Marine Permaculture is a form of mariculture that reflects the principles of permaculture by recreating seaweed forest habitat and other ecosystems in nearshore and offshore ocean environments. Doing so enables a sustainable long-term harvest of seaweeds and seafood, while regenerating life in the ocean.
Marine Permaculture comprises a platform from which seaweed ecosystems can be grown, creating the environmental conditions for primary production and habitat for marine life. Using a system of renewably powered pumps, cool, nutrient-rich waters are brought up from a depth of 100-500 meters, below the nutricline, to the ocean surface, thereby replicating natural overturning circulation processes of ocean upwelling and mitigating against marine heatwaves that have led to ocean stratification and decimated natural macroalgae ecosystems in many regions of the world. [1] [2] [3] In addition, artificial structures provide substrate seaweeds require to grow on. The seaweed growth and increased plankton provide critical marine habitat for fish populations to thrive. [4] This type of intervention regenerates overturning circulation and returns mixed layer temperatures to levels closer to those measured pre-industrially.
Marine Permaculture has received endorsement from a number of permaculture experts, including Morag Gamble of the Permaculture Education Institute, [5] Matt Powers, [6] David Holmgren and the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, [7] who have recognised its adherence to the principles of permaculture. It has also received considerable attention as a potentially ground-breaking climate solution. [8] It has featured as a “Coming Attraction” solution in the book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming edited by Paul Hawken and was one of the main climate solutions featured in Damon Gameau’s documentary film 2040. Professor Tim Flannery has also highlighted Marine Permaculture’s potential in sequestering gigatons of carbon through hectare scale platforms in the open ocean, [9] [10] [11] [12] an idea that has also received attention from the voluntary carbon market Nori. [13] [14] Marine Permaculture is also mentioned as a climate solution in Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth by Albert Bates and Kathleen Draper. [15] Marine Permaculture also features in the MacArthur Foundation's Bold Solutions Network, of the “Top100” innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. [16]
If deployed at scale, it has the potential to provide food security to billions of people who rely upon the oceans for their primary source of protein, act as a source of blue carbon, while lowering ocean acidification, providing sustainable livelihoods, and restoring marine habitat. To date, Marine Permaculture trials have been conducted in numerous regions of the world including Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Tasmania, where it is being used to regenerate seaweed ecosystems recently decimated from climate change. [17] [18] [19] Harvesting organic kelp may produce ingredients for agriculture, fertilisers, pharmaceutical and textiles: Biostimulants, such as organic soil immprovers, feed supplements for fish and cattle, pulp for cellulose, fibers to replace wood pulp, nanocellulose for water-proofing cardboards, and biomedical molecules with natural anti-septic properties are some of the products elaborated by the marine permaculture projects.
Mariculture, sometimes called marine farming or marine aquaculture, is a branch of aquaculture involving the cultivation of marine organisms for food and other animal products, in seawater. Subsets of it include, fish farms built on littoral waters, or in artificial tanks, ponds or raceways which are filled with seawater. An example of the latter is the farming of plankton and seaweed, shellfish like shrimp or oysters, and marine finfish, in saltwater ponds. Non-food products produced by mariculture include: fish meal, nutrient agar, jewellery, and cosmetics.
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather than on taxonomy.
Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principles in fields such as regenerative agriculture, town planning, rewilding, and community resilience. The term was coined in 1978 by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, who formulated the concept in opposition to modern industrialized methods, instead adopting a more traditional or "natural" approach to agriculture.
Kelps are large brown algae or seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant but a stramenopile, a group containing many protists.
Kelp forests are underwater areas with a high density of kelp, which covers a large part of the world's coastlines. Smaller areas of anchored kelp are called kelp beds. They are recognized as one of the most productive and dynamic ecosystems on Earth. Although algal kelp forest combined with coral reefs only cover 0.1% of Earth's total surface, they account for 0.9% of global primary productivity. Kelp forests occur worldwide throughout temperate and polar coastal oceans. In 2007, kelp forests were also discovered in tropical waters near Ecuador.
The red sea urchin is a sea urchin found in the northeastern Pacific Ocean from Alaska to Baja California. It lives in shallow waters from the low-tide line to greater than 280 m (920 ft) deep, and is typically found on rocky shores sheltered from extreme wave action in areas where kelp is available.
