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World's Tallest Sandcastle Built in Denmark

The world's tallest sand sculpture standing 21.16 meters high is seen in Blokhus, Denmark July 7, 2021. Claus Bjoern Larsen/Ritzau Scanpix via REUTERS
The world's tallest sand sculpture standing 21.16 meters high is seen in Blokhus, Denmark July 7, 2021. Claus Bjoern Larsen/Ritzau Scanpix via REUTERS
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World's Tallest Sandcastle Built in Denmark

The world's tallest sand sculpture standing 21.16 meters high is seen in Blokhus, Denmark July 7, 2021. Claus Bjoern Larsen/Ritzau Scanpix via REUTERS
The world's tallest sand sculpture standing 21.16 meters high is seen in Blokhus, Denmark July 7, 2021. Claus Bjoern Larsen/Ritzau Scanpix via REUTERS

In the small seaside town of Blokhus in Denmark, the world's tallest sandcastle has been completed, weighing nearly 5,000 tons and towering over 20 meters high, its designers said Wednesday.

Standing 21.16 meters high (69.4 feet), more than three meters taller than a castle built in Germany in 2019, which previously held the title with its 17.66 meters, according to Guinness World Records.
A total of 4,860 tons of sand make up the intricately decorated structure which is reminiscent of a pyramid.

Its creator, Dutchman Wilfred Stijger, who was assisted by 30 of the world's best sand sculptors, wanted the castle to represent the power of the novel coronavirus over the world since the beginning of the pandemic.

Atop the sandcastle is a model of the virus wearing a crown.

"It's ruling our lives everywhere," Stijger said.

"It tells you what to do.... It tells you to stay away from your family and not go to nice places. Don't do activities, stay home," he added.

To make it more cohesive, the sand contains approximately 10 percent clay and a layer of glue was applied after it was completed so that it could stand up to the chilly and windy conditions of the autumn and winter.

Inhabitants of Blokhus have also been delighted to see local features incorporated into the sandcastle, such as windsurfing and kite-surfing, beach houses, fish and lighthouses.

The castle is expected to stand until the heavy frost sets in, meaning it should last until February or March.

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Farmed Production of Some Fish - and Seaweed - is Soaring

Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File
Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File
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Farmed Production of Some Fish - and Seaweed - is Soaring

Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File
Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File

The amount of farmed seafood we consume -- as opposed to that taken wild from our waters -- is soaring every year, making aquaculture an ever-more important source for many diets, and a response to overfishing.

According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly 99 million tons of aquatic animals (fish, molluscs like oysters and mussels and crustaceans like prawns) were farmed around the world in 2023, five times more than three decades ago.

Since 2022, the farming of aquatic animals has been steadily overtaking fishing around the world -- but with large disparities from species to species.

Fast-growing species

The two biggest sellers on the market in 2023, carp and tilapia, mainly came from freshwater farming, while other widely-consumed fish, like herring, came just from deep sea fishing

Thierry Laugier, a researcher at Ifremer, France's national institute for ocean science and technology, told AFP that fish farmers choose species that grow quickly and with simple requirements, to be able to control the life cycle.

Sales of the most widely farmed fish in Europe, Atlantic salmon, came to 1.9 million tons in 2023, 99 percent of which were farmed.

"We know how to control the ageing or how to launch a reproduction cycle, through injecting hormones," Laugier said.

Asia main producer
Asia is by far the biggest producer of farmed fish, accounting for 92 percent of the 136 million tons -- of both animal and plant species -- produced under manmade conditions in 2023.

"For carp, it comes down to tradition, it has been farmed for thousands of years on the Asian continent," the Ifremer researcher said.

At the other end of the spectrum, sardines and herring are just fished in the oceans, mainly for profitability reasons as some fish grow very slowly.

"It takes around two years to get an adult-sized sardine," Laugier said.

He said farming of some fish has not yet been started as, "for a long time, we thought the ocean was an inexhaustible resource".

Seaweed

Little known in the West, seaweed nevertheless accounts for almost a third of world aquaculture production.

Almost exclusively from Asia, seaweed production increased by nearly 200 percent in two decades, to 38 million tons. It is mainly used in industry, in jellies, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, the expert said.

He said seaweed also has the major advantage of absorbing not just CO2 in the oceans, but also nitrogen and certain pollutants.

"And from an ecological point of view it is better to farm macroalgae than salmon," Laugier said.