABE: It's analogous to what's going on on land. Talking to people in agriculture, scientists in the agriculture sector, they keep pointing out that 80% of the world's arable land is used to produce 20% of the calories, because of the beef industry in particular, but basically livestock has a much greater footprint for the calories being produced, and so much of the other arable land is being used to produce feedstock for the livestock.
It's very similar, isn't it? Plants are more efficient in terms of the planetary impact, if you like, more sustainable. Yeah, it's quite analogous.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: It is, it is. And building on that, I think it's also important to note that even with a more sustainable way of farming, it does require more careful planning, like what we earlier discussed on, like more strategic planning of how it is developed.
For example, I work with colleagues in China. They are working on the systems where they farm abalone, a really high value species, alongside seaweed, which I think is a good kind of utilization of materials because the seaweed they farm is used to feed the abalone. And they also help with proving oxygen. So the farmers doesn't need to provide feed to the abalone.
BRUCE MCCABE: So moving away from monoculture to more of a multi-species farming method is definitely a pathway. It has to be, surely, a pathway to a better future.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: It is. But then one of the things that they also note is that even with those kind of aquaculture, it can have environmental impacts if it is not planned carefully. For example, the structure can provide a shelter that's reduced or sometimes prevents sunlight going into the sea bottom. And it also affects ocean currents as well. So what it means is that besides the particular farming methods, it also requires some more integrated planning about how we pace the different use of the oceans, conservations, food production, and also there are some other uses as well. The coast is an area where there are lots of demand, like ports, development, cities and things like that.
BRUCE MCCABE: Absolutely.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: All of them require really integrated planning and spatial management in order to create a pathway that can provide that kind of co-benefits with food security, biodiversity conservation, and climate adaptation and mitigation.
BRUCE MCCABE: And just locally, I've just been traveling down the coast with Alaska and the west coast of Canada and looking at it and enjoying it and trying to learn a little bit about it. Are there particular issues in this part of the world that you're studying that are important or you're learning about? Or are there particular exemplars here of people doing a great job?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, I think I work with the coastal first nations here very closely. They are the coastal indigenous people that traditionally the fisheries are very important for them, for food security, as well as for their culture. And I think I learned a lot through working with them. And I think some of the ways that they view the oceans and the animals and organisms in the oceans could be important principles for us to think about how to strategically plan our way forward in utilizing the oceans. And particularly in the way that they think the humans are integrated with the oceans and the natural systems and that's thinking about how we develop, the human society develop or human community develop, necessarily need to think about ways to take care of the oceans or natural systems.
BRUCE MCCABE: That sort of custodianship principle is part of the culture. We see it all the way through the Pacific as well. I see it in the Pacific when I'm traveling. So many island cultures there have quite a deep connection culturally with the sea. So therefore custodianship has come naturally.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes. And then because of the long history and relationship with the oceans and the environment, they actually develop the customs and ways of, for example, fisheries that are fairly adaptive to the changing environment while also being conscious about making sure that the fish can provide them with the necessary food and support the communities forever, for seven generations or more.
For example, they relied on natural cycle of species and they rely on a variety of different species that would help with buffering against fluctuations of their abundance because they know that the environment would change every year. And so they build in methods that they can ensure them to buffer against those changes, which I think some of them would be valuable lessons for us to learn when we think about how we can adapt to climate change as well. They are also being challenged because of the environment changing in the way that they haven't seen before. But I think they have a good basis and that they can then develop new ways building on what they know about in the past to adapt to the future. I think that's the way that we can learn from and see how we can...
BRUCE MCCABE: So much to learn there. How do we... we often speak of incentives and policies and it seems to me that the world is made up of, when it comes to fishing and fisheries and ocean use, it's still a whole bunch of different countries doing their own thing, completely independent of one another. And if there's no local upward pressure from consumers, for example, and perhaps the governance isn't particularly strong, they just go crazy and overexploit. And other countries have upwards, upward pressure and so forth, and therefore they're managing better. Have you learned anything about intergovernmental efforts or is there anything in particular you'd point to that people should look at and say, hey, this is a particular successful program in certification or... I don't know, I'm always grappling with this incentives issue. How do we as a species do a better job of incentivizing more sustainable fishing?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: I think it requires different players at different levels working together. International organizations, national government, private sectors, and the consumers. I think that kind of, we really need to have that intention because they all play a role in there. It is from the consumer level, I think it's ultimately they make decisions of what to consume and who to vote to when they are trying to support governments. I would say that when students or when I give public talks, I often heard the questions about what they can do to support the ocean.
