I am king for a day
In my little world, celebrations and holidays just aren’t complete without copious amounts of food. My birthday is no exception – I look forward to it every year as an excuse to throw caution (and, perhaps, responsibility) to the wind and to indulge myself. I like to get together with loved ones and either cook up a feast or dine at some up-and-coming restaurant that I’ve been salivating over for months.
I realize I talk a lot about moderation on this blog — staying away from critically endangered delicacies like bluefin tuna, not eating sushi four times a week, and all that — and I stand by it. But there’s a time and a place for celebration, and that’s important too. Not that I would eat bluefin tuna even for a holiday banquet, but I just might gorge myself a little bit (or a lot) on some sort of sustainable delight and fall asleep on the couch. My birthday is not a good day to be a crawfish, believe me.
Anyhow, my thirty-second rolled around last week, and as per my usual routine, I decided to celebrate with a feel-good dinner. This time, though, I went about things in a slightly different way.
This year, I went to Safeway for my birthday.
I know that sounds like a bit of an odd place to celebrate, but I felt it was important to pay Safeway a visit. See, the company had just done something very special – something that deserved celebration far more than me surviving another trip around the sun. But by a fun coincidence, both events happened to occur on the same day.
Out of sight, but no longer out of mind
On April 7, 2011, Safeway went public with a commitment to avoid purchasing seafood from the imperiled Ross Sea – the world’s last remaining relatively pristine ocean ecosystem. The company then took a second step by publicly encouraging all countries involved in Antarctic fishery governance (this takes place within under the aegis of a management authority known as the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine and Living Resources, abbreviated CCAMLR and confusingly pronounced “cam-lar”) to designate the Ross Sea a marine protected area.
This is huge.
Of all the major seafood retailers in the United States, only one other company – Wegmans, a well-regarded and progressive grocery chain in the Northeastern United States – has made such a statement in support of the Ross Sea. It’s nearly unheard of for a retail operation to foray into the political sphere in the name of the conservation movement. And Safeway, with the buying power of over 1700 stores, is an extremely powerful voice – just the kind of voice we need on the side of ocean conservation if we are to have any hope of protecting and resuscitating our ailing seas.
Chilean sea bass: seal food, not people food
I admit to being a borderline fanatic when it comes to Ross Sea conservation, but it’s of critical importance. Not only is it a unique and invaluable ecosystem for a myriad of reasons, both scientific and ecological, but sending fishing vessels to this far-flung area raises a host of red flags from a sustainability perspective. It goes beyond issues relating to discrete fishery management and into a larger philosophical realm, which is where the core battle for sustainability needs to be fought.
I know I’ve said this before, but it merits repeating: sustainable fishing simply cannot occur when the fishery in question exists only as a reaction to an out-of-balance food system. We have depleted the fish closer to our homes and cities, so we sail ever outward in search of more – but there is a limit. The Earth is finite. Industrial fishing in the Ross Sea – or anywhere so far from human habitation and so close to the “end of the world,” as it were – must end if we are to develop a balanced and healthy relationship with our food and our planet.
One small step for Antarctica
So, here’s to you, Safeway. Your public commitment to this key initiative was one of the reasons you took the top spot in Greenpeace’s most recent seafood retailer ranking, and I salute you for your drive and courage. The Ross Sea — and the entire ecosystem that depends on it, including migratory whales, krill blooms, and countless other animals — is a little closer to safety because of you.
Thanks for standing up for the planet, and thanks for such a nice birthday present.
Oh, and check it out – I got myself a present, too.
Tags: antarctic, antarctica, birthday, bluefin, ccmlar, celebration, chilean sea bass, crawfish, greenpeace, ross sea, safeway, sushi, tattoo, toothfish
Posted by Casson on Mar 1, 2011 in
4 Oceans This is the most recent installment of my monthly Alternet column, “4 Oceans.” It was originally published on February 25, 2011.
The ocean is mysterious. It has obscured many of our planet’s most fantastic treasures from view since time immemorial, tucking them away in remote tropical waters, or hiding them deep beneath the white-capped fangs of raging polar seas. Sadly, many of these wonders are threatened by unbridled fishing pressure, deluges of castaway plastics, and a simple but devastating characteristic that, more than anything else, could guarantee their destruction: anonymity.
In this installment of “4 Oceans,” we’ll take a look at four astonishing marine marvels that most people have never heard of, and then discuss how these delicate ecosystems are under threat and what we as consumers can do to protect them.
