China, the largest fish-consuming nation in the world, is investing billions of dollars on technologies to replenish the oceans. Will this costly experiment work?
Genghai No. 1, located on China’s northeastern coast, is just a short boat ride away from Yantai. The 12,000-metric ton ring is advertised as an entertainment and hotel complex. Visitors arrive at the strange facility offshore, which is half cruise ship and half high-tech lab, with a half-mile of floating walkways. The “glistening” diamond on Genghai No. According to China’s official news agency, the necklace of No. 1 is a seven-story, starfish-shaped visitor center.
Jack Klumpp is a Florida-based YouTuber who was one of the 20,000 first tourists to visit Genghai’s visitor centre after its May 2023 opening. Jack Klumpp, a YouTuber from Florida, was one of the first 20,000 tourists to explore Genghai’s visitor center following its opening in May 2023. Jack and I are in China Klumpp is delighted to see the hull for China’s submersible deep-sea. Jiaolong. The submersible here, however, is merely a model. In fact, this sea is just 10 metres deep. The submersible’s trip into the depths of the ocean is a digital simulation rather than a real experience. However, the ground beneath his feet rocks and shakes like on a theme-park ride.
Klumpp’s luxurious marine hotel in Genghai is a luxury, but it’s difficult to imagine why this attraction was built on a rig offshore, more than 1.2 miles out in the Bohai strait. The answer lies at the opposite end of the walkway to Genghai’s tourist centre, on a smaller platform with a more practical feel, where he is taught how he can cast a line baited with worms over the edge, and reel in an impressive bream.
According to an interview conducted in a local newspaper, Genghai, a tourist attraction that is unusual, breeds “high quality marine fish” every year. China Daily Jin Haifeng is the deputy general manager at Genghai Technology Company. Genghai Technology Company is a subordinate of Shandong Marine Group, an state-owned shipbuilder. Only a few are captured by recreational fishermen like Klumpp. Marine ranching is a method of release that involves releasing the vast majority into oceans.
China built 169 national demonstration ranches, including Genghai No. Genghai No. 1 and scores of smaller facilities have collectively laid 67 millions cubic meters of artificial corals, planted seagrass in an area as large as Manhattan, and released at least 167 million juvenile fish and crustaceans into the ocean.
This work is seen by the Chinese government as a necessary and urgent response to the grim reality of a collapsing fisheries in China, and around world. The catches along China’s coastline have dropped 18% over a period of less than 10 years. Marine ranches are a potential solution to this decline. They could be a win-win situation: they can restore the wild ecosystems of marine life while increasing fishery hauls.
Marine ranches offer a win-win solution: they restore marine ecosystems and boost fisheries. Before China puts billions of dollars in these projects, the country must prove that it is capable.
Genghai translates to “Sea Harvest” and sits on top of what Jin describes as an “undersea eco-oasis” built by developers. Artificial marine habitats are located in the center of the walkway. They house shrimp, seaweed and fish. These include the Korean rockfish with the parrot-like eyes and the spotted bladejaw fish.
This facility serves as a showcase of the ambitious plans for China, including 200 pilot projects to be completed by 2025. The “ecological ranch” is a 5G enabled, AI equipped facility that includes submarine robots that patrol the oceans, and “intelligent cages” which collect data on environmental conditions in real time.
A high-ranking expert in fisheries, who is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (China’s leading science institute), outlines plans for an exciting tech-driven world where conservation and production go hand-in-hand: ecological ranches surround the coast, coral reefs and seagrass meadows regenerate around them and autonomous robots harvest mature seafood sustainably.
Chinese researchers believe that now is the right time to reflect on the lessons learned since the beginning of the ranching industry. The country must first prove that it is capable of completing the basic tasks before investing billions in similar projects.
What is exactly a Marine Ranch?
Cao Ling is a professor from Xiamen University, in east China. She says that developing nations are forced to choose between exploitation of marine resources and the protection of ecosystems for future generation. Traditional measures such as seasonal fishing bans were used to restore fisheries when growing nations took more than the natural ecosystems could replenish. The marine ranching is an alternative way of reducing fishing. It can “synergize” environmental, social, economic and development goals, says Cao, by actively increasing ocean bounty.
