New Year, New Opportunities

I've been a bit remiss the past few months in attending to The Sea Suite. My missing persons work, combined with family and job responsibilities and more than a bit of emotional turmoil in the second half of 2009, forced some important choices -- and also provided some much-needed motivation.

Through it all, I have been having conversations with activists, scientists and entrepreneurs and have come away more convinced than ever that the problems facing our oceans (which means our planet) not only can be solved by informed, engaged consumers and businesses but can only be solved by informed, engaged consumers and businesses. Of course, there is a role for government in bringing about positive change; but the more I have seen of government in action (or, should I say "government inaction"?) the past 8 months, the more I have come to believe that, without a transformation of the values that inform our decisions about what we buy and sell, our governments' solutions to the planet's problems not only will be ineffectual -- they will prove truly harmful.

Here is where positive change will happen -- in places like this, where people who already understand and care about the issues facing our world articulate those issues and share their ideas and strategies for solving them. Delegating and deferring responsibility to government agencies equals accepting our own helplessness and putting our faith in bureaucratic structures that continue to fail us at every turn.

In 2010, I resolve to reaffirm my commitment to promoting ocean-friendly business, my little niche. I hope like-minded people out there will join me in this pursuit and share their wisdom. Opportunities abound -- let's seize them.

In Case You Missed It: Seafood Watch's "Super Green" List

When I first started trying to choose seafood according to the Monterey Bay AquariumSeafood Watch list, I thought it was awfully restrictive. Over time, however, I began to wish for a clearer, even more restrictive list that would make it easier to choose my seafood based both on the impact on ocean health and my family's health. Well, the aquarium has come through. In their own words:

"The Monterey Bay Aquarium has identified seafood that is "Super Green," meaning that it is good for human health and does not harm the oceans. The Super Green list highlights products that are currently on the Seafood Watch "Best Choices" (green) list, are low in environmental contaminants and are good sources of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.

"This effort draws from experts in human health, notably scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The Monterey Bay Aquarium will continue to work with these organizations to balance the health and environmental attributes of seafood.

"The Super Green list includes seafood that meets the following three criteria:

* Low levels of contaminants (below 216 parts per billion [ppb] mercury and 11 ppb PCBs)
* The daily minimum of omega-3s (at least 250 milligrams per day [mg/d])
* Classified as a Seafood Watch "Best Choice" (green)

The best of the best (as of October 2009)
Albacore Tuna (troll- or pole-caught, from the U.S. or British Columbia)
Mussels (farmed)
Oysters (farmed)
Pacific Sardines (wild-caught)
Pink Shrimp (wild-caught, from Oregon)
Rainbow Trout (farmed)
Salmon (wild-caught, from Alaska)
Spot Prawns (wild-caught, from British Columbia)

Other Healthy "Best Choices"
Arctic Char (farmed)
Bay Scallops (farmed)
Crayfish (farmed, from the U.S.)
Dungeness Crab (wild-caught, from California, Oregon or Washington)
Longfin Squid (wild-caught, from the U.S. Atlantic)
Pacific Cod (longline-caught, from Alaska)"

Watch Sigourney Weaver Stay on Message With "Acid Test"

I am no fan of TV news for so many reasons, and this interview on Fox provides such a great example of why. Watch the hosts try to get Sigourney Weaver to promote her upcoming sci-fi flick - Avatar - and watch her skillfully keep on message with her much more important project: Acid Test, which seeks to educate the world on the problem of ocean acidification.

Why Does Sustainability Stop at the Shoreline?

I recently had the opportunity to dine at one of my favorite restaurants in Annapolis, Md. -- at least it had been my favorite when I lived there 25 years ago (ouch!): The Cafe Normandie. Some nights I still dream of the cafe's tomato bisque, which was the height of affordable luxury for me during my college days.

The cafe had long since changed location and ownership, but I had heard the bisque was as to-die-for as ever, so Lyn and I decided have lunch there. The first thing to greet me upon walking in the door was a plaque from Sustainable Annapolis recognizing the cafe's sustainability record.

Joy!

Midway between my tomato & crabmeat bisque (adding crab was not an option 25 years ago - so far, so good!) and my Caesar salad, I took the opportunity to quiz the manager on the restaurant's sustainability accomplishments. He proudly told me about how the cafe's commitment to sustainability predated the existence of Sustainable Annapolis; how their vehicles used bio-diesel and all kitchen waste was composted; and even their drinking straws were made of compostable, corn-based plastic from Eco-Products. There were more laudable aspects of the cafe's sustainability strategy that I don't remember (I was there for lunch and didn't have my handy-dandy digital recorder). The next step, he said, was going to be solar panels on the roof.

