World Aquaculture Magazine - March 2021

WWW.WA S .ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • MARCH 2021 25 of the famed ichthyologist John Bardach at the University of Michigan, who teamed with McLarney and John Ryther, the pioneering aquaculture scientist researching integrated mariculture systems in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, to bring to a wider global audience the history and diversity of aquaculture species and systems, especially Asian integrated aquaculture farming ecosystems. They produced the pioneering textbook, “Aquaculture: The Farming and Husbandry of Freshwater and Marine Organisms” (Bardach, Ryther and McLarney 1972). Bill McLarney was a founder with John and Nancy Todd, Ron Zweig and Earl and Hilde Barnhart (and many others) of the eclectic and pioneering NewAlchemy Institute (NAI) inWest Falmouth, Massachusetts whose research works in applied ecology during the 1970s-1980s laid the foundation visions of a future ecological society. NAI pioneered much of what today has become “permaculture.” The integrated renewable energy food bioshelters they designed and implemented intrigued many, including world leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Justin Trudeau’s father) who dedicated “The Ark” on Prince Edwards Island. NAI was also among the first to weave into discussions of the social implications such designed ecosystems as “appropriate technologies.” These have evolved today into the impacts of technological innovations on “social-ecological systems,” an example of which for aquaculture is Johnson et al. (2019). Among the many, famed architect Buckminster Fuller and renowned ecologist Eugene Odum visited NAI and praised their solutions for societies worldwide that they felt were losing their way. Ron Zweig of NAI became the fisheries and aquaculture leader for The World Bank, impacting aquaculture development throughout the world. Bill McLarney later became an environmental leader recognized globally for working with indigenous peoples to help save one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, the tropical Atlantic Talamanca ecological systems of Costa Rica. John and Nancy Todd have continued to the present day implementing their ecological designs, pioneering the concept of “living machines” “Aquaculture is crucial for supplying the world’s food needs for the next 50 years.” — Forme r Un i t ed Nat i on s Se cre t a r y Gene ra l Kofi Annan , AquaVi s i on , St avange r, Norway, June 2 012 Introduction: Recognizing the Elders Ecological aquaculture is an alternative model of aquaculture development that uses ecological principles and practices as the paradigm for development of aquaculture systems (Costa-Pierce 2002, 2003, 2013). Ecological aquaculture farming practices celebrated in this field are not new but ancient and widespread, especially in Asia, and part of the human experience over millennia (Beveridge and Little 2002). What is new is the growing global recognition of the importance of these examples. Recovering our common ecological aquaculture history (and her-story, as women played critical roles in all of aquaculture’s past) is very important to our common future. Indigenous cultures developed numerous bioengineering and ecological innovations at landscape scales that supported high human population densities in antiquity (Gon andWinter 2019). They are living examples to members of modern societies/communities who have a vision of themselves as continuing to transform towards building ecological societies that incorporate the wisdom of traditional knowledge systems of ecological aquaculture into their futures (Groesbeck et al. 2014). Two examples among the many: FAO (2019) recently designated the mulberry-silk-fishpond and rice-fish aquaculture ecosystems as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) (Fig. 1). In Australia, devastating bush fires exposed anew an aquaculture short-finned eel farming ecosystem of the Gunditjmara people stretching over 75 km 2 around Lake Condah in south Victoria. The site has been designated a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site as the Budj BimCultural Landscape (Lambert 2014). Among the first to investigate and promote the “new” field of “ecological aquaculture” as an alternative growth model for aquaculture’s future development in regions such as North America, where aquaculture was new (and very alien to the public at large) was McLarney (1976) and MacKay (1983). Bill McLarney was a student The Principles and Practices of Ecological Aquaculture and the Ecosystem Approach to Aquaculture Barry Antonio Costa-Pierce ( C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 2 6 ) FIGURE 1. The Zhejiang Huzhou Mulberry-Silkworm-Fish Pond Aquaculture Ecosystem in China is estimated to be more than 2500 years old, existing to today. It has been designated by the FAO as a “Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System.” Photo: www.xinhuanet.com .