The Sundarbans Aquaculture Model has earned a prestigious global popularity from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for its pioneering approach that harmonizes sustainable aquaculture with mangrove conservation. Declared during FAO’s 80th-anniversary celebrations and the World Food Forum in Rome in October 2025, this recognition illustrates how community-led innovation can thrive even in the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions.

Advancing in the delicate delta ecosystem of West Bengal, the Sundarbans Aquaculture Model, which is also known as the SAIME initiative, showcases how aquaculture can flourish without any compromise in biodiversity. Its success is now being praised as a breakthrough in balancing livelihood, ecology, and resilience for coastal communities.

Modifying Livelihoods Through Sustainable Practices

The Sundarbans Aquaculture Model integrates low-impact fish and shrimp farming within mangrove landscapes, ensuring between 5% and 30% mangrove cover inside pond embankments. After a few years of implementation, the pilot currently spans 29.84 hectares and directly benefits 42 farmers across the South 24 Parganas district.

These farmers cultivate black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) through tidal water exchange systems that depend on natural mangrove litter for nutrients, cutting down the requirement for artificial feed and chemicals. The outcome is a two-fold rise in average net profits as compared with conventional aquaculture systems.

Above all, the move also empowers marginalized groups. Women’s cooperatives and local self-help groups manage nursery ponds, making sure that there’s fair participation and income sharing. Supported by state fisheries departments and research partners, the Sundarbans Aquaculture Model has become a powerful local governance model and created a blueprint for inclusive resource management.

Globally, aquaculture expansion has usually come at an ecological cost. Research documented in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change displays that shrimp farming individually has contributed to nearly 38% of total mangrove loss in tropical regions. The SAIME model reverses this trend by using mangroves not as hurdles but as allies in productivity. With aquaculture production (excluding seaweed) reaching 87.5 million tonnes in 2020, sustainable practices like SAIME are crucial to maintaining ecosystem balance.

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Key Highlights of the Recognition

• The FAO commended the Sundarbans Aquaculture Model for its community-driven governance system, which gave rise to trust and accountability among local farmers.
• It was recognized for enhancing food security while keeping biodiversity secure, proving that ecological balance can coexist with economic progress.
• The model highlights strong climate resilience, effectively countering salinity intrusion and rapid flooding in the delta region.
• FAO illustrated it as a replicable framework that can guide sustainable aquaculture in other coastal and deltaic regions worldwide.

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A Blueprint for the Future

The FAO’s recognition of the Sundarbans Aquaculture Model reaffirms India’s increasing leadership in climate-resilient aquaculture. By tying traditional ecological knowledge with modern sustainability principles, the model positions mangrove-based aquaculture as a lifeline for both nature and people.

As projected in the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2025-2034, global aquaculture production is expected to reach 212 million tonnes by 2034, emphasising the urgency for responsible models like SAIME. If scaled up, such systems could revolutionize aquaculture all over Southeast Asia, West Africa, and other coastal deltas, which are vulnerable to climate change.

The Sundarbans Aquaculture Model ultimately stands as proof that there’s no need for sustainability and profit to be opposites. It bridges livelihood and ecology, resilience and regeneration – showing the world that nurturing mangroves and nurturing people can indeed go hand in hand.

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