Cul­ti­vat­ing Solutions

North Sea Foundation

The North Sea Foun­da­tion aims to opti­mize the poten­tial for safe, respon­si­ble, and nature-enhanc­ing aqua­cul­ture in Dutch off­shore wind farms gen­er­at­ing eco­log­i­cal and social ben­e­fits, and real­is­ing new busi­ness mod­els for sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion, by util­is­ing inad­ver­tent oppor­tu­ni­ties cre­at­ed in wind farms for aqua­cul­ture that have true poten­tial to improve the nat­ur­al val­ues of the North Sea, there­by for­ti­fy­ing the North Sea ecosystem

Eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able aqua­cul­ture prod­ucts can con­tribute to the grow­ing demand for pro­teins. In order to not repeat the mis­takes most com­mon­ly known in land-based agri­cul­ture and large-scale aqua­cul­ture, sus­tain­able aqua­cul­ture devel­op­ment and man­age­ment takes into account the full range of ecosys­tem func­tions and ser­vices. In close col­lab­o­ra­tion and fre­quent con­sul­ta­tion with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers, a clear con­cept will be devel­oped for aqua­cul­ture in wind farms that is safe, tech­ni­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable, while improv­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty, ecosys­tem health, resilience, and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. A Solu­tions Tool­box will help pro­duc­ers, gov­ern­ing bod­ies, and wind farm oper­a­tors address risks and elim­i­nate bottlenecks.

For more information visit: https://www.noordzee.nl/