Cao, a researcher who conducted research at Stanford and the University of Michigan before growing up in her family’s farm, claims that it’s a hot topic now. It’s hard to know what “marine ranching”, which includes flagship facilities such as Genghai No. 1, actually means. 1 (which merge scientific research with industrial-scale aquaculture pens, recreational fishing amenities, and offshore power) and a baffling array of structures including deep-sea floating wind farms with massive fish-farming cages and 100,000-ton “mobile marine ranches”–effectively fish-breeding aircraft carriers. Even whole islands have been set aside for ranching, such as the butterfly-shaped Wuzhizhou off China’s south coast.
The nets around Genghai No. are cleaned by a scuba dive. China’s 1st “ecological marine ranch” complex powered by AI.
It’s best to start at the beginning to understand what marine ranches are. California, Oregon Washington and Alaska all passed legislation in the 1970s to permit the construction of marine ranches aimed at rebuilding salmon stocks after pollution and hydroelectric dams decimated the rivers that they had traditionally reproduced. It was intended to do two things: breed the fish in captivity, and then introduce them to safe nurseries on the Pacific. Ranchers in the US have been building artificial habitats since 1974 when the US built the first US marine ranches off the coasts of California and Oregon. They are usually concrete structures that look like reefs. The ranchers hoped these would provide nursery grounds for both commercial fish stocks and marine species.
Fish farming, which is worth $200 billion, has a devastating environmental impact. It pollutes coastal waters, spreading pathogens and parasites.
Marine ranching is nowhere near fulfilling its potential. In the US, eight of 11 ranches opened in 1970s had closed by 1990. Their private investors struggled to make a profit. Norway, for example, spent a lot of money to try and restock species that were commercially important like cod. However they abandoned the effort because there was so little success. Japan has the most ranches of any country and made huge profits from scallop farming. A long-term study of Japan’s policy found that other methods for restocking oceans were not profitable. It found that releasing lab-bred, docile fish in the wild can introduce harmful genetic traits to the population.
Marine ranching, which is a strange offshoot from conventional fish farming in which fish are intensively fed in enclosed, small pens, is gaining popularity today. Aquaculture in feedlot style has increased dramatically over the past half century. It’s now a $200-billion industry that has a devastating environmental impact. Coastline waters are contaminated with fish feces and pathogens.
But coastal nations are not discouraged by the lackluster results from marine ranching. In East Asia in particular, many governments see the release of millions of fish as an inexpensive way to demonstrate their support for fishing communities whose livelihoods have been threatened by fisheries on the brink of collapse. At least 20 countries continue to experiment with diverse combinations of restocking and habitat enhancement–including efforts to transplant coral, reforest mangroves, and sow seagrass meadows.
Every year, at least 26 million juvenile shellfish and fish from 180 different species are released deliberately into oceans around the globe. That’s three for each person. These efforts, taken together, amount to an ongoing and large experiment in the marine biome.
China’s Big Bet
China is home to more than 50% of the fish farms on the planet and the largest fish fleet in the world. China is also the world’s largest consumer of fish, consuming as much as all other countries combined, including the US, Japan, India, and the European Union. The coastal fisheries have been depleted due to decades of overfishing and pollution caused by industry, aquaculture, and other sources.
According to Yong Chen of Stony Brook University, a New York-based professor, the feeling is that “things could not get worse” in many Chinese coastal towns like Yantai. Since the 1980s, wild fish stocks in the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea have collapsed. This includes the critically endangered large yellow croaker. The Bohai, an inhabited area of 100 miles to the east of Beijing that is home to a large number of people, lost its sea bass by the year 2000. This left fishing communities with little choice but “to fish down” in the food chain. The fishing nets were 91% lighter in weight than in 1950, in part due to the fact that heavy industry in this area and its petrochemical factories had made the water too polluted for healthy fish.
In the last three decades, China has implemented some of the strictest fishing restrictions in the world. Recently it even encouraged fisherman to look for other work. Fish populations are declining, but fishing communities fear for their future.