Duly impressed, I asked how the restaurant's sustainability commitment extended to its seafood procurement practices. I might as well have asked him why glurp always relminizes. There was a moment of silent blinking as he processed the question, then he proceeded to tell me how all their seafood was purchased fresh every day to ensure quality and freshness. The idea that there were overfished species that ought to be off limits did not seem to be part of his sustainability narrative.

This is not surprising. Until fairly recently, I was as ignorant as the average Joe or Jane about the issues of overfishing, by-catch, etc. For most people and businesses, seafood sustainability is simply not part of the conversation. This is particularly sad in the case of Annapolis, a city by the water with more seafood restaurants than you can shake a stick at. If they could take a strong position on seafood sustainability, they would be a shining example.

Sustainable Annapolis will be hearing from the Sea E O. Stay tuned.

Obama Oceans Task Force Report: What Does It Mean for Ocean-Friendly Business?

I was always taught not to write a "question-mark headline" if the story I'm writing doesn't offer at least some answers to the question posed. Well, I'm going to break that rule. I just read the Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and, though it clearly demonstrates an understanding of all the relevant issues, I don't know what to make of it from the perspective of someone who wants to launch or expand an ocean-friendly business.

It is promising to see that the Obama Administration recognizes the need for a comprehensive national oceans policy and that that policy must extend to the inland activities affecting ocean health(I read this to mean use of chemical fertilizers, plastics, and coal-fired power plants, which are responsible for most of the non-naturally occurring mercury in our oceans). And since this is the task force's first report, I fully expected it to be short on specifics. The task force's next step is to develop "a framework for coastal and marine spatial planning, due to the President by December 9, 2009."

From a business-planning perspective, the opportunities and risks associated with the ultimate plan will depend on the combination of incentives and penalities actually put into place. Will the Administration dare to take on the agri-business and chemical-industry lobbies by reducing or eliminating the explicit and implicit subsidies that protect and support them while encouraging ocean-damaging agricultural practices? What about a phased-in ban on certain uses of plastics? Wouldn't it be laudable to discourage the continuous creation of plastic packaging that consumes years' worth of non-renewable petroleum resources and will exist far longer than products whose freshness on the shelf they were created to ensure? Will the task force recommend seafood traceability standards? Support sustainable aquaculture practices?

I guess I'm hoping there are people out there who know a lot more about these issues than I do (God help us if there aren't) and that they'll be kind enough to share their insights. What opportunities will emerge? What risks? Let's share some likely scenarios.

What Ocean-Friendly Businesses Can Learn From the Spiny Dogfish

Two weeks later, beautiful weather prevailed and the Ocean Opportunity party finally got out into the warm Gulf Stream waters off Narragansett, RI. Conditions could not have been nicer, and a small group - including educators, students, underwater photographers, and one corporate type - went out on The Snappa, the only craft in the area offering shark cage diving.

To make a long story short, we had a nice boat ride but were unable to draw any of the handful of blue and mako sharks we spotted on the surface near enough to the boat for a decent interactive dive. Does this say anything about the depletion of sharks in the Atlantic? I suppose it must, to an extent, but I know that the previous weekend more than 15 blues hung around the same boat all day. We know they're out there, and I'll be back to look for them!

So, we snorkeled a bit and did some bottom fishing, which is where the story gets interesting. Captain Charlie cracked out a fishing rod so one of the kids on board could kill some time.

"Maybe you'll catch a cod," he said with the expression of a man who has lost the ability to deceive himself but keeps trying anyway, for the sake of the kids. The New England waters used to be thick with Atlantic cod before the stocks collapsed.

Needless to say, no cod were caught that day, but about two dozen spiny dogfish (a pretty bottom-feeding shark) were landed. They weren't even taking the bait - they were getting hooked in the fins, the gills, the flanks. The water 100 feet down must've been thick with them.

Which leads to the business lesson of the spiny dogfish: crisis for one is opportunity for another. Commercial fisherman and the fish-eating public exploited an abundant resource (the Atlantic cod) to near extinction, and the dogfish raced in to fill the niche thus opened up. The cod's (and cod fishermen's) crisis created opportunities for the dogfish and for fishermen in other parts of the world who could provide cod substitutes. Now, many of those substitutes are going the way of the cod. For the spiny dogfish, however, conditions could not be nicer.

