Overseas
Growing seafood production without compromising fragile ecosystems. This is the challenge that the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has decided to address by opening an international public consultation on the relationship between aquaculture and protected areas.
The initiative touches directly on the future of the sector, bringing together three interconnected dimensions: food production, biodiversity conservation and the credibility of environmental certification standards.
The consultation, open until 9 April, comes at a time when two global trajectories are increasingly intersecting. On one side, aquaculture continues to strengthen its role as a strategic source of food supply. On the other, the expansion of protected areas — including marine and coastal zones — is increasing scrutiny on productive activities operating within or near these ecosystems.
Between these two trends lies a question the sector can no longer avoid: under what conditions can aquaculture truly be considered compatible with strict conservation objectives?
ASC is attempting to answer this question through an open dialogue with stakeholders directly involved in the issue. Producers, NGOs, academics, civil society organisations, brands, retailers, suppliers, industry representatives and certification bodies are all invited to contribute to a process aimed at reducing ambiguities and inconsistent interpretations.
The ambition goes beyond simply updating a set of technical criteria. The objective is to build a clearer and more coherent framework in a field where ecological balances are delicate and reputational consequences increasingly significant.
According to Dan Auwkit, ASC Environmental Standards Coordinator, the simultaneous expansion of aquaculture and protected areas now requires a more structured reflection. For the organisation, there is a clear opportunity to better align food production with conservation goals by understanding how aquaculture can be responsibly developed within or near protected ecosystems while supporting biodiversity and safeguarding the future of the sector.
The work announced by ASC will examine existing standards and interpretative guidelines currently in use, comparing them with the categories of protected areas defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and with national legislation applicable in different jurisdictions.
The central task will be identifying the grey areas: unclear requirements, possible inconsistencies and passages that currently leave room for non-uniform interpretations by auditors, companies and stakeholders.
The initiative has a medium-term horizon and is expected to conclude in 2028. Planned outcomes include a revision of requirements within a future version of the ASC Farm Standard, an update of the ASC Interpretation Manual, and the development of a joint ASC-IUCN technical guidance document.
This is therefore not a marginal adjustment but a process that could significantly influence how the relationship between aquaculture operations and protected ecosystems will be assessed in the coming years.
A key stage will be the testing of the new framework in selected geographical areas. This is where theoretical principles will need to prove capable of functioning in real-world conditions.
Establishing general principles is necessary, but not sufficient. The criteria developed must work across different regulatory contexts, within highly diverse ecosystems and across supply chains characterised by very different production models.
According to ASC, the final outcome should provide evidence-based guidance for assessing the compatibility of aquaculture activities with conservation objectives, improve audit consistency and strengthen the credibility of certification schemes in the eyes of governments, environmental organisations and the market.
In practical terms, the aim is to reduce ambiguity and increase certainty in one of the most sensitive areas of the sustainability debate.
The value of this consultation lies precisely in this effort. Not in declaring an automatic compatibility between aquaculture and protected areas, but in attempting to establish clearer, more verifiable and more transparent rules.
For the seafood sector, this is a development worth close attention. The future of aquaculture will not depend solely on the capacity to produce more seafood, but also on the ability to demonstrate — with credible tools — where and how production can expand without eroding the natural capital on which the entire system ultimately depends.
