When it comes to aquaculture, we are missing the boat. One of the fastest growing food producers on the planet, aquaculture, or fish farming, is now responsible for half of the seafood on the world’s dinner plate. But aquaculture’s centuries-old history and versatile applications, says Clinical Assistant Professor Michael Ezban, suggest a function beyond food—marine metropolises interwoven with our own to enhance environments, fight the effects of climate change and create citizen conservators.
An architect and landscape designer, Ezban has long been fascinated by “multispecies entanglements”—the multi-layered interrelationships between humans and animals, and the design of landscapes and buildings that foster mutualistic relationships between species. An emerging interest among architects and designers inspired him to research and write Aquaculture Landscapes: Fish Farms and the Public Realm (Routledge, 2019), a deep dive into the history and agency of fish farming, and one of the first examinations of aquaculture as a valuable design tool for creating resilient, cohabited landscapes.
“I wanted to look at aquaculture through the lens of landscape architecture and explore its role in shaping public space and contributing beneficially to local and regional ecologies,” he said. “My hope was to offer a foundation of knowledge that future designers can build on.”
As part of the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum Lecture Series, “Food for Thought,” later this month, Ezban will share different approaches to aquaculture that deviate from the industrial farming prevalent in western economies over the past 75 years. “If you look at the over 2000-year history of aquaculture, you’ll see that people across a wide variety of cultures have actually done some amazing stuff to integrate fish farming into communities and ecologies,” he said. “It is only in the last 50 years or so that we embraced industrial production and, through that, dramatically narrowed the possibilities of what aquaculture can be.”
Below Ezban talks about the industry’s early beginnings, benefits beyond food and how communing with fish could help save the planet.
In your book, you describe how, prior to the 20th century, aquaculture took on a different form from the industrial farms we see today. What’s an example that stuck with you? What’s considered the first fish hatchery in the western world was developed in the 19th century in rural France. The French government created this amazing place that earned the nickname piscifactoire, or “fish factory.” But it’s a misnomer in a way, because it’s actually a great example of an aquaculture landscape, where 19th century French folks would come and walk among beautiful fishponds created in woods and fields and learn about fish and hatchery practices. This place grew and distributed fish to rivers all through France that were seeing signs of blight from the industrial revolution. It's a total contrast to the contemporary hatcheries in the United States, which are often designed as concrete troughs cut into asphalt pads. So, the typology of the fish hatchery originates as a place of sustainability, utility and—importantly—aesthetic experiences.
You don’t advocate for replacing existing fish farms but instead discuss ways to create more connection through multifunctionality. Aquaculture as it practiced today, by and large, is monofunctional; they tend to do damage to the ecologies they are embedded in, they offer poor living conditions for fish and they lack recreational possibilities. But there are some great case studies of contemporary fish farms that do integrate some of these functions to create more holistic experiences. One of the best examples of this is a functioning fish farm in Spain called Veta La Palma. Because they breed and grow the fish in earthen, open-air ponds along the Eastern Atlantic flyway, the farm is just inundated with birds. The birds coming through eat 20% of their stock. But Veta la Palma is a profitable farm because it’s such a hot spot for birdwatchers who pay to spend time at the site, so the farm makes up for the money they lost through predation, and then some, through ecotourism.
How can aquaculture integrate into an urban environment? There is a long history of integrating urban waste functions with aquaculture. I think one of the best urban examples currently in use is in Kolkata, India. The city is famous for having their municipal wastewater filter through massive wetlands, which they built out explicitly for treating the water. After removing most of the pathogens, they funnel some of that wastewater into aquaculture; fish farming is completely interlaced with this city-scale infrastructure. It’s a fascinating and enduring project. There are similar, speculative projects, like one in Shanghai by the design firm Sasaki that’s considering the integration of urban agriculture and aquaponics with wastewater systems. While it’s speculative, it’s another example of where designers are in terms of thinking about how we can contribute to entwining aquaculture with these urban processes.
What are some of the things you see today that invite new possibilities for aquaculture? Landscape architects are increasingly employing oyster reefs as a way to create more resilient coasts, most famously off the coast of Staten Island, post-Hurricane Sandy. And what’s interesting about these constructed reefs is that they’re multifunctional: they help protect our coasts, they provide habitat, they clean and filter contaminated water, they have multiple economies attached to them and they’re also recreational. These reef landscapes are really robust and resilient in these ways.
Why is it important to rethink our relationship with fish, or interspecies relationships in general? What’s important about embodied encounters with other species is that those are the experiences that touch us and inspire us to become stewards of the environment, to take on conservation issues and to develop a sense of empathy for those beings that are unlike ourselves. There are many problems with just sticking a bunch of fish in private warehouses and cages and growing them there, and one of those problems is that it disconnects fish from the public realm. It denies the possibility of interaction or encounter between fish and people—in effect this “others” fish. If we continue to separate those experiences out of our public lives, there’s a great loss in that.
Don’t miss Ezban’s virtual (and free) lecture, Aquaculture Landscapes: Fish Farms and the Public Realm, Monday, March 28, 6:30pm. Learn more details and register here.
For more information on Ezban’s book, visit www.aquaculturelandscapes.com