The ocean is in crisis, and - whether they fully understand it or not - so are the industries that depend on the ocean for survival. Many of those industries will not survive. There will be regulation. Or, with growing consumer awareness of the problem, a backlash among the fish-eating population. Or the oceans will simply run out of fish. Who will fill the niche? Can they do so in ways that will provide long-term solutions, rather than simply driving another species or ecosystem to the brink?

One species looking to seize the opportunity is represented by Captain Charlie and The Snappa. As the world grows more aware of the plight of sharks through films like Sharkwater and anti-shark-finning campaigns by celebrities like NBA star Yao Ming, people will want to see and interact with sharks before they become too scarce. How soon until more Captain Charlies - men who used to take people out to catch and kill sharks and now take them out to dive with and observe sharks - start shifting their business models?

This will reduce pressure on local populations and, through competition, drive down the cost of getting out among sharks. It also will create a virtuous cycle of awareness and action. I am sure Frank (the 16 year old who got a very practical lesson on board the Snappa about how exploiting one species can affect an entire eco-system) will remember this experience and, as he grows into a full-fledged consumer, make different choices than previous generations did.

Will your business be ready for Frank?

Where Are the Plastic Alternatives?!

Hurricane Bill put the kabosh on my shark dive this past weekend but, despite the high seas, the weather was gorgeous so I got to spend time with my Dad, my son Adam, and my nephew Zak exploring a bit of Narragansett, R.I. - a first-time visit for all of us.

Beautiful beaches, clear water, loads of seabirds - and way too much plastic on floating in the water and clinging to the jetties. From one small patch of shore I filled a plastic garbage bag (which, incidentally, I found on that very shore) with all manner of plastic detritus.

I keep referencing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in my posts, but you don't have to look far or imagine something so vast to understand the importance of eliminating plastic from our oceans. Is there anyone who doesn't know by now that fish, turtles, sea birds, and marine mammals mistake plastic for food and die eating it? Add to that the number of marine animals that die unnecessarily because they get tangled up in lost nets or tangles of fishing line and you have a major problem, long before you get to the daunting concern about plastic breaking down and entering OUR food supply.

It is tempting to lay the blame for our plastic mess on "lazy consumers" who don't recycle or "evil corporations" that keep producing and using plastic despite the environmental harm it does - but who is offering alternatives? There is clearly an addressable market for plastic alternatives among the millions of people who do understand and care about the problem of plastics. Is anyone producing plastic alternatives to serve this market niche?

Most of the plastic items we retrieved this weekend fell into the following categories:

• Bottles,
• Bags,
• Food wrappers and juice packets, and
• Broken bits of larger items, like lawn furniture.

Alternatives to plastics exist for all of these uses, and all of these items can be recycled to extend their useful life and keep them out of the ocean. The question is: who has established a business model and marketing approach to get them out of the "green ghetto" and into the mainstream?

Anyone care to share?

Oceans of Opportunity

Capitalism and sustainability are not, by definition, at odds. This is my mantra and I am sticking with it. The reason they have long seemed to be in conflict is that, in a world that once was large and full of seemingly infinite resources, environmental and human costs that don't appear on balance sheets could be invisibly passed along.

In a shrinking world with greater transparency, this is no longer the case. From decimated rainforests to the Pacific garbage patch, these hidden costs are being made visible, largely through new social media tools.

Does this mean capitalism must shrivel up and die in the sunlight while paternalistic governments clean up the mess made by the Evil Corporations? I say no!

Every problem contains the seeds of its own solution, and where there are potential solutions there are opportunities to create value. Where value might once have meant opening up the wilderness to access resources, it may now mean creating better ways to use those resources or developing new resources that can withstand more rigorous scrutiny.

A great example of this new paradigm can be found in this recent Wall Street Journal article, Entrepreneurs Wade into the `Dead Zone' . Dead zones are oxygen-deprived areas of the ocean caused by farm runoff. Nitrogen-rich chemical fertilizer flows into rivers and down to the sea, where nitrogen-loving algae feast and thrive and die and rot, creating vast regions where nothing can live. That's right - factory farms in, say, Iowa contribute to dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe once upon a time ADM or Cargill could plead ignorance of the environmental cost of farm runoff, but not now.

