In the Gulf of Mexico, there has been much interest in innovation towards transforming unused offshore oil and natural gas platforms into fish farms. Some oil companies have experimented with platforms to anchor underwater pens.

This week a crucial step in this process has developed.  Authorities have approved the ardently debated proposal to allow large-scale fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico, creating the first federal regulations for a fledgling industry.

Opponents have cited concerns about damage to the Gulf’s environment, as well the effect on traditional fishing communities that have relied on catching and selling wild fish.

But supporters say the industrial-scale pens and cages could provide a new source of seafood, 80 percent of which now comes from imports.

Commercial seafood company owner John D. Ericsson favours the plan. He said the United States has fallen behind countries like Greece, Norway and Chile, where offshore farming has taken off.

Ericsson said his company, Florida-based BioMarine Technologies Inc., is looking at growing fish in cages that could contain up to 60,000 cobia, also known as king fish, and amberjack. He said it would take about $10 million to set up an offshore fish farm.

Despite approval Wednesday from the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, a 17-member regional advisory body that sets fishing regulations in the Gulf, the fish-farming plan still faces a series of administrative hurdles, and needs approval from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Officials who developed the plan say it will be at least a year before anyone could apply for an open-ocean aquaculture permit, even with the necessary approval.

More than 100 environmental and fishing industry groups have signed on against the fish-farming plan, and many say they are hopeful the new Obama administration will quash the measure or send it back to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council for revisions.

One of the main complaints has been that offshore aquaculture regulations should be developed by Congress on a national scale, rather than by a regional body such as the Gulf council.

The Gulf council’s plan calls for 10-year permits to set up offshore fish farms.

Officials set a total cap on farmed fish production at 64 million pounds, and they expect about five to 20 such operations to emerge within the next 10 years.

Drafters say they have addressed a number of ecological concerns in the plan: It requires an up-front environmental analysis from anyone applying for a permit, mandates the hiring of an aquatic animal health inspector, and lays out numerous record-keeping requirements regarding escaped or diseased fish.

Aquaculture must compete with other coastal zone users such as shipping, fishermen, leisure craft etc, while also minimising its impact on the marine environment ( for example, NOAA Aquaculture Programme 2008 Offshore Aquaculture in the United States gives examples of these issues in the American context).

These competing stakeholder needs have to be managed through an arduous, expensive and time consuming system of government licences and planning restrictions. This regulatory environment is challenging for such a comparatively small industry and has proved a barrier to growth for near shore aquaculture, where these issues are at their most acute.

A possible solution to these problems lies in using web-based GIS technology.

The Norwegian partners in a GIS project I worked on developed an application to support regulatory decisions on coastal zone management. It was used by both local and regional government and local SMEs to analyse the potential for marine business developments in the local area.

After the close of the project, the application was merged with the region’s wider online atlas in recognition that local land uses (as well as marine uses) were also relevant in coastal zone management decision making (http://www.fylkesatlas.no/ - in Norwegian).

Web-based GIS is a powerful tool for publicising and consulting on all types of regional planning issues. It could have significant potential for both identifying suitable sites for aquaculture and reducing the bureacracy of regulatory processes in getting new sites established.

The biggest challenge identifed from the project I worked on was in building relationships between local government and SMEs to jointly develop and use the tool – this cross-sector partnership was a new way of working for most people involved.

More information on the Coastal Zone Management decision making tool is available in the project’s Final Demonstration report which is available at http://www.geoshare.net/default.asp?ACT=24&id=0&dir=Qk36UkSYAoeo&cat=pED0aMS509so  (in English).