Since 2015, China has built 169 “national demonstration ranches”—including Genghai No. 1—and scores of smaller-scale facilities, which collectively have laid 67 million cubic meters of artificial reefs and planted an area the size of Manhattan with seagrass, while releasing at least 167 billion juvenile fish and shellfish into the ocean. The Chinese government sees this work as an urgent and necessary response to the bleak reality that fisheries are collapsing both in China and worldwide, with catches off China’s coast declining 18% in less than a decade. In the face of that decline, marine ranches could offer an enticing win-win: a way to restore wild marine ecosystems while boosting fishery hauls.