This is a big problem, in large part caused by the ways in which the U.S. subsidizes agriculture.

Energy companies have long sought ways to use algae to generate energy, primarily with algae stocks raised onshore. Calif.-based startup LiveFuels has a different idea: Using farmed fish to consume the algae produced by runoff and then harvesting the fish for oil that could, among other uses, be turned into bio-diesel fuel.

Now, THAT's what I'm talking about.

I know, this approach is not without problems - and wouldn't it be better to simply ban chemical fertilizer in the first place? Yeah, and with the lobbying power of agri-business in this country - lots of luck! Let's talk sometime in the next century.

If startups like LiveFuels can create a new industry that will generate food, fuel, vitamin supplements, and fertilizers in a more environmentally gentle way than has ever been done before - while cleaning up the mess created by Old Industry, I'm all for it.

What do you think?

At the Intersection of Activism & Commerce

Sometimes I wonder if all the signs I see of increased awareness of ocean-health issues are simply a function of my own interest in the subject. I had an interesting conversation with a young man this week that suggests the subject really is gaining traction.

"And now," this man in his early 20s said, somewhat skeptically, "we're supposed to stop eating fish because the oceans are running out. It's always something."

I contrast this young man's skepticism with a different kind of skepticism from my 75-year-old Dad. After sitting through the film The End of the Line, my Dad - a lifelong fisherman - said, "The problem with this kind of movie is that you're preaching to the choir. The only people watching it are people who already know and care about the problem."

Add to these two different brands of skepticism the fact that this week's Science study on the state of the world's fisheries is being reported on in mainstream news magazine Time (Can the World's Fisheries Survive Their Appetite?).

I don't know what exactly it all says, but I think it says something.

Maybe it says the marine-activist world has begun to make enough of a dent in our collective consciousness -- allowing the idea that the condition of our oceans IS a problem to start to take hold -- to believe we may be on the verge of a shift in values. When a new value emerges, the material expression of that value is: What will I pay for it?

For the activist, the cost of building awareness is time and energy -- the anticipated payoff tends to be far enough off that the activist may never see it in his or her own lifetime. The activist plants seeds for trees whose fruit and shade he or she may never enjoy.

Enter commerce: We are not yet selling social or environmental responsibility, but the IDEA of social or environmental responsibility. We are willing to pay for the belief or the perception that we are being responsible. Witness the oohs and ahhs over putting bamboo floors and hemp throw rugs in a 3,000-square-foot McMansion with two Hummers in the garage. Witness greenwash. Witness "body wash" (ie., liquid soap) in plastic bottles invoking the pure ocean on their labels.

But something is happening. Time finds overfishing worth writing about. The great Pacific garbage patch is becoming part of ordinary conversation. People seem to know about shark finning and the environmental damage it causes.

Concern about sustainability has even reached the sushi world.

Something's happening.

People's values are getting involved. When people value ocean friendliness, their economic behavior will shift. They will buy (or not) differently than they did (or did not) before.

Are you ready for this?

Sustainable Sushi Gains Traction - What's Next?

Excitement throughout the Twittersphere over the decision by West Seattle sushi bar Mashiko to use only sustainably sourced seafood (read article), combined with growing outrage and disgust at Nobu's reiteration of its noxioux bluefin tuna policy ("It can be sourced legally, people want it - so why not sell it?"), bode well for the future of sustainable seafood. If the sushi set can be swayed to sustainability, we're well on our way.

More and more restaurants are following the lead of sustainable seafood champions like Casson Trenor and removing endangered fish from their menus. Still, high-end restaurants like Nobu continue to sell bluefin tuna, Chilean seabass, and other endangered species (basically because they can). Kudos to Casson and to Mashiko's Hajime Sato, not only for behaving responsibly but for recognizing and helping to enlarge the market for sustainable seafood. From where the Sea E O sits, this is a business opportunity that is not going away any time soon.

Do you have a favorite restaurant that sources its seafood responsibly? Help them succeed by letting us spread the word.

Okay, So The Sea Suite Doesn't Suck...

....at least according to the three people who responded to our little survey. Well, our traffic numbers show nice growth in traffic, so I will keep plugging away and hope to stir up interest. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to provide feedback, on or offline.

Thanks to the three who responded (you know who you are) and to all our friends and visitors.

Are You an Ocean-Friendly Entrepreneur?

