A circular economy is considered one way to reduce environmental impacts of human activities, by more efficient use of resources and recovery, resulting in less waste and emissions compared to linear take-make-dispose systems. Muscat et al. developed five ecological principles to guide biomass use towards a circular economy. A few studies have demonstrated environmental benefits of applying these principles to land-based food systems, but to date, these principles have not been explored in aquaculture. The current study expands on these principles and provides a narrative review to (i) translate them to aquaculture, while identifying implications for the main species and production systems, and (ii) identify the main pathways to make aquaculture more circular. We show that the underlying concepts of the ‘safeguard’, ‘entropy’, and ‘recycle’ principles have been well researched and sometimes well implemented. In contrast, the ‘avoid’ and ‘prioritise’ principles have been explored much less; doing so would provide an opportunity to decrease environmental impacts of aquaculture at the food-system level. One example is prioritising the production of species that contribute to food and nutrition security, have low environmental impacts and thinking at wider food system scale to avoid feed-food competition in aquaculture. We identified six priorities that could make aquaculture more circular: (i) increase production and demand for the most essential species, (ii) decrease food loss and waste at farm and post-harvest stages, (iii) support nutrient recycling practices at multiple scales, (iv) adapt aquafeed formulations, (v) inform consumers about benefits of species of low trophic levels and other environmentally friendly aquatic foods, and (vi) address urgent research gaps.

IntroductionAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a challenge to modern medicine. Interventions have been applied worldwide to tackle AMR, but these actions are often not reported to peers or published, leading to important knowledge gaps about what actions are being taken. Understanding factors that influence the implementation of AMR interventions and what factors are relevant in low-middle-income countries (LMICs) and high-income countries (HICs) were the key objectives of this exploratory study, with the aim to identifying which priorities these contexts need.MethodsA questionnaire was used to explore context, characteristics, and success factors or obstacles to intervention success based on participant input. The context was analyzed using the AMR-Intervene framework, and success factors and obstacles to intervention success were identified using thematic analysis.ResultsOf the 77 interventions, 57 were implemented in HICs and 17 in LMICs. Interventions took place in the animal sector, followed by the human sector. Public organizations were mainly responsible for implementation and funding. Nine themes and 32 sub-themes emerged as important for intervention success. The themes most frequently reported were 'behavior', 'capacity and resources', 'planning', and 'information'. Five sub-themes were key in all contexts ('collaboration and coordination', 'implementation', 'assessment', 'governance', and 'awareness'), two were key in LMICs ('funding and finances' and 'surveillance, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and preventive screening'), and five were key in HICs ('mandatory', 'multiple profiles', 'personnel', 'management', and 'design').ConclusionLMIC sub-themes showed that funding and surveillance were still key issues for interventions, while important HIC sub-themes were more specific and detailed, including mandatory enforcement, multiple profiles, and personnel needed for good management and good design. While behavior is often underrated when implementing AMR interventions, capacity and resources are usually considered, and LMICs can benefit from sub-themes captured in HICs if tailored to their contexts. The factors identified can improve the design, planning, implementation, and evaluation of interventions.

Background: With AMU projected to increase, South East Asia (SEA) is at high risk of experiencing disproportionate health, social, and economic burdens due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Our objective was to identify factors influencing AMR in SEA’s food system and places for intervention by integrating the perspectives of experts from the region to inform policy and management decisions.

Materials and methods: We conducted two 6.5 h workshops and two 90-min interviews involving 18 AMR and other disciplinary experts from human, animal, and environment sectors who brainstormed the factors influencing AMR and identified leverage points (places) for intervention. Transcripts and workshop materials were coded for factors and their connections and transcribed into a causal loop diagram (CLD). Thematic analysis described AMR dynamics in SEA’s food system and leverage points for intervention. The CLD and themes were confirmed via participant feedback.

Results: Participants constructed a CLD of AMR in the SEA food system that contained 98 factors interlinked by 362 connections. CLD factors reflected eight sub-areas of the SEA food system (e.g., government). Seven themes [e.g., antimicrobial and pesticide use and AMR spread (n = 40 quotes)], six “overarching factors” that impact the entire AMR system [e.g., the drive to survive (n = 12 quotes)], and 10 places for intervention that target CLD factors (n = 5) and overarching factors (n = 2) emerged from workshop discussions.

