Climate Change is the most important threat to the survival of the human species and all species on planet earth. The stable climate that has served for the development of civilization is changing at a dizzying pace and puts all human activities at risk. The risk of extreme events, sea level rise, increase in terrestrial temperature and alteration to the balances of climate systems and ecosystems are already a reality throughout the planet (Bruno et al., 2018; Gattuso et al., 2018; Esperón-Rodríguez et al., 2019; Chapman et al., 2020).
However, the rapid growth of aquaculture had led to concerns regarding its ecological sustainability. Key issues include conversion of ecologically critical freshwater
and coastal ecosystems to farms, pollution and eutrophica-tion of aquatic and marine ecosystems, heightened trans-mission of parasites and pathogens, overutilization of
scarce ?sh meal and oil in aquafeeds, introductions of non-native species and interbreeding of escaped aquaculture stocks with locally adapted populations of wild relatives (Nie y Hallerman 2021).
This is because during the 50 years that aquaculture has been growing, it has done so by imitating more and more the intensive practices of industrialized livestock and agriculture. These intensive practices are due to the need of aquaculture companies to integrate into a market following a capitalist logic. This logic, which is basically to obtain the maximum (economic) benefit at the lowest cost, has brought significant profits for the owners of the companies, but has devastating environmental consequences, and does not allow local people to have a real benefit that reduces their poverty.
Using as a model the cultivation of native oysters in the marine portion of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, we propose an aquaculture based on cooperative enterprises with a horizontal structure, where human development, resource utilization, environmental care and equitable benefits are at least at the same level of priority as economic gains. Since 2000, technical and biological feasibility studies have been carried out in the region, it is necessary to develop an education and training program for local coastal dwellers, constituted in Cooperative Societies, in order to achieve the change of vision necessary for aquaculture to become a strong drive to achieve several of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN’s 2030 agenda.