BRUCE MCCABE: Yeah, what are the consumer choices that we should make? That's a great question.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes, and I think educate, trying to learn more about the oceans, what the pressures are and what can be done to change that, and then also support actions and government policies that are good for the oceans is very important. For example, in Canada, government policies are still strongly dependent on public voices. So I think that's important. And in the private sectors, I think they have a really strong role in there. I talk with some of the food industry and sometimes they joke that, oh, they were really innocent, they only listened to what the consumer said. But I think they also have a very strong power in influencing consumer preferences. They have very effective advertisements, marketing campaign, and they can actually drive consumer preference, to something that is more sustainable. And I think ultimately that would also be good to their business. They want to do something that can sustain for a long time. It's not just a boom and bust.
BRUCE MCCABE: Of course. So if you can educate industry on the longevity of their enterprise and in China, if it's such a huge part of the focus in aquaculture now, you want to educate those businesses on the long term journey that they will be making …
It seems to me that if there's power in this, it's consumer choices. That's the most influential power for sustainability, would be from the consumers. If more people are educated and they make different choices, the market must follow …
WILLIAM CHEUNG: That's important, I agree, but then I think it needs to also combine with government policies because sometimes it's difficult to drive those consumer choices and behavior collectively. It's important, but it needs to match up with proper government policies, for example, in providing incentive for the people to make the decisions. I mean I know that people are facing all sorts of dilemma when they make daily decisions.
BRUCE MCCABE: Of course, it's not so simple. They're going to survive first.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes, exactly. Particularly when economy is not doing well, then they have to balance their household budget with what to eat, whether to choose maybe a slightly more expensive food products than the others and things like that. But then this is where government policy would come in into providing that incentive that would then steer consumers' behavior and public choices to something that is more sustainable. And they know the government have a bigger picture about how the environments are doing. They are also in negotiations or in coordination in some cases with other governments internationally. So I think the government play a really important role in there as well.
BRUCE MCCABE: Is there an international certification consumers can look for to help make choices for more sustainable?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, I think there are a number of kind of more well-known certification scheme for marine and aquatic food, like the Marine Stewardship Council.
BRUCE MCCABE: Which one is that one?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: It's called Marine Stewardship Council or MSC. It has been a longstanding marine certification scheme. And there are more local and regional ones. And for example, in here, the local organization Ocean Wise provide recommendation of certain seafood that's in local area that they consider to be more sustainable a lot in the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They also have their own kind of more not certification, but then advertisement or guidance scheme that provide the kind of consumer about what seafood are more sustainable to eat.
BRUCE MCCABE: Nice, nice. I'm going to try and find some of those guidance schemes and put maybe some links in if I can find them.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: And ultimately, I think it is useful to have those schemes, but then it is also important to have a policy that provides guidance on what are the criteria for those schemes. So, for example, one can debate about whether the Marine Stewardship Council, their guidance, is good enough or not, whether they are robust enough or not. And so in order to establish that trust about the scheme, and that, again, is something that we need to have in terms of what are the proper guidance on the certifications, how to make it more robust, more credible, and things like that.
BRUCE MCCABE: Okay. So a few questions to finish off, more specific ones, I guess. One is about waste. So when I look at agriculture and talk to scientists in agriculture, the estimates vary, but a lot of food products are wasted between production, farming, and the dinner table or the final point when the consumer ... The estimates vary between thirty and forty percent, which is actually massive. And we could feed the global population, I think, and they'd probably include ocean fish stocks in that calculation. But all we have to do is halve that waste and we could feed the globe through peak population without cutting down a single extra tree. Like, we don't need more farmland to do it. Have you seen things that there are opportunities, let's say, to really improve waste efficiency in this? Is it a similar problem level, do you think, in seafood? Tell me about waste.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, I think... I mean, the industries are trying to improve the efficiency in utilizing... Reducing fish waste. So, for example...
BRUCE MCCABE: And the incentives are obvious for them. They want to be efficient at the production end.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Exactly, yeah. I think in the past they may throw... They just fillet the meat and then throw out all of the other things. I think they're trying to utilize it.
BRUCE MCCABE: Utilize all of the fish, everything, so nothing is wasted.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, for different products. But I think one of the big ways of use that I see that have opportunities to reduce in the oceans, I mentioned that earlier, is the use of fish meal and fish oil. We are producing millions of tons of fish, and those are really nutritious fish. But then we are turning into fish meal and fish oil. And either it is used to feed other fish or other animals or other products. There are definitely lots of nutrients and biomass in there.
BRUCE MCCABE: It's an inherently inefficient thing to be adding that stage and to be feeding fish to feed other fish to feed ....
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes, and I think the whole kind of industry would need to think about whether this is a good way or future of utilizing marine resources, particularly when it is so ... It is increasingly scarce in the sense that there were increasing demand for seafood. But then we know we are already over-exploiting the oceans, and we are at the limits of biomass protection, for fish reproduction from the oceans. Is it a smart way of using these truly nutritious fish, massive amount of them, for fish meal and fish oil productions? Or is it a better way for utilizing these nutrients?
BRUCE MCCABE: Interesting, really interesting, because that's potentially a really big chunk of making it sustainable. If you can change some of the proportions in that mix.
