Transforming the way food is produced to address its widespread negative effects on habitats, biodiversity and climate change is emerging as a priority intervention for achieving global goals for sustainable and equitable development. If the negative effects of industry activity are mitigated, regenerative farming approaches offer an opportunity to shape reciprocal solutions that can reduce these impacts and provide food and nutritional outcomes alongside ecological benefits.
In an article published by Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, we review the potential for bivalve aquaculture to contribute positively to blue carbon ecosystems, coastal and marine environments that are critical to ocean carbon cycling and storage (seagrasses, mangroves and tidal marshes) and other highly productive or depositional coastal ecosystems (macroalgae, tidal flats and marine sediment). We identify the negative effects of bivalve aquaculture that must be avoided and mitigated to ensure farming does not generate environmental greenhouse gas emissions and discuss the ecological processes bivalves in a farmed environment enhance that could enable the industry to positively support ocean carbon sequestration in these ecosystems. If designed and used with the benefits of carbon cycling and storage in mind, restorative bivalve aquaculture could be used to increase protection of these important ecosystems and mitigative efforts for climate change.