Saturday, October 9, 2010

Four Fish

I just finished reading Four Fish by Paul Greenberg and thought it was an engaging account of how we have managed some of our most important fisheries. It was most intriguing to see how the four main seafood products around the world -  salmon, sea bass, cod and tuna have all been poorly managed and ended up as farmed products which then in turn have also been poorly managed. Our wild fisheries have systematically collapsed around the world and now are creating a market and an industry of farmed seafood that is based on continuing to fish down the food web and pollute our waters. While we should be focusing on supplementing wild fisheries with products that won't further degrade our ecosystem.

Taking fish out of the ocean to feed farmed fish, just doesn't make any sense. And Paul Greenberg illustrates this very well. We must reconsider the species we select for farming. Aquaculture is critical in our seafood production and we have the opportunity to make it "right". We should use species that are selected for their success in an aquacultured environment and use a system that protects the wild species around it.

And don't get me started on genetically modified salmon...

1 comment:

Joe Cavanaugh said...

Well said, Tash. I'll have to pick up a copy of this book right away.