Elephant in the Room?

Environmentally Destructive Human Activities That Take Place on Land May Ultimately Determine the Health of Our Marine Living Resources

Now is the time for the proponents of the Ecosystem Approach to Marine life Management to more fully confront the environmental damages that arise from land based human activities.  Broadly speaking, ocean ecosystems are not protected enough from the negative environmental by-products arising from our ever expanding world population as it struggles to feed, clothe, house, create products, transport, and heat/cool itself.

1.  Worldwide, runoffs of agricultural fertilizers/pesticides, industrial wastes, and sewers have caused a growing number of coastal “dead zones” where very little marine life can live due to oxygen depletion or other toxicities.  There are over 400 of these dead zones that persist or exist periodically each year around the globe.  These types of runoffs will most likely continue to increase along with our ever-growing population and create additional problems that may negatively affect the entire structure of the ocean food web.

2.  The global burning of fossil fuels, wood, and other organic matter to provide energy for a growing world population produces excessive greenhouse gases and airborne particulates that increase global warming and the acidity of our oceans.  Ocean acidification has been linked to inhibiting the ability of shellfish larvae and certain plankton to incorporate calcium into their bodies to assure their proper development and survival.  It is possible that the emerging negative consequences of ocean acidification will make all historical overfishing damages look tame by comparison. 

3.  Worldwide, people are increasingly building on marine coastlines and in riparian zones resulting in the destruction of estuaries, swamplands, marshes, mangrove forests, and watersheds.  This results in the degradation of productive coastal marine and riparian habitats that have for millions of years served as nurseries and homes to a vast diversity of aquatic life.  This continual loss of productive marine coastlines and riparian zones may prove to be much more negative in the long run than any overfishing activities currently happening around the world today.

Many environmental activists call for the establishment of marine reserves to allow for the recovery of ocean habitats that have been damaged by irresponsible fishing.  They advocate that 10% to 50% of our oceans be placed in such reserves.  They want approximately 80% of these reserves to be located near the coastlines of the world.  These marine areas, unfortunately, are where most of the negative environmental influences coming from the land-based activities of humans mentioned above tend to manifest themselves.

Without NGOs and nations taking a more aggressive role in confronting our growing world population with its concomitant environmental impacts, all our efforts to manage fisheries or to create marine reserves may ultimately prove to be too narrow-minded.  The Ecosystem Approach to Marine life Management needs to broaden its perspective to incorporate the negative environmental by-products of the land based activities of an ever-expanding world population that may reach 10 billion by the year 2050.  Now is the time to more fully confront this elephant in the room that we too often seem to ignore.

The U.S. Commerce Department May Levy Countervailing Duties on Imported Farmed Shrimp

Countervailing will be Unavailing

Sea Port foresees farmed shrimp Countervailing Duties as being unavailing for improving the economic lives of U.S. Shrimpers, U.S. Consumers, and for the many shrimp farmers of Indo-Asia-Pacific Developing Countries.  Implementation of such duties would make the cost of shrimp (America’s favorite seafood) more expensive and therefore less affordable to all U.S. consumers.

Sea Port believes Countervailing will be Unavailing in improving the marketing, production/processing efficiencies, and environmental impacts of the U.S. Gulf wild shrimp fishery.

Sea Port believes Countervailing will be Unavailing in improving the poverty levels of developing countries that have expanding shrimp aquaculture that is designed to help lift families out of such poverty.

Sea Port believes Countervailing will be Unavailing in promoting U.S. consumers to consume more affordable seafood to improve their health.

In short, Countervailing will be Unavailing for the majority of shrimp producers and consumers and only has a chance of benefiting a very few politically connected U.S. wild shrimp fishery participants.

Sea Port believes that Countervailing and Unavailing need to be replaced with Prevailing:

Prevailing should be what the U.S. Shrimpers are doing in their efforts to market their wild catch as distinguishable from farmed imported shrimp, advance their production and processing efficiencies, and to lessen their environmental impacts due to trawling and by-catch.

Prevailing should be what Indo-Asia-Pacific developing countries are doing in their struggle to alleviate poverty by expanding not only shrimp aquaculture but other farmed seafood species as well.

Prevailing should be what U.S. consumers are doing in their quest to improve their health by consuming more affordable shrimp and other seafood.

In short, Prevailing should be what the majority does over the minority who resort to using politics and barriers to achieve benefits rather than using constructive creativity for which the seafood industry is proudly known.

Sea Port is optimistic that the constructively creative seafood industry will continue to prevail in its quest to provide more affordable healthy seafood for an ever-expanding world population in spite of any possible farmed shrimp Countervailing Duties that we find quite unavailing in many respects.

    Sea Port Opposes Mining in the Salmonid Ecosystems of  

the Bristol Bay Watershed in Alaska

To:  United States Environmental Protection Agency

Sea Port Products Corporation is in the business of providing healthy seafood for human consumption in the United States.  Through our many corporate Go Blue! initiatives, we demonstrate our responsibility to help maintain and improve the health of our world’s productive aquatic resources that we ultimately depend upon for our business success.  In short, in order to sell healthy seafood we need to have sustainably healthy waters in our marine and freshwater ecosystems.  We oppose mining in the Bristol Bay watershed because we believe that such activities would negatively affect the health and productive capacity of both the marine and freshwater habitats that are crucial for sustaining the bountiful production of salmonids in this World Heritage class natural wonderland.  The EPA should share this same sense of responsibility and wholeheartedly exercise their authority as outlined in the Clean Water Act to join Sea Port’s opposition to mining activities in this region.