The government has given a major boost to marine ranching. It’s seen as a good test case for the “ecological civilisation” strategy of President Xi Jinping, a plan for sustainable growth in an environmentally friendly manner. Ranching is a key part of the Five-Year Plans (the country’s highest-level planning documents) since 2015. The initial investment in ranch construction was Y=11.9billion ($1.8billion). China has set a target of releasing 30 billion fish and shellfish juveniles annually by the year 2025.
The sea cucumber has been the unlikely beneficiary of this practice. Ranchers can easily recapture this spiky animal, which lives at the bottom of the ocean. It is similar to Japan’s scallops in that it doesn’t travel far away from its release site. Sea cucumbers have a high value in northern China. In Yantai they’re one of the more expensive items on the menu. They are chopped up and braised, with scallions.
Some ranches experiment with growing multiple species including shellfish and fish, such as shrimp and scallops. They also grow cucumbers to thrive in the waste produced by other species. The Bohai region in northern China is a place where helping the fishing community recover has been a top priority. [mix] Tian Tao is the chief scientist of Dalian Ocean University’s Liaoning Center for Marine Ranching Engineering and Science Research.
Wild ecosystems: Designing them
Most ranches today are focused on maximizing fishing catch and do little to fulfill ecological promises. Yang Hongsheng is a marine scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He says that the ranchers have not paid enough attention to the goal of creating a stable eco-system because the species mix has been too simple.
The Chinese government typically provides grants in the amount of Y=20,000,000 ($2.8million) to build marine ranches. Ranches, however, are run by private companies. They earn money by selling seafood, but they have also cultivated new revenue streams like recreational fishing and tourism, both of which are booming in the last few years. This owner-operator business model, which is based on proven aquaculture methods like Genghai No. 1, has so far provided little incentive to explore other options. The enclosed deep sea fishing cages of Ranch No. 1 have done little to promote ocean health outside the ranch footprint. Zhongxin Wu is an associate professor of Dalian Ocean University and works with TianTao. She says that many companies are just looking for government money.
Yong Chen, a Stony Brook professor says that to make ranches sustainable and environmentally sound it will be necessary to expand basic knowledge of poorly studied marine species. The first thing to learn about a sea cucumber is the life cycle. He says that he wants to know how the sea cucumbers breed, live and die. We don’t know what conditions or temperatures they like to grow and breed in for many marine species.
Divers swim off the coast of Wuzhizhou Island where artificial reefs have multiplied fish populations tenfold.
Chinese universities lead the world in many applied sciences. From agricultural research to materials technology, they are leaders. Neil Loneragan is president of Malaysia’s Asian Fisheries Society, and professor emeritus at Murdoch University, Australia. He says that fundamental questions can be difficult to answer, given China’s unique research and development environment.
Loneragan says that the central government has a controlling influence over the development of ranching. Researchers must therefore walk a fine line between the two leaders they report to: their academic supervisors and the chiefs of the parties. He says that marine biologists are interested in the fundamentals, but researchers must spin it to show the economic benefits of investment to government and industry.
Many attempts are made to solve known issues in the life cycle of captive-bred salmon, like the low breeding rate or poor survival rates for the young fish once they get into the ocean. These early stages of fish’s lives are more vulnerable to changes in the environment, such as storms or recent heatwaves.
Zhongxin Wang is currently testing a radical solution that would increase their fitness prior to being released into the wild from the breeding tank. Wu claims that currently, the fish are placed in plastic bags with oxygen and released into ocean nurseries. However, it is soon apparent that they are lacking survival skills. His team has developed a series of tools for “wild training”. He says that the main training method is to swim. The juvenile fish is forced to swim in a counter-current, like a treadmill. This helps them acclimatize to life outside. He says that another technique involves changing water temperatures and adding other species in order to help prepare the fish for the seagrasses and kelp forest they will encounter outside.
Wu believes that better habitat enhancement methods have the most potential for increasing the effectiveness of the marine ranching. Most ranches today create underwater environments by installing precast concrete structures under 20 meters water. These are often rough-surfaced to encourage the growth of algae or coral. In China, the average ranch is aiming for 30,000 cubic metres of artificial coral reefs. For example, in an area devoted to conservation, around Wuzhizhou Island 1,000 concrete reef structures have been dropped along the island’s tropical shores. The fish population has multiplied by ten in the past decade.
