It's not just salmon: take a fresh look at our fishing & eating habits

The Greenwash Brigade

I was saddened to see today's news that West Coast salmon fishing had to be abruptly halted due to a 93% freefall in the number of spawning fish over the last six years. Just like I've urged a deep look at how our short-term energy decisions have us on the road to a dangerous climate future, near-sighted fishing choices are dooming more species (and the fishermen that depend on them) toward collapse every year.

I just read much of Carl Safina's Song for the Blue Ocean, which is a moving exploration of the world's fishing industry. Safina describes many amazing creatures that land-dwellers like myself only get to see when we're looking down, fork-in-hand, at our dinner plates. The focus of the book is on the bluefin tuna, their dwindling numbers, and the powerful industries from Japan to New England that exacerbate the situation.

The behavior he describes of overfishing until fishery collapse is nothing new. Even Cape Cod couldn't prevent the destruction of its namesake. The National Marine Fisheries Service is mostly led by industry interests who set annual quotas that are too high (and often unenforced) to allow fish to recover from the overfishing of the last few decades.

With a world human population still on the rise, the strain on natural resources continues to increase. Now that food prices are causing riots throughout the developing world, it is clear to see that these strains seriously threaten both the health of the world's poor and the security of home countries. This situation may not get under control unless we quickly stop the growth of current food-to-fuels programs like corn ethanol in the US and we become educated food consumers - lowering our consumption of fish that are not responsibly caught and of meat since it's so much more efficient for us to get energy directly from vegetables (notice I didn't say everyone has to be vegetarian - but lowering consumption is a great strategy to help the poor not have to compete with so many cows and pigs for basic foods).

While part of the recent decline in Sacramento is due to natural variations, I hope any West Coast fishing interests that lobbied for high salmon quotas these past few years take their folly to heart. If they had lowered their hauls they probably wouldn't have had to completely halt their operations this year (and now taxpayers are gonna have to bail them out). So, what's best for jobs? A sustainable environment that breeds abundance and fishermen (or loggers -- you name it) who are patient enough to understand our world's natural limits.

We didn't learn enough from the tragedies of the bison and the passenger pigeon. We haven't yet learned enough from the collapse of most of the predatory fish of our wild oceans to set up the policies and consumer habits that foster recovery for those that haven't yet fully collapsed.

The question is, are we smart enough as a nation and a global community to finally take this story of the Chinook salmon's collapse to heart and lower the quotas for fishing across the board to levels that allow a recovery in populations and a larger yield for the fishermen of tomorrow?

April 11, 2008 by Dennis Markatos
2 comments

tags: energy fishing oceans salmon sustainability

Comments (2)

Don Loney | Respond
April 29, 2008 4:14 PM PT

Dear Dennis,

When you speak of environmental tragedies, there's an infamous made-in-Canada example on the Grand Banks. With a moratorium on cod fishing declared some 16 years ago by the Canadian federal government, in the interim there has been a paucity of investigation to find out what actually happened. With whom does accountability lie? People who are interested in the story can read more in Who Killed the Grand Banks, by Alex Rose, which has just been published by Wiley. (For transparency's sake, I am the commissioning editor.) The oil sands in Alberta are an environmental disaster and, as you point out, salmon stocks on the west coast are depleted. Rapacity has to be stopped.

Edel Sanders | Respond
June 10, 2008 7:36 AM PT

Dear Dennis,

Thank you for bringing up the need to reduce meat (of all forms, including fish) consumption. The public needs to know more about valid studies that show the extensive environmental damage and world food imbalances that are due to meat production such as recent ones by the United Nations and the University of Chicago, both respected for their high standards of research. It is sad that we have to feel apologetic for mentioning it - I believe that will change when more people are educated on the matter.

Please continue your excellent work!

All the best,

Edel Sanders
BA, MA, EdM
Columbia University

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Meet the Greenwash Brigade

Our hand-picked environmental professionals, each part of the Public Insight Network, are on the hunt for "greenwash" as they examine eco-friendly claims by companies, governments and other groups. They ask tough questions about the mainstreaming of green, from the perspectives of people in the trenches who are focused on these issues 24/7.

Jim Nicolow is a nationally recognized expert on sustainable design and leads the sustainability initiative for Lord, Aeck & Sargent, overseeing the incorporation of sustainable design strategies and features into the firm’s design projects. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional with extensive knowledge of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system.

Janne K. Flisrand has worked as an affordable housing and urban planning research consultant for five years, primarily supporting local non-profits. Her focus is on transit, transit-oriented design, affordable housing, and sustainability. Currently, she’s the program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities, a program promoting affordable, healthy, sustainably built housing throughout Minnesota.

Dennis Markatos-Soriano recently completed a Master's in Public Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is now launching Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) to help individuals and institutions move from dependence on oil and gas to an efficient use of renewables. Previously, he co-founded SURGE (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment), which aims to bring young progressives together across issues of environmental and social justice throughout North Carolina and beyond. In the summer of 2006, he helped to start a small green company, Greenway Pedicabs, to provide a greenhouse gas-free transportation option for people in the Triangle of North Carolina.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal with Calyx Sustainable Tourism and works primarily on advancing sustainable tourism practices. She also specializes in science translation, cross-border indicators with Canada, cross-disciplinary planning and environmental technical assistance to businesses. Previously, she was in-house legal counsel for EPA for industrial chemicals and biotechnology and the senior performance measure analyst with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She is on the technical advisory committee of the Seattle Culinary Academy and a long standing member of the Chefs Collaborative.

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