Conclusion: The participant derived CLD of factors influencing AMR in the SEA food system demonstrates that AMR is a product of numerous interlinked actions taken across the One Health spectrum and that finding solutions is no simple task. Developing the model enabled the identification of potentially promising leverage points across human, animal, and environment sectors that, if comprehensively targeted using multi-pronged interventions, could evoke system wide changes that mitigate AMR. Even targeting some leverage points for intervention, such as increasing investments in research and capacity building, and setting and enforcing regulations to control antimicrobial supply, demand, and use could, in turn, shift mindsets that lead to changes in more difficult to alter leverage points, such as redefining the profit-driven intent that drives system behavior in ways that transform AMU and sustainably mitigate AMR.

Finding ways to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius is urgent and will need a portfolio of solutions. Seaweeds are marine photosynthetic organisms that humans harvest either from the wild or farm, to be used in many applications and providing various ecosystem services. Large scale farming of seaweeds for absorbing carbon has lately been promoted as a climate “fix”. The major shortcomings of this argument relate to the idea that a carbon sink function should exist through carbon accumulation in seaweed biomass simultaneously as seaweeds are consumed as food by humans, fed to animals, or used in many alternative applications. This carbon instead enters the fast carbon cycle and does not provide any “carbon sink” function. Radical suggestions of intentionally transfer of farmed seaweeds to the deep-sea to accomplish a longer removal are highly questionable from feasibility, economic, ecosystem effects and ethical resource use perspectives. Development of “ocean forests” for carbon capturing through farming should not be compared to forests on land as these provide carbon removal from the atmosphere at sufficiently long time scales to be qualified as carbon sequestration - thus making a difference related to reducing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Seaweeds can, however, play a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the overall food system through carbon offset - i.e. if replacing food, feed, and/or materials that have larger carbon footprints. The fate/cycling of carbon as particulate and dissolved matter from both farmed and wild seaweeds, are however not fully understood, especially with respect to pathways and time scales relevant for carbon removal/storage. Another potential pathway for their role in decarbonization may be through reducing enteric methane emissions from ruminants and also through bioenergy production. More research is, however, needed for understanding the contributions from such interventions. Presenting seaweed farming as a quick fix for the climate risks facilitating misdirected investments (for carbon abatement solutions) and reducing demand for specific research and technological development that will be needed for increasing our understanding about seaweeds’ contribution to food/feed systems and additional sustainability services and benefits. 

Background

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is a global problem with large health and economic consequences. Current gaps in quantitative data are a major limitation for creating models intended to simulate the drivers of AMR. As an intermediate step, expert knowledge and opinion could be utilized to fill gaps in knowledge for areas of the system where quantitative data does not yet exist or are hard to quantify. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify quantifiable data about the current state of the factors that drive AMR and the strengths and directions of relationships between the factors from statements made by a group of experts from the One Health system that drives AMR development and transmission in a European context.

Methods

This study builds upon previous work that developed a causal loop diagram of AMR using input from two workshops conducted in 2019 in Sweden with experts within the European food system context. A secondary analysis of the workshop transcripts was conducted to identify semi-quantitative data to parameterize drivers in a model of AMR.

Main findings

Participants spoke about AMR by combining their personal experiences with professional expertise within their fields. The analysis of participants’ statements provided semi-quantitative data that can help inform a future of AMR emergence and transmission based on a causal loop diagram of AMR in a Swedish One Health system context.

Conclusion

Using transcripts of a workshop including participants with diverse expertise across the system that drives AMR, we gained invaluable insight into the past, current, and potential future states of the major drivers of AMR, particularly where quantitative data are lacking.