He's a little crabby about the trawlers in his backyard
1. Zhemchug Canyon
Zhemchug (“pearl” in Russian) is the longest, widest and deepest canyon in the world. Its total volume is nearly twice that of the Grand Canyon. It is vast beyond description and teems with fascinating organisms. It is also hundreds of fathoms underwater.
Zhemchug, sprawling southwest from the Alaskan shore and deep into the Bering Sea, is home to dozens of soft corals, sponges and other invertebrates found nowhere else in the world. Only in the last five years have scientists have begun to plumb the depths of Zhemchug, and we still have virtually no information on what marvels it may conceal. That said, time is already running out.
Every year, the Alaskan pollock fleet rakes Zhemchug repeatedly with gigantic trawl nets in its relentless quest for fish protein (pollock is the low-value, high-volume fish often used to make products like fish sticks and fast-food fish sandwiches). While there is an argument for using pollock in our food system, there is no excuse for pulverizing Zhemchug Canyon (or its neighbor, Pribilof Canyon) to get it.
The pollock fishery covers thousands upon thousands of square miles outside of the canyons, and the vast majority of pollock is caught in these areas rather than Zhemchug or Pribilof. Pollock producers and companies that sell pollock products must commit to sourcing their pollock from outside the canyons if these amazing treasures are to survive.
To help protect Zhemchug Canyon: Avoid pollock products until leading seafood companies pledge only to source pollock from outside of the canyons, and then support those companies.
2. The Ross Sea
The Ross Sea, a remote, half-frozen dent in the side of Antarctica, is aptly nicknamed the ”the Last Ocean” — it is the only remaining oceanic ecosystem on our planet with a relatively intact animal population at all levels of the food chain. Elsewhere in the world, the ocean’s apex predators — sharks, bluefin tuna, swordfish, etc. — have been fished to the point of near-collapse. After nearly a century of industrialized fishing, the Ross is the only remaining sea that still has a strong top-level predator population.
The Last Ocean
The Ross Sea has no sharks. Instead, the food chain is dominated by two predators: the Antarctic toothfish and the Ross Sea orca. The toothfish, more commonly known by its menu-friendly moniker “Chilean sea bass” is the largest fish in the Ross Sea and a lynchpin of its ecosystem. The Ross Sea orca is a rare and isolated subspecies of killer whale found nowhere else in the world. Both species are under threat.
The Ross Sea is under increasing pressure by an emerging fishery targeting Antarctic toothfish. In order to satisfy a hunger for Chilean sea bass fillets, ships are now beginning to enter the last pristine ocean in search for white-fleshed plunder. Chilean sea bass is also a prime prey item for the Ross Sea orca, and recent science has identified a correlation between decreasing Antarctic toothfish populations and a diminishing orca presence.
To protect the Ross Sea: avoid Chilean sea bass, especially from the Ross Sea. Also, don’t be fooled by certifications — astonishingly, the Ross Sea toothfish fishery is Marine Stewardship Council-certified.
3. Palmyra Atoll
Cast far into the Pacific like a stone that has lost a child’s interest, Palmyra Atoll is a tropical wonderland upon which humanity has taken a sort of self-serving pity. Once privately owned by a wealthy American family, Palmyra was purchased some time ago by the Nature Conservancy in an effort to safeguard this virtually untouched ecosystem for study and posterity, and the atoll still boasts strong populations of many species that are disappearing from other areas of the tropics at astonishing rates.
It's me or the SUV
Unfortunately, localized precautions cannot forestall a larger creeping doom that threatens to swallow Palmyra like a massive turtle — the menace of global climate change.
As we pump carbon into our atmosphere, we increase the rate at which our polar ice caps melt and give these areas less time to re-freeze in the winter. As such, water that had been frozen for eons is now streaming into the ocean, causing global sea levels to rise. A few vertical inches can spell the end for atolls like Palmyra, which is just one of the many sandbank jewels scattered about our world that may not survive to see the coming decades.
To save Palmyra: the best we can do is support clean energy efforts, limit our consumption of fossil fuels, and keep the climate crisis in mind as we go about our daily lives.
4. The Sargasso Sea
The world’s only “sea without shores” is geographically defined not by a neighboring land mass, but rather by the spatial dimensions of its own ecosystem. There is no other expanse of ocean like the Sargasso; a unique conflux of swirling currents, temperate weather, and the calming winds of the horse latitudes has given rise to an enormous morass of Sargassum seaweed. This vast aquatic jungle is the basis of an entire ecology involving dozens of species found nowhere else in the world.
