Citation: Food + Planet, CGIAR & GAIN. Regenerative Aquatic Foods Roadmap (Rockefeller Foundation, 2023); https://go.nature.com/3T9Tx7a
During a convening at the Bellagio Center in July 2023, a group of experts co-created the RAF Roadmap, aligning closely with the SDGs. The experts, with backgrounds in nutrition, environmental conservation, aquaculture, policy development economics and community practices, recognized the need for a universal cross-organizational effort to advance regenerative aquatic foods, emphasizing sustainability and equitable food systems.
It was agreed that RAFs are aquatic foods from systems that enhance ecosystems, rather than deplete, and also offer restorative benefits, fostering positive relationships between people and nature. A four-dimensional (4D) framework of sustainable food systems (Fig. 1) was employed to identify the diverse benefits of RAF across nutrition, planetary, socio-cultural, and economic dimensions.
This roadmap identifies strategic areas essential for upscaling RAF production sustainably:
- Consumption:
- integrate RAFs into diets by creating appealing products, gaining endorsements from food champions, including RAFs in dietary guidelines and food composition tables, and supporting efforts in consumer education.
- Community-based practices:
- enable local and Indigenous communities to steward and benefit from RAF resources, enhanc-ing food sovereignty and sustainable management.
- Ecosystem services:
- monetize services such as carbon cycling, species recov-ery and nutrient reduction to promote economic systems that value ecological restoration and conservation.
- Capital investment:
- encourage innova-tive, environmentally friendly production methods through sufficient funding and effective financial mechanisms.
- Technology and innovation:
- utilize advanced technologies (for example, environmental monitoring and forecast-ing technology, and native species breed-ing programs) to optimize production and participatory incentive structures designed by local communities to ensure sustainability.
The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bellagio Center provided the facilities and funding to host this historic convening. Support (monetary and in-kind) were also provide by GAIN, The Nature Conservancy, Builders Initiative, and Food + Planet.
This text was adpated from: Vogliano, C., Kennedy, G., Thilsted, S., Mbuya, M. N. N., Battista, W., Sadoff, C., White, G., Kim, J. K., Pucher, J., Koome, K., D’Cruz, G., Geagan, K., Chang, K., Sumaila, U. R., Palmer, S., & Alleway, H. (2024). Regenerative aquatic foods can be a win–win for human and planetary health. Nature Food, 5, 718–719. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01043-5.
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