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Sustainable Aquaculture Management

Only organic aquaculture makes a real contribution to the preservation of our marine resources. What is important is the source o f the feed: under Naturland, fish meal and fish oil used in the feed are the waste produced when food fish are processed and are not, as normal elsewhere, a product of industrial fishing specifically for feed production.

Since their establishment in the mid-1990s, the Naturland organic standards for aquaculture have developed to become the most important in the industry.

Fishing on free waters shows more and more negative impacts
In the case of seafood such as prawns and shrimps, fishing from wild stock is particularly problematic, whilst a side effect of breeding un­der conventional aquaculture is that it causes con­siderable ecological damage.
Naturlandshrimps are reared in organic aquaculture systems in Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica, Honduras, Vietnam, Bangladesh and lndonesia.


Source: Naturland.de

Eco-system friendly shrimps production
Low stocking densities, the prohibition of antibiotics and other chemotherapeutic agents, organic feed and humane breeding procedures comply with our understanding of ecofriendly shrimp production. 


Reafforestation of the mangroves

One feature of environmental compatibility is the rigorous protection and reafforestation of the ecologically valuable mangrove forests. Naturland has made this a key element of the standards. The results can be seen in Ecuador, for example, where over 440 hectares of mangroves have been permanently reafforested since 2001.


Source: Naturland.de

Environmentally and socially sustainable

Another feature, besides the environmental aspect, is that of social sustainability: for many smallhold­ers, such as the 1,000 members of OSP, Organic Shrimp Project, in Bangladesh, certification to the Naturland standards affords them access to the export market, protecting them from exploitative intermediaries and ensuring them a reliable income. Besides these advantages, shrimps reared in extensive organic farms are eminently suitable for polyculture projects, where other crustaceans and fish are reared in the same ponds, for the farmers' own consumption or for sale on local markets. This creates additional income for the smallholders and their families.
©Naturland.de

Same 15 species are certified to these standards, ranging from Gerinan freshwater fish such as traut, carp and salmon, Mediter ranean species such as gilthead sea bream and sea bass, tropical fresh­ water fish (pangasius,  tilapia), to prawns, mussels and even various types of algae. There are now 17 countfies where fish farming is practised in systems with semi-natural environments appropriate to the
respective species