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Towards sustainable aquaculture in the Amazon

Nature Sustainability volume 8, pages 234–244 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Aquaculture in the Amazon holds the potential to meet increasing food demands while offering economic opportunities in a region facing deforestation and biodiversity loss. However, expanding aquaculture in this biodiverse region comes with complex environmental and social trade-offs. This Review explores how aquaculture can support sustainable development by minimizing its environmental impact, promoting equitable livelihoods and enhancing food security. It also highlights key challenges, such as greenhouse gas emissions and land-use changes, that need to be addressed for aquaculture to thrive sustainably in the Amazon.

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Fig. 1: Aquaculture is the fastest-growing animal-sourced food system across the five Amazonian countries.
Fig. 2: Aquaculture in the Amazon fits two typologies: extensive, which tends to be developed in subsistence and small-scale systems, and semi-intensive, developed in medium- and large-scale systems.
Fig. 3: Life-cycle assessment suggests aquaculture generally has lower GHG emissions and requires less land compared with traditional livestock, suggesting a smaller environmental footprint for farmed fish species.
Fig. 4: Satellite images from 2013 and 2022 from three sites with constructed fish ponds in Rondônia reveal myriad land-use transitions associated with expanding aquaculture, which need to be integrated into land-use and GHG accounting.
Fig. 5: Ratio of freshwater aquaculture production to cattle production by weight in various Amazon Brazilian states and countries, highlighting the scale and trend of aquaculture compared with traditional cattle farming.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Schmidt Sciences via Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowships to F.S.P. and S.A.H. and AI2050 Senior Fellowship to C.P.G.; the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability (Academic Venture Fund to A.S.F., K.J.F., C.P.G., S.A.S. and X.X.); the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) (awards FA9550-23-1-0322, FA9550-23-1-0569 to C.P.G.); the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) (AI-CLIMATE, award 2023-67021-39829 to C.P.G.); Minas Gerais State Agency for Research and Development (awards APQ-02.629-21, APQ-02946-23 to N.O.B.); Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) (award 316265/2021-7 to N.O.B. and research productivity award 304501/2023-9 to C.D.); the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Research Program in the Amazon (LBA Program) (award to B.R.F.); and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), the Rondônia Research Foundation (FAPERO) and the Tocantins Research Foundation (FAPT) (Amazon+10 Initiative, awards 2022/10443-6, 0012.067737/2022-97 to F.S.P., S.A.H., R.M.A., S.A.S., M.M., N.O.B., J.C., C.C., C.R.D., B.R.F., D.M., J.P.H.B.O., A.T., M.E.U. and A.S.F.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Felipe S. Pacheco, Marcela Miranda, Meredith Holgerson, Xiangtao Xu & Alexander S. Flecker

  2. Department of Public and Ecosystem Health, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Sebastian A. Heilpern, Claire DiLeo & Kathryn J. Fiorella

  3. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Rafael M. Almeida

  4. Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Suresh A. Sethi

  5. Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability Division, National Institute for Space Research, São José dos Campos, Brazil

    Marcela Miranda, Carolina Costa & Jean P. H. B. Ometto

  6. School of Marine Science and Policy, University of Delaware, Lewes, DE, USA

    Nicholas Ray

  7. Department of Biology, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil

    Nathan O. Barros & Fabio Roland

  8. Department of Animal Science, Federal University of Rondônia, Porto Velho, Brazil

    Jucilene Cavali, Carolina R. Doria & Ilce Oliveira

  9. Department of Computer Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Joshua Fan, Laura Greenstreet & Carla P. Gomes

  10. National Institute for Amazonian Research, Manaus, Brazil

    Bruce R. Forsberg & Adry Trindade

  11. School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX, USA

    Marcelo Gomes

  12. Earth Innovation Institute, San Francisco, CA, USA

    David McGrath

  13. Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Peter B. McIntyre

  14. Aquaculture Center, Sao Paulo State University, Jaboticabal, Brazil

    Patricia Moraes-Valenti & Wagner C. Valenti

  15. Embrapa Fisheries and Aquaculture, Palmas, Brazil

    Marta E. Ummus

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Contributions

F.S.P., S.A.H., R.M.A., S.A.S., M.M., N.R. and A.S.F. conceptualized the study. F.S.P. collated information with support from C.D. and S.A.H. F.S.P. wrote the original draft and designed the figures with substantial input from S.A.H., R.M.A., S.A.S., M.M., N.R. and A.S.F. N.O.B., J.C., C.C., C.R.D., J.F., K.J.F., B.R.F., M.G., L.G., M.H., D.M., P.B.M., P.M.-V., I.O., J.P.H.B.O., F.R., A.T., M.E.U., W.C.V., X.X. and C.P.G. provided input and reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Felipe S. Pacheco.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Richard Cottrell and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1 and 2, Table 1 and references.

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Pacheco, F.S., Heilpern, S.A., DiLeo, C. et al. Towards sustainable aquaculture in the Amazon. Nat Sustain 8, 234–244 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01500-w

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