The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

Aquaponics is the symbiotic cultivation ofplants and aquatic animals in arecirculating environment, to maximizethe use of the energy and nutrients in thesystem in order to harvest the greatest amount of vegetables andfish protein from the system. By combining the fish, water andplants, aquaponics systems use an integrated environment toproduce vegetables and fish in very small space, with very littlewater and land use.The term Aquaponics is derived from the combination ofhydroponics (soilless agriculture) and recirculating aquaculture(fish farming). The reference Village Aquaponics refers to anaquaponic system utilizing low-­‐tech systems specifically set upfor the purpose of providing a protein crop (the fish) and avegetable, herb or fruit crop (the plants) to a specific rural areasurrounding the operation. The primary advantage of VillageAquaponics is that it significantly reduces the land area requiredand is far less destructive than traditional horticultural practicesand it also mitigates the primary negative aspect of aquaculture -­‐water pollution from waste resulting from high density fishpopulations in a restricted area.A Portable Farms Aquaponics System is aclosed-­‐loop food production facility housed ina climatically adapted structure and requiringthe input of some energy in order to grow very large quantities ofproduce and fish in a small area. The energy input includes boththe fish food and some electricity, which can be solar or windgenerated, to pump the air and water used in the system. Itrequires no other fertilizers, pest controls, added chemicals oradditives. Typically, in rural areas, fish food can be locallyproduced through insect harvesting and cultivation.The aquaponics system duplicates what nature has been doingfor billions of years. The water, containing the fish waste, ispumped out of the fish tanks to a settling tank, where the solidssettle to the bottom of the tank while the nutrient-­‐rich waterthen flows, by gravity, through a series of trays where the plantsare growing, and then back into the fish tanks. The small amountof separated fish-­‐waste water in the settling tank is drained off atregular intervals, and can be used to fertilize crops such as trees,ornamentals or lawns.Significant reduction of environmental destructionfrom traditional slash and burn horticultural andfishing practices, replaced by small footprint, highoutput intensive production of fish protein and organicvegetable farming.Significant reduction of land clearing and methaneproduction from cattle through substitution of fishprotein.The 90 produces 70,000 vegetables and 21,000 pounds of fishper year.The cycle of the water flowing through the system repeats itselfseveral times each day. Some make-­‐up water has to be added atregular intervals to compensate for the water used in the settlingtank cleaning, and for the water used by the plants for growth(transpiration) -­‐ a simple, elegant system requiring very littleenergy to produce high quantities of locally grown food.137