“If we get it right, the seas and oceans can help feed the world and offset the growing pressure on farmland. If we get it wrong, it could spell disaster for the environment,” says Slaughter.

With predictions suggesting that its fisheries will see a 25 percent drop in productivity by 2050, and with this decline in catches being exacerbated by a shifting climate, there’s a very real possibility that food shortages and public health crises will become a reality for Palau over the coming decades. Already, on an island where fish has historically provided the main dietary source of protein, highly processed foodstuffs like canned meat are increasingly top of many people’s shopping lists. This is creating predictably grim repercussions for public health, which could only accelerate as supplies of locally caught wild fish continue to dwindle.

Applying ecological and biophysical modelling methodologies, we’ll ensure sites are appropriate for candidate aquaculture species and are as “future-proof” and resilient as possible to emerging, climate-driven threats. Critical to these analyses will be remotely sensed data provided by satellites, which include bathymetry, chlorophyll and sea-surface temperature.