The Chinese ranching program is extremely expensive. Cao Ling co-authored a national assessment that found 87% of China’s initial $1 billion invested went to the construction of artificial reefs. A further 5% was spent on seagrass, seaweed, and restoration. This has led to both questions regarding the efficacy of the effort and an increase in innovation. Initial signs in China suggest the improvements are having an impact: sites with artificial coral reefs had a greater variety of species that were commercially valuable and higher biomass than nearby sites. Tian Wu, however, are exploring new methods including 3D-printed custom structures to protect endangered fish. The ziggurats are made of steel and have wide openings to accommodate yellowtail kingfish, a predatory, large fish prized for its sashimi. They also include arcs about waist-high, barrel-vaulted, concrete arcs. Structures have been designed to look like pyramids in recent years. This is done so that ocean currents can be diverted into “upwellings” of nutrients. Nutrients which normally settle at the bottom of the ocean are instead sent back upwards. Loneragan says that this attracts high-level predators, such as giant species of tuna like those sold at high-end restaurants.
Is China on the right track?
Will China be using marine ranches in the near future to replenish its seas? There aren’t enough numbers to make a decision. Qingdao Marine Conservation Society is an NGO that assesses ranches. According to Songlin Wan, the founder, they have “failed” to produce enough independent research findings in order for them be able measure or verify ranches’ claimed and expected environmental benefits.
Genghai No. 1 could be a solution to this data shortage. Robotic patrols, subsea sensor data and a dashboard that measures water quality and changes to the ocean’s environment are all fed into Genghai No. Ranching, which was a low-tech industry for decades in China, has adopted new technology since the start of the most recent Five-Year Plan 2021. According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, these innovations will improve efficiency and reduce costs while making ranches better able to withstand climate changes and natural disasters.
Yong Chen’s lab, which partners with Chinese scientists at Stonybrook, has doubts about the data that is being collected and shared by researchers. The problem, of course, is this visualisation. “So what?” asks he. “[Marine ranching companies] He adds that if people are prepared to spend money on this type of infrastructure and create a big screen of that size, they will come in and exclaim, “Wow! Look at that!” “Yeah, it’s beautiful. You’ll impress your bosses. You will get money from important people. As a scientist I ask you: “How can this help inform your decision making process next year?”
Can China rely on Marine Ranches in the near future to replenish its seas? There aren’t enough numbers to make a definitive statement.
Cao Ling says, “Datasharing is very difficult in China.” The majority of data created by private firms remains on their servers. Cao and Chen argue that government–whether local or central-based–could encourage more data sharing to guide ranch design and policies.
China’s central authorities are convinced of what they have seen, and plan to increase investment. Tian is the head of the marine ranching committee for the Chinese government. He says that he recently discovered the goal of the next Ten Year Plan to expand the number pilot ranches to 350. The investment for each ranch is estimated to be at Y=200,000,000 ($28,000,000) – 10 times what the average current investment would be. He expects to see specific policies announced in the coming year. Ranches won’t be supported as separate facilities. Grants will be awarded to cities such as Dalian and Yantai that can coordinate land-and-sea planning and link tourism, power generation, and commercial fishing while reducing pollution.
Tian’s illustration aims to visualize a future eco-ranching system that is tech-driven, similar to “marine Ranching 3.0”. It shows a cove that has been monitored via satellite and restored so well that even orcas are returning to the fish-filled water. The image is a futuristic one that looks like it was lifted from an issue of a 1960s magazine. Popular Science. Even stranger, there’s research to determine if the red sea bream that Jack Klumpp captured can be trained like Pavlov’s dogs – in this case to flock at the sound of the horn. The ocean’s catch would then literally swim into the nets when pressed.
China’s program of marine ranching is still far away from all of these, despite isolated successes. Cao says that ultimately, what is most important is finding a balance between sustainability and commerce. Take Genghai No. She says, “It is very beautiful!” with a smile. It’s a big investment, and it’s not cheap.