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The growing human population must be fed, but historic land-based systems struggle to meet expanding demand. Marine production supports some of the world’s poorest people but increasingly provides for the needs of the affluent, either directly by fishing or via fodder-based feeds for marine and terrestrial farming. Here we show the expanding footprint of humans to utilize global ocean productivity to feed themselves. Our results illustrate how incrementally each year, marine foods are sourced farther from where they are consumed and moreover, require an increasing proportion of the ocean’s primary productivity that underpins all marine life. Though mariculture supports increased consumption of seafood, it continues to require feeds based on fully exploited wild stocks. Here we examine the ocean’s ability to meet our future demands to 2100 and find that even with mariculture supplementing near-static wild catches our growing needs are unlikely to be met without significant changes.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	seafood, food security, fishing, aquaculture
Research Division:	Agricultural, Veterinary and Food Sciences
Research Group:	Fisheries sciences
Research Field:	Aquaculture and fisheries stock assessment
Objective Division:	Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards
Objective Group:	Adaptation to climate change
Objective Field:	Social impacts of climate change and variability
UTAS Author:	Watson, RA (Professor Reginald Watson)
UTAS Author:	Hartmann, K (Dr Klaas Hartmann)
UTAS Author:	Green, BS (Associate Professor Bridget Green)
UTAS Author:	Tracey, SR (Associate Professor Sean Tracey)
UTAS Author:	Carter, CG (Professor Chris Carter)
ID Code:	101319
Year Published:	2015
Funding Support:	Australian Research Council (DP140101377)
Web of Science® Times Cited:	68
Deposited By:	IMAS Research and Education Centre
Deposited On:	2015-06-17
Last Modified:	2017-11-04
Downloads:	568 View Download Statistics