Briefing: Challenging the aquaculture industry on sustainability

Against a continuing background of diminishing and over–exploited marine resources, aquaculture has been widely held up as a panacea to the problem of providing a growing world population with ever-increasing amounts of fish for consumption. With the expansion of the industry, however, the tendency has been for methods of production to intensify, particularly in the production of carnivorous species. This has resulted in many serious impacts on the environment and human rights abuses.