If so, the Sea E O would like to connect with you and help you tell your story in The Sea Suite. Drop me a note telling me about yourself and your business and let's start a conversation.

And, while we're at it, please let us know what you think of The Sea Suite so far by responding to the little poll thingy on the right-hand side. Only a few days left....

Thanks!

Jeff Dunsavage
The Sea E O

Is Now the Time to Go Long Soybeans?

Aquaculture is no panacea for our race's ocean-killing fishing practices. In fact, it can be a major contributor to the problem when you look at the amount of fishmeal required to generate one pound of farm-raised salmon (oh, how I miss salmon....)

As a rule of thumb, I avoid any of the large, carniverous pelagic species: if they're wild, they are already woefully overfished or on the verge; if they're farmed, they require an unconscionable amount of fishmeal to bring them to my plate. Farmed herbivores and omnivores (say, catfish or tilapia - ahhh.....tilapia.....) are another story.

So, what does this have to do with the price of soybeans? Plenty, it turns out.

According to this article in the Brownfield Ag News (I don't make these things up, really!), Americans are increasing their tilapia consumption by approximately 15% a year. Can you say "business opportunity"? Well, the Mexican government can (although I guess they'd say it in Spanish, right?) and is encouraging a boost in fish farming to meet this growing demand.

And what do you think the heavily subsidized Mexican fish farmers feed their tilapia? You've got it!

Francisco de la Torre, who coordinates aquaculture projects in the Caribbean and Latin America for the U.S. soybean industry, says he expects aquaculture in the region to consume about 200,000 tons of soymeal by the end of this year and for that amount to rise by 100,000 tons within the next three to five years.

That's a lot of soybeans.

The potential business opportunities in this story? Let's see: I'll be looking at soybean futures, shipping and refrigeration (I know, carbon footprint! but that's a topic for another post), soybean substitutes for when soybean prices go through the roof, aquaculture facility components...I'm sure you can think of a few yourself. C'mon, share!

Help Us Improve (or Wake Up & Smell the Fail)

We live and, hopefully, learn. If you've been reading my posts, I'm eager to hear what you think, so please take a moment to answer my unscientific little poll to the right. If you're new to The Sea Suite, please take a few minutes to graze first. They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, but nothing says we can't try.

Ocean Friendly = Investment, not Sacrifice

One of the most important messages I took away from the book and film, The End of the Line is that saving the oceans (and, by definition, the planet) is not rocket science. At the most simplistic level, it is about what we put into the oceans and what we take out of it.

Overfishing depletes a finite resource (easy enough to understand when we talk about fossil fuels - why not when we talk about fish stocks?) and disrupts the ecological balance by removing the predators that keep populations in check at all levels. By depleting fish stocks, we also eliminate the fish waste that is essential to the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In other words, there is a direct connection between overfishing and the threat of global warming. If you care about climate change, you have to care about the health of our oceans.

On the inputs side: You don't need to visualize large-diameter pipes pouring sewage into the oceans. Think chemical fertilizer and livestock waste from factory farms running off into the streams and rivers and ultimately into the oceans. Think plastics, endlessly swirling in the North Pacific Garbage Patch, breaking down to plankton-size tidbits and becoming a permanent feature of the food chain. Think of all those Styrofoam peanuts that are such a pain in the ass to get off your living room carpet and multiply them a trillion-fold. Think of ghost nets clinging to rocks and reefs on the bottom of the sea, pointlessly and indiscriminately strangling all kinds of marine animals.

Ocean-friendly business is not some nice-to-do, warm-and-fuzzy fish-hugging thing. It is responsible stewardship of our planet. Pursuing ocean-friendly business practices is not a sacrifice - it is an investment in a niche market that will become mainstream as the planet's people become better educated. Do you want to be a leader and establish a sustainable advantage, or are you going to wait around and play catch-up?

Turn Old Oil Rigs Into Eco-Friendly Resorts?

Talk about high-end recycling!

Approximately 4,000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico are set to be decommissioned within the next century. Currently, these rigs would be blown up at a cost of millions of dollars and lots of sea life. With about 20,000 square feet on each deck, how about turning these rigs into exclusive, self-sufficient eco-friendly resorts? That's the proposal of Morris Architects' Hotelier At Sea project.

What do you think, ocean-friendly entrepreneurs? Would you vacation on a converted oil rig? Invest?

Community-Supported Fisheries: Now, THAT'S What I'm Talking About!

