Green Seafood

Manky's Seafood is Green.

Education as to Crisis:
Things you learn in WTO class.... There is a huge, dangerous, gawd-awful crisis brewing in our fisheries. We're burning through our seafood with a combination of overfishing and destructive fishing practices. I had no idea it was so bad. I findof figured that the government had guidelines in place and some fishing permit scheme worked out and it probably wasn't that bad. I had no idea that some fishing nets were 31 miles long and left out overnight. I'd heard there were dolphins in the tuna nets, but I thought that 'dolphin safe' was, you know, safe. (It's not 'safe' it's just 'safer than the old way' - American fishermen kill 2,000 instead of 15,000). I figured that when we pulled up a netful of fish there were a few 'Ooops' in there, but I thought those just got thrown back into the water. I had no idea that the 'Ooops,' which are called bycatch, made up 25% of what we catch, and that by the time we reel them in, sort them out, and throw them back, most of them are already dead. I never pictured seals and puffins tangled up in nets, drowning. Bycatch became the topic of my paper for WTO class and my first Green Project.

I turns out that we are seriously misbehaving. And if we don't stop, we're going to be in serious trouble. We over-fish a lot. And when we fish, we use destructive fishing methods, like trawling, that wipe out ALL the organisms - both the ones we want and the ones that support the ones we want. We clear-cut the ocean floor, kill all the plants and sponges and coral. Then the little tiny fish that used to live in them are starving and homeless, and probably take to alcohol to drown their sorrows. Then the fish we want can't grow up in that neighborhood. We ensnare tons of bycatch (27 million tons, according to the UN). Bycatch includes cute stuff like dolphins, endangered stuff like sea turtles, and stuff that even Republicans would admit we need in the ocean - like the juveniles of the species we like to eat. We kill 100 million sharks every year. That is throwing the ecosystem out of whack. For example, there are scallop fisheries on the east coast that had to CLOSE because there were no sharks to keep the scallop-eating skates and rays at bay. No sharks = no scallops. Nobody's checked on the oysters yet but I bet they are getting nervous.

Education as to Politics:
And every time NGO's try to do something about it, every country says that it is every other country's fault, and then they say NGO's don't have standing to sue in any of the international forums. Every time somebody says 'Those should be protected under the Endangered Species Act' somebody who fishes them for a living says 'You don't know how many there are, you need more data, do another study. Oh, you do know how many there are? Well, uh, you don't know how many there used to be. How do you know it wasn't always like this? Do a long term study. Oh, you have that too? Well, um... ok prove it was OUR fault that the population has decreased by 90% in the past 20 years. You don't know WHY all the fish are missing. Maybe it's not our fault. We're not convinced it was us. Now if you'll excuse us, we have some fishing to do.'

And THEN, when somebody DOES pass a law (like the US saying you have to put trap doors in your shrimp nets to let the sea turtles out) all the developing countries kick up a fuss about sovereignty and state's rights and whitey's secret agenda. And THEN the WTO says "That measure is protectionist. You can't do that."

It is really, really hard to regulate international fisheries. And it takes forever to reach an agreement. And to get countries to agree, you have to make compromises that are based on things like a cultural fetish for shark-fin soup, rather than enacting measures based on sound husbandry principles or an evaluation of what's necessary for the health of the fisheries.

Prognosis:
One third of the world's fisheries have already collapsed and the rest will go out in the next 50 years if we don't change something.

Solution: Educate the Consumer
I had no idea it was like that. I thought that, with the government controlling fishing permits and so forth, it was ok for me to eat whatever was on the legal market. I was an uneducated consumer, and for that I am ashamed.
This is a little chart of what seafoods are being harvested responsibly and what seafoods aren't. Some fish are not being overfished, and some fishing methods don't kill that many other animals, and some farms are safe (some farms aren't), so there are some seafoods that won't contribute to this huge problem. I have a credit-card sized one in my wallet because I can never remember.
Guide to Seafood HERE
That webpage also has a more extended library of fish-files as well. I think I'll peruse the salmon and tuna entries at a later date (like, after finals) and educate myself - before my next sushi date. I'm also reading the webpage for the organization that evaluates fisheries, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). http://eng.msc.org/
I'm all educated now - I even watched videos of shrimp trawling, and of turtles escaping through trapdoors in shrimp nets. I have to say, shrimp trawling is totally evil and I have no idea why we let it continue. Isn't there a shortage of teachers in this country? Shrimp fishermen need to find new jobs.

To Do List:

• When grocery shopping, only buy seafood that has the Marine Stewardship Council's logo (MSC) for sustainable fisheries. Apply market pressure to change destructive fishing practices!
  
• When eating out, ask where the seafood came from.
• If the restaurant is offering red-coded seafood on the menu, show pictures of dead dolphins to the waitstaff.
  
• Don't eat seafood that is listed on the red-code (bad) list or the yellow-code (warning) list from the Seafood Watch guide HERE.
• Don't let Mom and Dad eat seafood from the red-code list.
• Start a scholarship fund / family assistance program to re-educate shrimp fishermen to be teachers.
  

Success: I'm only eating green-coded or MSC-stamped seafood from here on out. Brian has promised to do the same (except for squid, which are yellow-coded) for two years. I've printed out pictures of dead dolphins and cute puffins drowned in fishnets to show to waitstaff at restaurants I discover selling red-coded seafood. Except for funding the Shrimp Fishermens' Memorial Scholarship, I think I've greened up my seafood. I'm going to call Manky's Green Seafood a success and move my green thumb on to the next area.