Go Blue! Seafood Sustainability

Sea Port Helps Sponsor the SeaWeb Seafood Summit and Proposes a Panel for Next Year Concerning Human Population Dynamics

Sea Port was pleased to help sponsor the SeaWeb Seafood Summit on sustainability held in New Orleans during the week of February 9^th.    It brought together environmental and social justice NGOs with seafood industry players, academics, and federal/state/foreign governments to brainstorm about how to advance the sustainability of our global fisheries and aquaculture production systems.  There was a great spirit of collaboration among all these groups as they united around this shared goal.

The summit brainstorming focused on advancing seafood sustainability by primarily confronting these three aspects:  environmental, social justice, and economic.

                1.  Environmental Aspects: Ocean acidification becoming a stress on marine ecosystems;

                     impact of IUU fishing & ideas to mitigate via improvements in traceability, international

                     enforcement/cooperation, and using incentives; reducing bycatch; restoration of

                     depleted fish stocks; expanded management of forage fish

                2.  Social Justice Aspects:  Ongoing need to combat slave labor and other unfair labor

                     practices in the Thailand seafood industry and around the globe

                3.  Economic Aspects: Working to increase consumer awareness, demand, and trust  in

                     sustainability ecolabels; driving down costs for small farmers and artisanal fishers to 

                     attain certifications and market access; simplifying and unifying sustainability schemes

Sea Port’s Proposal for Next Year’s Seafood Summit

Sea Port proposes that next year the Seafood Summit convenes a panel to confront how our changing world human population dynamics pose multiple and complex challenges to our efforts to maintain worldwide productive and healthy aquatic ecosystems to provide for our future survival.

Some Points for the Human Population Dynamics Panel to confront:

·         It has taken us only 8 generations to expand our world population from 1 Billion roughly 200 years ago to our present level of over 7 Billion and it will take less than two additional generations to reach 10 Billion by the year 2050.  By 2050, over 70% of us will be living in cities and these cities will be predominantly located along marine coastlines, freshwater rivers and lakes, and close to watersheds.  Will 10 Billion people collectively degrade our aquatic ecosystems?  Will there be enough freshwater for aquaculture, agriculture, and all our other needs?  With nearly 3/4^th of the world’s population living in crowded cities in 35 years, will respect and appreciation for our natural environment wane?

·         An ever-growing population increases the likelihood of additional atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, freshwater and marine pollution, and coastal and riparian habitat losses.  Will new technologies prevent these negative impacts?

·         An ever-increasing economic middle class increases the likelihood that a greater number of people will demand more seafood.  Will there be enough seafood to meet this demand?

Sea Port firmly believes that human population dynamics is a critical variable worthy of its own panel at the next SeaWeb Seafood Summit where we will all once again convene to brainstorm on how we can assure that our wondrous blue planet continues to sustain us as our numbers increase to unprecedented levels.