Show Me the Green (I'm Talking Kelp!)

Paul Dobbins and Tollef Olson run what is believed to be America's only commercial kelp farm. According to this Los Angeles Times article, the two entrepreneurs launched their project in 2008, having been inspired by mega-aquaculture sites in Asia and a $7-billion global seaweed industry.The LA Times article says they are marketing kelp as an exotic frozen vegetable.

"It's a giant brown algae in the water, but it turns bright green when it's cooked," Olson said. "Think kelp noodles. And kelp salad. And kelp slaw."

The Falmouth, Me.-based company, Ocean Approved, sells its "sea vegetables" and Bangs Island mussels. While acknowledging the "yuck factor" involved in trying to get Americans to eat seaweed, Olson and Dobbins recognize the opportunity in this $7 billion global market.

Kelp is processed to extract food gums -- texturizing agents called agars, alginates and carrageenans. The additives make toothpaste thick, yogurt creamy, beer foamy and skin moisturizers moist, among countless other uses.

"Most Americans don't know it, but they already consume seaweed products every day," Robert Vadas, professor of marine sciences at the University of Maine, told the LA Times. "Most of it is imported."

China is the largest producer and exporter, and the U.S. once had a major kelp industry in Southern California. Today, only a handful of smaller U.S. companies harvest seaweed. Those in California chiefly provide feed for abalone farms. Those in Maine mostly supply fertilizer, livestock feed and dietary supplements.

A green source of protein and mineral supplements. Natural fertilizer. Essential component for the ever-popular sushi industry Locally, sustainably sourced. Consumer of CO2, producer of oxygen and food and shelter for many species in our overfished oceans.

I gotta talk to these guys.

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.

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.