The diverse aquaculture sector makes important contributions toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)/Agenda 2030, and can increasingly do so in the future. Its important role for food security, nutrition, livelihoods, economies, and cultures is not clearly visible in the Agenda 21 declaration. This may partly reflect the state of development of policies for aquaculture compared with its terrestrial counterpart, agriculture, and possibly also because aquaculture production has historically originated from a few key hotspot regions/countries. This review highlights the need for better integration of aquaculture in global food system dialogues. Unpacking aquaculture's diverse functions and generation of values at multiple spatiotemporal scales enables better understanding of aquaculture's present and future potential contribution to the SDGs. Aquaculture is a unique sector that encompasses all aquatic ecosystems (freshwater, brackish/estuarine, and marine) and is also tightly interconnected with terrestrial ecosystems through, for example, feed resources and other dependencies. Understanding environmental, social, and economic characteristics of the multifaceted nature of aquaculture provides for more context-specific solutions for addressing both opportunities and challenges for its future development. This review includes a rapid literature survey based on how aquaculture links to the specific SDG indicators. A conceptual framework is developed for communicating the importance of context specificity related to SDG outcomes from different types of aquaculture. The uniqueness of aquaculture's contributions compared with other food production systems are discussed, including understanding of species/systems diversity, the role of emerging aquaculture, and its interconnectedness with supporting systems. A selection of case studies is presented to illustrate: (1) the diversity of the aquaculture sector and what role this diversity can play for contributions to the SDGs, (2) examples of methodologies for identification of aquaculture's contribution to the SDGs, and (3) trade-offs between farming systems' contribution to meeting the SDGs. It becomes clear that decision-making around resource allocation and trade-offs between aquaculture and other aquatic resource users needs review of a wide range of established and emergent systems. The review ends by highlighting knowledge gaps and pathways for transformation that will allow further strengthening of aquaculture's role for contributing to the SDGs. This includes identification and building on already existing monitoring that can enable capturing SDG-relevant aquaculture statistics at a national level and discussion of how a cohesive and comprehensive aquaculture strategy, framed to meet the SDGs, may help countries to prioritize actions for improving well-being.

Social-ecological systems conceptualise how social human systems and ecological natural systems are intertwined. In this Personal View, we define the scope and applicability of social-ecological resilience to antimicrobial resistance. Resilience to antimicrobial resistance corresponds to the capacity to maintain the societal benefits of antimicrobial use and One Health systems' performance in the face of the evolutionary behaviour of microorganisms in response to antimicrobial use. Social-ecological resilience provides an appropriate framework to make sense of the disruptive impacts resulting from the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance; capture the diversity of strategies needed to tackle antimicrobial resistance and to live with it; understand the conditions that underpin the success or failure of interventions; and appreciate the need for adaptive and coevolutionary governance. Overall, resilience thinking is essential to improve understanding of how human societies dynamically can cope with, adapt, and transform to the growing global challenge of antimicrobial resistance.

Global aquatic foods are a key source of nutrition, but how their production is influenced by anthropogenic environmental changes is not well known. The vulnerability of global blue food systems to main environmental stressors and the related spatial impacts across blue food nations are now quantified. Global aquatic or 'blue' foods, essential to over 3.2 billion people, face challenges of maintaining supply in a changing environment while adhering to safety and sustainability standards. Despite the growing concerns over their environmental impacts, limited attention has been paid to how blue food production is influenced by anthropogenic environmental changes. Here we assess the vulnerability of global blue food systems to predominant environmental disturbances and predict the spatial impacts. Over 90% of global blue food production faces substantial risks from environmental change, with the major producers in Asia and the United States facing the greatest threats. Capture fisheries generally demonstrate higher vulnerability than aquaculture in marine environments, while the opposite is true in freshwater environments. While threats to production quantity are widespread across marine and inland systems, food safety risks are concentrated within a few countries. Identifying and supporting mitigation and adaptation measures in response to environmental stressors is particularly important in developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa where risks are high and national response capacities are low. These findings lay groundwork for future work to map environmental threats and opportunities, aiding strategic planning and policy development for resilient and sustainable blue food production under changing conditions.

Rural, tropical coastal communities are experiencing sustained, often increasing food insecurity, poverty, and global change impacts. These challenges have stimulated a rise in projects aiming to enhance and diversify local livelihoods. The ability of these projects to achieve broad-scale benefits is limited by approaches that do not account for feedbacks among sectors and across marine and terrestrial environments. To address these limitations, we present an applied research agenda to support an integrated approach to livelihood project planning and management. This agenda explicitly examines interactions among natural resources, industries, and livelihoods and is based on three foundational activities: (1) a governance review and assessment, (2) strategic partnership formation, and (3) a diagnostic approach supported by science and shared outcomes. We add structure to the established logic in our field by broadening the sectoral and spatial scope of livelihoods projects, so they can better contribute to interrelated UN Sustainable Development Goals.