Aquaculture Opportunity Areas: A Continued Threat to Fisheries
By Mike Conroy
In the September 2022 edition of Fishermen’s News, we published an article outlining the process for designating “Aquaculture Opportunity Areas (AOAs)” created in federal waters off the United States in 2020.
The prospect of a widespread taking of large areas of what is currently open ocean to devote them exclusively to industrial-scale aquaculture instead of fisheries is a threat that has not gone away.
As a reminder, AOAs were mandated by the first Trump Administration in Section 7 of the May 7, 2020, Executive Order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth (E.O. 13921).
The second Trump administration is likely to push these designations much further. To date, two major areas (one off Southern California and another in the Gulf of Mexico) are ...