Photo courtesy of hugoahlenius at Flickr.com.
The oceans are in trouble. Fish catches are starting to fall despite an increase in the number of people fishing and despite advances in fishing technology. Many fish that were once plentiful, such as cod and Chilean Sea Bass, are almost unobtainable. Due to overfishing, new diseases, climate change, and pollution, we are reaching a tipping point where many species are no longer able to replace their losses.
“Since 1950, with the onset of industrialized fisheries, we have rapidly reduced the resource base to less than 10 percent—not just in some areas, not just for some stocks, but for entire communities of these large fish species from the tropics to the poles.”
If fish disappear from the ocean, the effects will be massive. Roughly 2 billion people rely on fish for the majority of their protein intake. Without this food source, starvation is a very real possibility for many fishing villages. Luckily, some people are looking for an alternative before widespread extinction sets in. Kona Blue is one such company – they’re spearheading a program of deep ocean aquaculture. In the words of Neil Sims (Kona Blue’s founder):
“We would have never been able to sustain our population if we had remained a hunter-gatherer society on land. And I’m not sure what makes people think we can remain that way in the ocean,”
The response from chefs is encouraging – imagine sustainable fish that tastes even better than fish from the ocean!
Photo courtesy of swee at Flickr.com.
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