Community-supported fisheries - an emerging trend analagous to community-supported agriculture - offers a new and potentially profitable way of doing business for commercial fishermen.

In Gloucester, Mass., for example, local fishermen are cutting out the middleman and selling their product directly to hundreds of customers every week. Cape Ann Fresh Catch, organized by The Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, and MIT SeaGrant, delivers a variety of fish to about 750 shareholders living from Jamaica Plain to Gloucester. The CSF is the largest of seven in the northeast region. (Read full article)

And in Winsted, Conn., Litchfield Farms claims to be the first CSF to require that only sustainable harvesting techniques be used. (Read the brochure)

As in community-supported agriculture, where participants pay local farmers for a share of their harvest before the growing season begins, community-supported fisheries connect local fishermen with shareholders willing to pay them upfront for a weekly supply of fish delivered directly to their communities.

Local. Sustainable. Value providing. Now, THAT is what I'm talking about!

As the sampling of articles listed below indicates, CSF is a small but growing way for commercial fishermen to provide high-quality product to local customers at a reasonable price. Local also means a smaller carbon footprint because the fish are not being flown halfway around the planet from God knows what questionable fishery. I can't be sure, but I'm guessing that CSF fish are not shrink-wrapped in ocean-choking plastic, either.

A great deal for the health- and environment-conscious consumer who wants to know where his/her fish is coming from and an opportunity for the commercial fisherman who wants to preserve the source of his livelihood. The only caveat: Local does not necessarily equal sustainable. You'll want to know not only WHERE your fish are caught but HOW. Longlines and trawling are out because they contribute to bycatch and destruction of precious ocean-bottom habitat.

Anyone out there have any experience with CSF? C'mon...share!

Related articles:
Economy of Scales

How the Fishing Industry Is Trying to Stay Alive By Acting Like Small Farmers

Community Supported Fisheries (from Monterey Aquarium "Sea Notes")

Do You Care About the Ocean? Then Show Me the Money!

I created The Sea Suite with one basic assumption: Business and healthy oceans are not necessarily at odds and, in fact, there are vast areas in which their interests intersect when viewed intelligently and creatively.

With recent attention emerging as to the Supervalu/Albertson's grocery chains selling shark products and Trader Joe's selling environmentally vulnerable fish and using less-than-environmentally friendly packaging, the most immediate response is on the consumer end: boycotts, letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations near their stores, awareness-building efforts on the internet, etc. These approaches are all necessary and laudable, but from my perspective there must be huge business opportunities being missed here.

When you see an issue gaining traction on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets (as sustainability and ocean friendliness seem to me to be), it is time to start thinking: How do I make money from this? I know it sounds cold, but think analytically about this for a moment: People's purchasing practices, by definition, reflect their values. If people's values are beginning to shift toward ocean friendliness and if they are finding it difficult to live that value shift consistently (I know I am!), then, by definition, a business opportunity exists. It's easy to complain about the businesses that are not ocean friendly - it's a bit harder to recognize the challenge of being an ocean-friendly business and step up to it.

Too often, business is about creating desires for things that people don't need or didn't feel they needed until the things were marketed to them. Well, I want healthy, sustainably sourced seafood and don't feel confident about any of my local sources - BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY FOR SOMEONE! I want to reduce my consumption of plastics, which ultimately find their way to the ocean - BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY FOR SOMEONE!



I want my food to come from farms that don't pour tons of toxic pesticide, fertilizer, and animal waste into the groundwater, rivers, and oceans. This is a BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY FOR SOMEONE!

The big question is, are you going to be a business leader by promoting and profiting from this value shift? Or are you going to "see who goes first" and try to piggyback on the real innovators and leaders who are already trying to make a difference while making a buck?

Breeding Breakthrough Yields Sustainable Bluefin Tuna - Or Does It?

Bloomberg reported this week that Australia-based Clean Seas Tuna Ltd. has successfully bred sustainable bluefin tuna. Not so fast, baby!

For those who may not know, the bluefin tuna has been fished to near extinction to satisfy the cravings of sushi lovers worldwide.

Casson Trenor, fisheries conservation activist and a San Francisco sushi restaurateur, says consumers need to stop eating bluefin now if the fish is to survive.

“Chefs need to take responsibility for this," says Trenor, author of Sustainable Sushi: A Guide to Saving the Oceans One Bite at a Time. "We need to stop exploiting the hell out of this fish and give them a break.”

