A Sequential Gated Research Framework for Addressing Potential Impacts of Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal on Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Indigenous Communities

Marine ecosystems are at risk due to the increasing pressures of climate change and other human activities. Fisheries and aquaculture, which employ 61.8 million people worldwide and supply similar to 20% of human animal protein demand, are sectors that critically rely on healthy marine ecosystems. Marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) encompasses a portfolio of novel approaches that aim to mimic natural processes to increase the ocean's uptake and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide through intentional human interventions in the marine environment. Alongside verifying the efficacy of mCDR techniques, their environmental and social impact must also be assessed to enable informed decisions about what, if any, research, development, and deployment of mCDR should move forward, accounting for the full spectrum of benefits, costs, and trade-offs and in comparison with other CDR interventions. Evaluating the footprint of mCDR requires identifying and understanding positive and negative impacts beyond carbon dioxide removal. Here, we provide a multi-stage research framework for mCDR project developers to assess these interdisciplinary impacts, specifically in relation to marine ecosystems, fisheries, and aquaculture. This framework considers how projects can implement these recommendations across five research phases, using a stage-gated approach that focuses on: Stage 0, Planning; Stage 1, Baseline Assessment and Experiments; Stage 2, Pilot Field Trial; Stage 3, Scaled-up Field Trial; and Stage 4, Operational Deployment and Long-term Monitoring. As an interdisciplinary team of academic and government scientists, non-governmental organizations, and fisheries and Indigenous community members, we offer this framework as a high-level user guide for projects to consider impacts through a fisheries and aquaculture lens. We point to current frameworks when possible and outline additional considerations that can be addressed as research scales.