Marine ecosystems are the largest of Earth's aquatic ecosystems and exist in waters that have a high salt content. These systems contrast with freshwater ecosystems, which have a lower salt content. Marine waters cover more than 70% of the surface of the Earth and account for more than 97% of Earth's water supply and 90% of habitable space on Earth. Seawater has an average salinity of 35 parts per thousand of water. Actual salinity varies among different marine ecosystems. Marine ecosystems can be divided into many zones depending upon water depth and shoreline features. The oceanic zone is the vast open part of the ocean where animals such as whales, sharks, and tuna live. The benthic zone consists of substrates below water where many invertebrates live. The intertidal zone is the area between high and low tides. Other near-shore (neritic) zones can include mudflats, seagrass meadows, mangroves, rocky intertidal systems, salt marshes, coral reefs, lagoons. In the deep water, hydrothermal vents may occur where chemosynthetic sulfur bacteria form the base of the food web.
Ecklonia radiata, commonly known as golden kelp, common kelp, spiny kelp or leather kelp, is a species of kelp found in the Canary Islands, the Cape Verde Islands, Madagascar, Mauritania, Senegal, South Africa, Oman, southern Australia, Lord Howe Island, and New Zealand. In Australia, E. radiata forms the backbone of the Great Southern Reef, a system of interconnected kelp reefs that spans the coastline of southern Australia, underpinning biodiverse and productive ecosystems, and supporting valuable ecosystem services.
Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of Rhodophyta (red), Phaeophyta (brown) and Chlorophyta (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as kelps provide essential nursery habitat for fisheries and other marine species and thus protect food sources; other species, such as planktonic algae, play a vital role in capturing carbon and producing at least 50% of Earth's oxygen.
Seaweed farming or kelp farming is the practice of cultivating and harvesting seaweed. In its simplest form farmers gather from natural beds, while at the other extreme farmers fully control the crop's life cycle.
Aquaculture of giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, is the cultivation of kelp for uses such as food, dietary supplements or potash. Giant kelp contains iodine, potassium, other minerals vitamins and carbohydrates.
Blue carbon is a concept within climate change mitigation that refers to "biologically driven carbon fluxes and storage in marine systems that are amenable to management". Most commonly, it refers to the role that tidal marshes, mangroves and seagrass meadows can play in carbon sequestration. These ecosystems can play an important role for climate change mitigation and ecosystem-based adaptation. However, when blue carbon ecosystems are degraded or lost, they release carbon back to the atmosphere, thereby adding to greenhouse gas emissions.
Paragorgia arborea is a species of coral in the family Paragorgiidae, commonly known as the bubblegum coral because of its bulbous branch tips. It mainly grows in depths between 200 and 1,300 metres at temperatures between 3 and 8 °C. It is found widespread in the Northern Atlantic Ocean and Northern Pacific Ocean on seamounts and knolls, and was first described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758. P. arborea is a foundation species, providing a habitat for other species in deep sea coral ecosystems.
The Great Southern Reef is a system of interconnected reefs that spans the southern coast of continental Australia and Tasmania and extends as far north as Brisbane to the east and Kalbarri to the west. It covers 71,000 km2 (27,000 sq mi) of ocean and straddles five states, running along the coast for 8,000 km (5,000 mi).
2040 is a 2019 Australian documentary film directed by and starring Damon Gameau. The film looks at the effects of climate change over the next 20 years and what technologies that exist today can reverse the effects.
A marine heatwave is a period of abnormally high seawater temperatures compared to the typical temperatures in the past for a particular season and region. Marine heatwaves are caused by a variety of drivers. These include shorter term weather events such as fronts, intraseasonal events, annual, and decadal (10-year) modes like El Niño events, and human-caused climate change. Marine heatwaves affect ecosystems in the oceans. For example, marine heatwaves can lead to severe biodiversity changes such as coral bleaching, sea star wasting disease, harmful algal blooms, and mass mortality of benthic communities. Unlike heatwaves on land, marine heatwaves can extend over vast areas, persist for weeks to months or even years, and occur at subsurface levels.
GreenWave is a North American nonprofit focused on the development of regenerative farming techniques for aquaculture, called "3D ocean farming", to create blue carbon. Their focus is on developing polyculture practices for farming shellfish and seaweeds and kelps. These practices include using many layers of the water column, emulating high activity water ecosystems like reefs, to increase productivity and biomass.
A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Marine coastal ecosystems include many very different types of marine habitats, each with their own characteristics and species composition. They are characterized by high levels of biodiversity and productivity.
Giant kelp marine forests of south east Australia is an endangered ecological community, listed under the EPBC Act of the Commonwealth of Australia. The community is found in coastal waters of Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.
Lessonia corrugata is a species of kelp, a brown algae in the genus Lessonia, commonly known as strapweed, common crapweed, or Tasmanian kombu. It is a subtidal species endemic to Tasmania and southern Victoria, Australia, and is the least studied of the only three Laminarian kelps in the region. The species was first described by Arthur Henry Shakespeare Lucas in 1931, and is most closely related to the New Zealand species Lessonia variegata.
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