BIODIVERSITY

Protein, biodiversity and the risk of shifting the problem: sea vs land in the food agenda

London, 16 January 2026 | A new IFFO-backed paper argues that replacing responsibly managed marine protein with land-based alternatives could intensify biodiversity pressures through land-use change

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With the entry into force of the BBNJ agreement (Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction) – the international treaty known as the High Seas Treaty, which will begin to apply tomorrow, 17 January 2026 – the debate over how to protect biodiversity without compromising global food security is intensifying once again.

The treaty marks a milestone by establishing, for the first time, a comprehensive legal framework to conserve and sustainably use marine biodiversity in international waters. It also paves the way for the creation of Marine Protected Areas on the high seas and requires environmental impact assessments for potentially harmful activities beyond national jurisdiction.

Against this backdrop, IFFO (The Marine Ingredients Organisation), which represents the interests of the marine ingredients sector, has highlighted a new open-access scientific paper published in Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture, led by Duncan Leadbitter (University of Wollongong).

The paper stems from an IFFO-funded workshop and focuses on a risk that is rarely discussed in depth: that certain sustainability strategies may end up shifting biodiversity impacts from the ocean to land, rather than reducing them overall.

Both the article and IFFO’s accompanying statement argue that population growth and rising food demand are accelerating global production, driving land – use change – widely linked to biodiversity loss. Among the figures cited, the paper notes that around 83% of global agricultural expansion during the 1980s and 1990s replaced tropical forest, illustrating how the need to produce more food can have direct consequences for biodiversity-rich ecosystems.

On that basis, the paper suggests that replacing animal protein from marine capture fisheries with animal protein produced through agriculture and livestock farming would “likely” increase threats to biodiversity. The argument rests on a central premise: even allowing for differences between production models, there is limited scope to expand food production on land without removing native vegetation – particularly in regions where agricultural frontiers continue to put pressure on natural habitats.

IFFO positions seafood within sustainable food systems, emphasising in particular the role of responsibly managed fisheries.

In its statement, IFFO’s Technical Director, Brett Glencross, said more tools are needed to enable “objective and localised comparisons” between the biodiversity impacts of land-based animal protein production and marine capture fisheries. IFFO also says it has launched a pilot project aimed at developing a biodiversity framework with indicators to help measure impacts and guide decision-making.

The emphasis on “localised” metrics reflects a structural challenge in this debate: biodiversity does not behave as a single, universal indicator. Impacts vary depending on the ecosystem, fishing method, target species, management effectiveness, compliance, and cumulative pressures—making direct comparisons between systems far from straightforward.

In one of the estimates released alongside the paper, Leadbitter argues that replacing all animal protein sourced form marine fisheries would require almost 5 million km2 of additional land, and that replacing all fishery-derived products used in aquaculture diets would mean converting more than 47,000 km2 of new land to agricultural production. According to this reasoning, such figures illustrate a potential “rebound effect”: reducing reliance on marine protein without a system-level assessment could multiply pressures on terrestrial ecosystems.

With the BBNJ now taking effect, the debate over whether we should favour marine or land-based protein is being reframed – and the need to measure and compare impacts with solid evidence becomes harder to ignore, if sustainability solutions are to avoid simply shifting environmental pressure form one ecosystem to another.