So, mightn't farm-raised bluefin be the answer?

I see at least two problems with Clean Seas' solution. The most obvious one to my layman's eyes is the need to feed these fish with (literally) boatloads of fishmeal taken from herring, sardines, etc., that then won't be around to feed the remaining wild tuna and other carniverous pelagic fish (and whose capture involves tremendous bycatch of by the trawlers that catch them). From this perspective, the farmed tuna are not a sustainable solution - they simply are a way to convert plentiful, healthier, and potentially sustainable fish stocks into bluefin sushi for the affluent.

The second problem speaks to consumer psychology: "Oh, they're FARMING bluefin now - problem solved! The bluefin are being protected, let's move on." The misperception of the "bluefin problem" being "solved" would simply mask the wider problem of global overfishing as described in the book and film, The End of the Line.

I'm sure there are other problems with this "solution," but what do I know? You tell me - what's your take on this or any other sustainable seafood solutions?

Save the Oceans, Save the World, Make a Profit

Mother, Mother Ocean,
I have heard your call.
Wanted to sail upon your waters
Since I was three feet tall.
You've seen it all...

Jimmy Buffett, "A Pirate Looks at 40"

I can't describe myself as a pirate, and looking at 40 through the rearview mirror I flatter myself that my eyes are still good enough to make it out. Nevertheless, I have always loved the ocean. My heroes growing up were people like Jacques Cousteau, Hans Hass, Ron and Valerie Taylor -- anyone with the courage to go deep beneath the surface and the generosity to bring the mysteries of the ocean back to us in their words and pictures. Someday I would be part of that world, I promised myself at 15. It took more than 30 years for me to keep that promise.

During my long dry years, I never lost my taste for the sea. I've always loved seafood - its flavor, its texture, and the fact that I could eat as much of it as I wanted and always feel I was doing something healthy. Oh, yeah, in the 1970s they used to talk about mercury in fish, but then that went away and I always figured it must've been an urban legend, like the crocodiles in New York City's sewers. The first time I had my cholesterol checked, the doctor told me my only problem was that I didn't have enough of the good kind. His prescription: Eat more fish.

Most likely the only health advice I ever followed to the letter.

Until about a year ago, when I read the book that ruined my life: Bottom Feeder (How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood) by Taras Grescoe. There went my salmon, my tuna, my beloved shrimp! Not only was what I was eating not all good for me, but my eating habits were, quite literally, destroying the health of the planet by plundering the oceans our world depends on. From Bottom Feeder I went on to other books: Hooked (Pirates, Poaching and the Perfect Fish) by G. Bruce Knecht; Whale Warriors (The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet's Largest Mammals) by Peter Heller; The End of the Line (How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat) by Charles Clover.

Books like these tapped into my already powerful interest in socially and environmentally responsible business practices. I had long been of the belief that the very profit motive that contributes so strongly to many of our world's problems contains the seeds of their solutions. Here, it seemed, was an environmental problem so fundamentally simple and so bound up in my most basic passions, I felt competent to take it on.

Which is what brings me to The Sea Suite.

I wanted to create a business that would be part of the solution to problems like overfishing, marine "dead zones" caused by nitrogen-rich fertilizers and other chemical runoff, the almost unbelievable problem of plastics. The difficulty was, I knew very little about the industries and the markets that cause and perpetuate these problems, and the more I researched the less simple the problems seemed. They were not a mere matter of what we put in and what we took out, but of how we related to the oceans, how we defined their value, and our ability to understand how the behavior of a farmer in a land-locked state like Iowa or a family scrimping to survive in sub-Saharan Africa cumulatively affected the seas upon which our collective survival depends. And, if that wasn't bad enough - I had to try to figure out, based on that knowledge, what kind of business could help address these issues while not requiring the business owner to neglect the material well-being of himself and his family.

Needless to say, I failed. If failure begets wisdom, I must be one of the smartest people on the planet by now. But I still don't know what I'm doing.

Which is why I created "The Sea Suite" and dubbed myself the "Sea E O." I want to know what other, like-minded businesses and businessfolk are doing to reduce our impact on the oceans and restore them to health and vitality. I could bloviate forever about what I do or don't know - what I am hoping is that others (people with the courage to take on this challenge and the generosity to share their learnings - my new heroes) will enter the conversation. Let's help each other work through our confusion and frustration, develop new approaches, and, in the end, leave the sea and the land better than we found them.