Historically, rivers in the Pacific Northwest  were dammed and watersheds were altered that resulted in sacrificing the abundant natural salmon runs in order to grow irrigated crops, produce electricity, and harvest lumber.   Even though these massive salmon runs of the past were negatively impacted, great benefits arose that helped feed, clothe, shelter, and economically advance the growing population of that time.   The costs of losing the enormous salmon runs were less than the many ensuing benefits that helped support the growing population.  Seen in this light, Sea Port further opposes mining in the Bristol Bay watershed because we believe the environmental costs are not sufficiently outweighed by any possible mining benefits conferred to the people of Alaska in terms of providing basic human needs or broad based economic opportunities.  Incidentally, the University of Alaska’s Anchorage Institute of Economic and Social Research just released a report that revealed that the Bristol Bay salmon industry produces $1.5 billion per year in economic output on a national basis.  The report details for the first time the actual economic impacts that Bristol Bay has on the State of Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and the rest of the United States. It supports over 12,000 jobs in fishing and processing, plus generates another 7,800 jobs across the country in retailing, restaurants, warehousing and other ancillary services.

Sea Port foresees that the majority of the additional animal protein needed for the world’s growing population, which is estimated to reach over 9 billion by 2050, will have to come from our aquatic resources. Sea Port believes that the Earth’s available arable soil and pasturelands have been maximized and therefore our future terrestrial food production capabilities face serious constraints. In light of this, Sea Port opposes mining in the Bristol Bay watershed because such activities would harm a valuable wild aquatic habitat that is destined to become increasingly critical for food production as our growing world population demands healthy consumable proteins.

In summary, Sea Port opposes mining in the Bristol Bay watershed because our future food supply will depend heavily upon the 70% of our planet that is aquatic and any human activities that negatively impact its productive potential should be avoided.  Sea Port pleads with the EPA to join with us in opposing mining activities in this world famous natural salmon producing wonderland.

Working together to Advance Seafood Sustainability

Current Farmed Shrimp Mortality Problems Due to EMS are Only a Bump along the Road

Shrimp aquaculture on a large commercial scale is less than 30 years old and is certainly in its infancy when compared to the long history of the production of beef, pork, and chicken.   Beef, pork, and chicken have over a 3000-year head start on shrimp farming and in modern times governments around the world have devoted great resources to identify, treat, and prevent diseases that have emerged in the production of these vitally important land based domesticated animal species.

Currently the very young shrimp farming industry is going through growing pains exemplified by losses due to both known and unknown disease, culture and seeding processes.   This is currently exemplified by the emergence of EMS which is short for “early mortality syndrome”. EMS is causing dramatic pond losses of juvenile shrimp in several S.E. Asian production areas and as of late, the exact cause (bacterial, viral, genetic, combination of factors, etc.) has not been definitively identified.

I have no doubts that the cause of EMS will be discovered in the near future and/or that changes in aquaculture practices will prevent it from developing at farm sites in the first place.  At present, there are ongoing efforts around the world by both shrimp farmers and scientists to improve shrimp culture as it strives to catch up with the successes that land based animal protein production systems have seen in terms of disease prevention and farming efficiencies.

While today EMS mortality news is the hottest topic in the world of farmed shrimp, it is important to view this as just a bump along the road as shrimp aquaculture travels towards becoming a more mature, healthy, and efficient protein production system.

EMS ?….this too shall pass.

Correlation Between Efficient Food Production and Technological Advancement

Most Technological Developments Were Made Possible By the Advancing Efficiency in Land-based Food Production Over the Past Several Thousand Years.  What Role Will Aquaculture and Our Oceans Play in Enabling any Future Technological Advancements?

Technological advancements such as auto engines, harnessing electricity, machines, vaccines, the internet, computers, or cellphones have all been made possible because humans became efficient land-based food producers and this allowed a shrinking few to produce the food for a growing many.  This freed creative minds from constantly contemplating how to obtain food from hunting, gathering, or farming.  Once freed from this all-consuming quest for food, the creative potential of the human mind blossomed to invent all the luxuries and necessities that we take for granted today.  Without this few producing food for the many, we may have never reached our current state of technological advancement where most of us now regard cellphones as absolute necessities.

Humans have nearly maximized the productive capacity of the Earth’s terrestrial resources through domesticating its wild plants and animals and claiming productive land areas for planting crops and grazing livestock.  This has resulted in the supplanting of nearly all the original terrestrial wild species and their habitats.  For humans to continue to advance technologically, the food supply may need to expand.  What roles will aquaculture and our ocean resources play in this?

·       Is it inevitable that humans will come to dominate the oceans (as they have come to dominate the land) by domesticating more aquatic animals and plants and claiming more areas for aquaculture?

·       Is it inevitable that someday ocean aquaculture will supplant wild fisheries much like agriculture eventually replaced land-based hunting and gathering practices?

·       Is it inevitable that our oceans will someday cease to provide windows showing what ocean life was like on Earth before humans became dominant?

Please feel free to add your comments concerning what roles aquaculture and our oceans will play in helping assure that humans remain able to advance technology.

2013 Fish-wishes

Five Wishes to improve the Seafood Industry in 2013

Eliminate Seafood Fraud

Eliminate Unfair Labor Practices

Eliminate Overfishing

Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing

Eliminate the politics from the science when evaluating potential advancements in aquaculture using genetically modified aquatic species.

Please feel free to add to this wish list for improving the seafood industry for 2013 by leaving your comments.

   

Wishing a Very Happy New Year to All !