It's a jungle down there
Between the leafy sea dragons, pipefish and man-o-war peppering the Sargasso swim American and European freshwater eels, known in the sushi industry as unagi. These animals hatch in the waters of the Sargasso and are slowly swept along by the currents of the Atlantic Ocean. When the tiny eels enter water with decreased salinity — due to a nearby river mouth — they transform, developing muscles and the ability to propel their bodies through the water. These eels — now known as “elvers” — swim directly upriver, where they feed, grow and mature. They will spend their life in fresh water until they reach adulthood, whereupon they leave the river system and return to the Sargasso Sea to mate. All freshwater eels from both sides of the North Atlantic come to the Sargasso, and nowhere else, for this purpose.
But the Sargasso is in trouble. Not only are eels themselves severely overfished (that unagi at your local sushi bar may be “farmed,” but in reality, it was captured from the wild as an elver and transferred to a rearing facility for fattening), but the greedy eddies of the Sargasso attract massive amounts of jetsam from all over the Atlantic, especially plastic and container waste, which disrupt the ecosystem and hinder many animals’ ability to feed.
To help save the Sargasso: avoid unagi, and be judicious about the use of plastic bags and other refuse that often ends up in the oceans.
Tags: 4 Oceans, alternet, antarctica, bering sea, canyon, eel, elver, orca, Palmyra, pollock, Ross, Sargasso, toothfish, unagi, Zhemchug
Increasingly meaningless
Two days ago, the gavel came down in an adjudication decision which may, more than any other recent hammer-strike, determine the future of fishing: The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) officially bestowed its blue-and-white fish-check label to a massive factory operator that targets Antarctic krill.
This is not a good thing.
Antarctic krill are tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that cluster in vast multitudes (known as “blooms”) in the waters of the Southern Ocean. They form a critical building block in the oceanic food web: small fish consume the krill before being eaten themselves by seals, penguins, toothfish, and other animals. Krill are also a primary source of nourishment for migratory whales — in fact, the majority of the world’s baleen whales journey to the southern ocean to feed on krill and replenish their energy supplies after depleting their reserves during their mating and calving seasons.
While krill in their vast numbers do seem on the surface to be an “inexhaustible resource,” one would hope that, by this time, we have learned that this mindless assumption will never be accurate in regard to any of the inhabitants of our finite planet. There is no such thing as an inexhaustible resource. Ask any great auk or passenger pigeon, they’ll tell you.
Oh, wait — you can’t ask them.
Because there aren’t any left.
Because there’s no such thing as an inexhaustible resource.
Trouble bath
There are a few things that we are certain of about krill. The first is that the tiny animal, like many other sea creatures — especially crustaceans — is vulnerable to climate change, especially through the ocean acidification trends resulting from the rising levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Nowhere in the Marine Stewardship Council certification system are the potential effects of climate change even discussed, let alone taken into account by the methodology. Strike one.
Next, we know that Antarctic krill exist in the Southern Ocean – an area adjacent to a land mass that is uninhabited by humans. The simple fact that we are sending fishing vessels into this area bespeaks an unsustainable paradigm, known as finite expansion. There is a certain amount of ocean on this planet. That we continue to fish farther, deeper, and longer simply underscores the fact that we are not approaching the management of our oceanic resources from a sensible and comprehensive standpoint that would account for the idea that one day – one day quite soon, actually – these fishing boats are going to bump up against the ice shelf. No more expansion. What then? The Marine Stewardship Council methodology again fails to even consider these perspectives, concentrating instead on discrete management techniques that do not consider the idea that sustainability is more than a fishery-by-fishery label – it is a way of looking at the world. Strike two.
Little critter, big mystery
Finally, we know that we have only a very rudimentary understanding these tiny animals. Krill have been studied only cursorily and we have almost no knowledge of their life history and behavior. It is irresponsible in the extreme to proceed with the certification of a fishery that is so cloaked in mystery – we have no idea what kind of damage we could be doing. Strike three.
And yet in the face of all these worries, the rubber stamp comes down and the MSC pronounces the krill fishery to be sustainable. Let’s not forget that vehement objections to this certification have already been lodged by the Pew Environment Group and the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. These objections were overruled — but let us not forget that the three strikes listed above were not taken into account in the decision, as they are simply not part of the MSC methodology… and if something isn’t part of the system, it apparently doesn’t have any relevance on reality. Or so the adjudication decision would lead one to believe.
