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Barry Costa Pierce, Ph.D., Henry L. & Grace Doherty Professor of Marine Sciences at the SWAG��Ƶ, chair of SWAG��Ƶ’s Department of Marine Sciences and director of SWAG��Ƶ’s Marine Science Center, gave a keynote talk at the Bay of Fundy Seafood Week in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada.

The talk, titled, “The Emerging North Atlantic Seafood Ecosystem,” called for accelerating the development of ecologically and socially sustainable aquaculture. According to Costa-Pierce, this is necessary to save the remaining natural terrestrial ecosystems on Planet Earth that provide us with essential ecosystem goods and services.  To meet projected population growth, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicts that the world will need to increase its food production by about 70 percent by 2050. The FAO also predicts that annual meat production will need to grow by more than 200 million metric tons to reach 470 million metric tons by that same year.

In his talk, Costa-Pierce addressed whether increased aquatic protein production through fisheries and aquaculture could save humanity from a terrible food conservation crisis. He pointed to the fact that the earth is about 70 percent water and growing food in water is more energy and food efficient than terrestrial animal production. He also discussed the health and wellness benefits of seafood.

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