Coastal Zones

Biography

Biography: Sulaiman O Olanrewaju

Abstract

Seaweed farming has become one of the natural resources which are economically important. In 2012, the global seaweed trade and industry was worth USD 6.4 billion with production of 23.4 million MT seaweeds (FAO 2014). Malaysia produced only 331,490 MT wet wt. worth USD 64.4 million in 2012 (FAO 2014). Our work share the view of the FAO (2005) that our green biomass production has to grow with 70% in order to give the 10 billion inhabitants of our planet at the midst of the 21st century their primary needs by concentrating on development of technology platform for large scale offshore aquaculture cultivation. The existing cultivation system for seaweed are not environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development. The study present work on socio-economic and sustainable development project, reliable, scientific based and verifiable cultivation technologies for offshore and onshore oceanic farming and local capability of existing method towards novel products will be developed. The project focuses on synergy of marine biology and ocean engineering for development of proper marine technology aquaculture floating system for large scale seaweed cultivation onshore and offshore. The project aim to provide supplementary income to fishermen in rural areas by selling seaweed as a cash crop and enhanced effective use of ocean resources. The ocean farming technology is useful for climate change mitigation, coastal erosion mitigation, bioremediation, functional food, medicine, and range of natural biotech products.