In search of pink gold
There is a conceptual concern here too. The certification of this fishery gives an unofficial nod to the basic idea that vacuuming up the tiny life forms forming the foundations of the oceanic ecosystem is an acceptable practice. In reality, it’s not. Even the United States fishery management authorities banned fishing for krill in US waters, specifically to allow it to remain in the ocean as a food source for other organisms. Legitimizing and expanding Antarctic krill fishing is simply transferring our unceasing resource demand to a hitherto unrecognized protein source. This is not the way to move forward – in fact, pulling too hard on this loose yarn just might unravel the whole tapestry.
The certification of krill makes no sense. It’s a minuscule building-block animal on the other side of the world that simply doesn’t belong to us. We can’t even eat it – the krill will just be used to make oil, fish food, and other rendered products. And for this, we may end up short-changing whales, toothfish, seals, and other animals – all because the powers that be refuse to look at the entire issue from a larger perspective. Fishing for krill will not feed the world — but it just might end up starving it.
Tags: antarctica, asoc, bloom, certification, certified, council, greenpeace, krill, marine, msc, ocean acidification, PEW, seal, stewardship, toothfish, whale
Battlestar Impractica
Last week, the black-hulled Nisshin Maru, public enemy number one of ocean worshipers around the globe, steamed out of an oddly quiet Japanese harbor. While traditionally its departure has been the cause of much revelry in the local port of Inoshima, this year saw no fanfare, no sendoff ceremony, no parades – just a shame-steeped ship, skulking southward, bound for the icy waters of the Southern Ocean.
Yes, it’s that wonderful time of year again, the season when the Japanese whaling fleet descends upon the Antarctic whale sanctuary and slaughters hundreds of peaceful cetaceans in the name of research. The scientific papers drawing from this annual festival of brutality are not publicly released, but the Japanese government is unequivocal in stating that these mysterious and inconclusive studies are a more than valid reason to massacre over a thousand whales each year. It is odd, however, that no other country engaging in cetacean research seems to need to butcher these animals in order to learn about their habits, behavior, social networks, and physiology. Strange.
Ouch
Anyhow, the Nisshin Maru and its sidekick fleet of spotter boats and kill ships return to the Antarctic every year to revisit their dubious mission of butchering whales in the name of science. These ships were designed for one purpose, and one purpose only — the wholesale destruction of cetacean life. The Nisshin Maru in particular is equipped with all facilities necessary to completely disassemble a perfectly functional minke, humpback, or fin whale.
Once the whale has been speared with an explosive harpoon by one of the kill ships, it is transferred to the Nisshin, whereupon it is hauled up onto the deck. A team of specialists eviscerates the whale right then and there, all the while holding up signs with asinine messages like “We are conducting scientific research,” just in case there’s a Greenpeace or Sea Shepherd helicopter around.
Don't worry -- they're scientists
The whalers transform the carcass into hundreds of bricks of whale meat, which are then frozen in a specially designed refrigeration unit. The ship rinses and repeats, and when it has fulfilled its quota, it transports its illicit gains over seven thousand miles of ocean, from the Antarctic coast back to Japan. Minus the infinitesimal percentage claimed by the scientific research program, the whale meat is either sold on the open market or purchased and held in deep storage by various appendages of the Japanese government.
It’s difficult for many Americans, Australians, and Europeans to not see whaling as an inherently evil activity. Numerous western cultures have a sort of reverence for these gentle giants. We admire their playful, intelligent nature, and spend our hard-earned dollars to head out to sea in little skiffs in the hope of seeing one or two whales breach nearby, sending small geysers of mucus and salt water skyward as they break the surface.
Why are you picking on me?
Still, it’s important to realize that this respect for whales is both cultural and recent. The United States was a major whaling nation up until the early 20th century, and some would argue that just because we Americans have some new-found appreciation for these animals doesn’t mean that there’s any kind of intrinsic reason why a whale merits more consideration than, say, a hagfish.
It’s in this spirit of equality that many Japanese, as well as numerous residents of other whaling nations such as Iceland and Norway, see these animals. There’s nothing special about a whale that disqualifies it from being dinner. What is the difference, one might ask, between a whale and some big fish?
I mean, well, yeah, sure, they’ve got lungs, and a complex evolutionary history, and an intricate social network… oh, and faculties for speech and song, and a larger cranial capacity than humans, and even a fourth cerebral lobe that’s unique to cetaceans, the purpose of which we haven’t even begun to understand… but besides all that, what’s the difference?
So bear with me for a moment and let’s assume that there is no inherent reason why whales merit more respect than any other life-form. Is that reason enough let the Japanese whaling industry off the hook?