Another question I had was on the technology side. We have increasingly efficient fishing processes, if you like. Some of them wasteful, these long ... I'm not sure the terminology... The really long nets that they... I know are very controversial they use. But there's also people I talk to who are into gene editing. And we have different fish species now that have been edited for growth and also for biomass, so they grow bigger. Grow faster, grow bigger. On the surface, that theoretically is very good, an efficiency point of view, but of course there are dangers with that in terms of making sure you do it well, making sure there's no side effects, proper testing certification. And I guess polluting the natural fish stocks might be an issue. But I just wonder whether you had a view on whether we've done that really well, whether you feel like that is a pathway forward, or whether you feel like it's not a significant pathway forward.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, I think there is concern about some of the negative consequences associated with that. Like, for example, the escape of some of those genetically edited organisms, and there were evidence of interbreeding with the wild stock as well, even though some of the producer claimed that they won't...
BRUCE MCCABE: They wouldn't interbreed, but they did.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Nature is amazing. It finds a way ...
BRUCE MCCABE: Yes. Nature finds a way. Jurassic Park.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: And I think looking at the current kind of challenge that we are facing in the oceans and in general in the environment, like in terms of food security, in terms of climate change, in terms of biodiversity conservation, I don't see that gene editing provides a significant pathway of solving those kind of big challenges. And a lot of the gene-edited fish, they are not kind of tailored for supporting food security, particularly coastal communities who are dependent on seafood for the nutritional health. For example, last year I was in Ghana, in Cape Coast. In the morning, I went to the landing site. There were lots of traditional fishing boats lining up into the port to land their fish. And that supplied really nutritious protein for coastal communities and livelihood for people as well. Thinking about that, I don't see how gene editing would actually help with addressing the issue with kind of how climate change will affect their food supply, how fishing, particularly competition with large-scale fisheries, international fishings that would affect their availability of fish to them, how gene editing would solve that. So I think that's kind of leads me to wonder whether it is only tailored for a specific kind of sectors or industries, but then their ability to solve these big-scale problems, I think, to me, it's not clear.
BRUCE MCCABE: That's really valuable to hear because so many people I talk to, I think it's a natural human disposition, they grab for a technological solution. So they overestimate what the positive impact might be, the upside might be, from a technological solution. So people say, well, we'll gene edit our way into a more productive global fishery, if you like. Okay, but in your mind, there's much bigger problems that it doesn't address, much bigger threats. And as a future pathway, it's probably a smaller one. That would probably be a fair summary. If it's a pathway forward in aquaculture, it's less significant.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yes, that's correct, yeah. And I think for some of those bigger problems, I think one of the big opportunities is to think about, I think there are lots of discussions about these industry sectors, how they play a role in solving these problems, like industrial-scale aquaculture or even industrial-scale fishings, but then it is, I think, the small-scale fisheries and small-scale sectors that are actually being, I think, underestimated. Right now, their contributions in solving these big problems, but then they play a huge role in there.
BRUCE MCCABE: In aggregate, they are massive.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: In aggregate, they are massive. They are the people who are most dependent on the resources, on the oceans, and also the people who are actually most in need of solving those problems, so they have a vested interest in dealing with those problems for security. A lot of them have traditional stewardship on the environment and then also the ability to adapt to climate change.
BRUCE MCCABE: Yeah. Well, that's been a big learning for me from this conversation.
Are there other messages you wish more people knew about that you want to add as we finish this off? Are there any other things that you think, gosh, I wish there was more awareness of a particular issue?
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, I think one of the things that I find interesting is because you care about the oceans and I work at the oceans, we thought the ocean is really inherently linked to us, but I think when I talk with people, that's not the common case. Lots of people actually don't know too much about the oceans, how they connect to the oceans as well. They may eat fish in a restaurant or from time to time at home, but their connections to the ocean is still really weak, and I think that's something that is really important to establish because if you don't have that linkages, it's very difficult for them to take actions that would benefit the ocean. I think that's why podcasts like this and other education, what we call ocean literacy, is really important to make people aware of the interconnection with the ocean and that a human cannot live without the ocean.
BRUCE MCCABE: Yeah, and how big that interconnection is. Maybe if we could only do one thing, that would be the thing. If we could increase the awareness of that interconnectivity, most of the other problems would maybe take care of themselves, in a sense.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Yeah, at least it's the important first step that when they make decisions, then with that awareness, then they can think about whether to buy or to consume this fish or not, or to support a certain policy or not.
BRUCE MCCABE: Yeah, brilliant. Well, maybe that's a nice way to end it. Professor William Cheung, it's been an honour. Thank you for coming on FutureBites.
WILLIAM CHEUNG: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation.
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*Image of Bruce McCabe and William Cheung at the top of this page: Bruce McCabe
**Title image of fishing boat: by Jordan Allen Walters on Unsplash