Maybe if I have a half-off sale...
Well, no. See, we still have to contend with the fact that whale meat has been falling out of favor in Japan for decades, and that the government uses tax revenue to subsidize not only its production, but the consumption of whale meat as well. Moreover, Tokyo has been implicated in any number of vote-buying scandals at the International Whaling Commission, which has caused even more humiliation for the Japanese leadership. So why do they do it? The scientific excuse is as bogus as they come, and even the strict economic argument makes no sense when the losses are put alongside the gains. What’s the reasoning here?
The fact is that behind the sham of scientific research and beyond the crude excuse of simple profit lies a deeper truth, a miasma of old neuroses and insecurities that bedevil anti-whaling efforts and lash the albatross of this anachronistic industry to the necks of the Japanese leadership. The awful truth of the matter is that whaling has virtually nothing to do with whales. In fact, whaling is more about all the other animals swimming in the ocean – especially tuna.
Mouths to feed
We’ve already established that a fishing nation may or may not discriminate between whales and fish based on its cultural value system. If said nation does not do so, then a whale is, for all intents and purposes, a very big fish. With that in mind, consider the following:
Japan is an extremely densely populated island nation, with nearly 200 million people in an area the size of the state of California. It has little arable land and traditionally takes the lion’s share of its protein from the ocean. Japan is also wealthy nation with a strong middle class, as well as the world’s largest consumer of seafood per capita. A tremendous amount of Japanese GDP is reliant on the seafood industry due to unflagging consumer demand. As such, Japanese companies must be able to access oceanic resources with as little interference as possible.
Without a cultural reason to discriminate between whales and fish, Japanese leadership can easily interpret multinational opposition to whaling as a precursor to similar efforts that would address other, more valuable (and more endangered) species – such as bluefin tuna. The Japanese bluefin tuna complex is a massive global enterprise worth billions of dollars, and it dwarfs the whaling industry by orders of magnitude.
A whale-heavy Diet
Efforts to protect or manage whale stocks are therefore seen as the ominous foreshadowing of a world where Japanese fleets wouldn’t necessarily be free to ransack the oceans as they pleased. This idyllic vision is, of course, anathema to the policymakers in Tokyo.
Add this to the fact that the men in power (and it is men, overwhelmingly) in the Diet are the same who spent their formative years in the unfortunate era just after World War II where food security really was an issue in Japan. People were starving in the streets; Japan’s infrastructure and traditional social networks had been eradicated by the twin tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was at this point that the American occupational force introduced large-scale whaling to the Japanese as a manner of providing protein to the hungry. Whale meat was used in school lunches, government meal programs, and other subsidized institutions. One could argue that at the time, the consumption of whale meat actually helped to beat back starvation and to invigorate a populace that was in the grip of malnutrition.
But that was then. This is now, and the Japanese are healthy and wealthy. Whales aren’t important anymore. The principles of sovereignty and food security, however, still are.
Thou shalt not cross
So a line is drawn in the sand. The Japanese government will fight the battle here, with whales, so no precedent is set for tuna, or for eel, or for crabs and urchin. Never again shall Japan face the humiliation of starvation, and never shall the outside world again be allowed to interfere with Japan’s sovereign right to exploit the oceans in order to feed its people. And if a few whales have to die in order to protect this status quo, well, so be it. Right?
Wrong.
This is unacceptable. Whales are dying, and I’m not objecting because I think whales are special, or because I think that the Japanese need to be more like Americans, or anything like that. This is not a racial issue, so anyone who’s planning to come at me with some bogus “you’re a racist” argument, just give it up right now. It’s a contrived, tangential distraction, and you know it. (Seriously. I’m a sushi blogger, for God’s sake.)
It's over
No, I object because these whales are being slaughtered simply to fuel a political pissing contest that has nothing to do with them. They don’t die in the name of science, or cultural preservation, or even the dollar and the yen. No, these whales die to appease a small group of powerful old men, riddled with insecurities, whose fear of economic disenfranchisement and aversion to political humiliation is apparently more important than the lives of these magnificent animals. They die so the Japanese government can continue to deny the fact that if we’re all going to live on this planet, and if we’re going to save the ocean, we’re going to have to work together.
End whaling now.
Tags: antarctica, bluefin, diet, fin, flensing, food security, greenpeace, hagfish, harpoon, humpback, inoshima, international whaling commission, iwc, japan, maru, minke, nisshin maru, Norway, sanctuary, Science and Rankings, sea shepherd, sovereignty, united states, whale, whaling, world war, yushin
