Saving Seafood

COVID-19 has scrambled China’s aquafeed sector markets, with domestic market now a primary focus

July 14, 2021 — China’s domestic aquaculture sector is shifting its production focus to a later harvest in order to supply rising demand from within the country, according to a leading Chinese supplier of fishmeal and fish oil.

A fishmeal trader with an IFFO-certified fish oil refining plant, Fujian High Fortune Bio-Tech Group also has a GMP plant for omega-3 related products and healthcare industry production. Its clients are in the human consumption and health care industries, in addition to animal and aquafeed production and the pet food industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Friend of the Sea Certifies SeaExpert for Sustainable Seaweed Production in the Azores

July 12, 2021 — The following was released by Friend of the Sea:

Friend of the Sea, the global certification standard for products and services that respect and protect the marine environment, has recognized seaExpert for sustainable seaweed production. Therefore, seaExpert can now display the Friend of the Sea label, certifying the engagement with sustainable marine practices.

SeaExpert, a company created in 2003 in the Azores archipelago, is a seaweed producer. It supplies clients with algae biomass for various uses, including cosmetics, supplements, livestock feed, and scientific research.

Seaweed, the generic name for different marine plants and algae, has been described as a game-changer. Filled with vitamins, minerals, proteins, and amino acids, it has immense potential, not only for human health but also for the planet. Including seaweed in cattle feed has the power to offset ruminant methane emissions, a gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect.

Friend of the Sea certifies companies that respect sustainable seaweed harvesting and farming. This standard aims to protect from overfishing wild seaweeds, which serve as a crop and as a habitat for hundreds of other ocean species.

The Azores, a Portuguese archipelago located in the North Atlantic Ocean, has a natural abundance of numerous algae species. SeaExpert identified the benefits of each specimen and developed a sustainable production process from harvesting to drying respecting the Friend of the Sea guidelines.

SeaExpert is licensed to harvest nine different species of algae, using sustainable techniques to have minimum impact on the marine ecosystem while supplying a high-quality product.The seaweed is harvested manually through scuba diving within seasons with the highest bioavailability rates.

The algae are dried in green houses or solar dryers, being monitored throughout the whole process. Once dried, the seaweeds are carefully weighed, packed, and stored.

“The protection of the ecosystem through sustainable practices is at the core of our company,” said a seaExpert’s spokesperson. “Achieving the Friend of the Sea certification represents a milestone as well as an encouragement to continue working.”

SeaExpert algae are an excellent component for the cosmetic industry. Scientific research has found that seaweed has hydrating and exfoliating benefits, as well as unique healing properties for people with acne, rosacea, and skin sensitivity.

“Seaweed production has boomed in the last years. Supporting companies involved in this emerging and promising sector to implement sustainable practices is crucial,” said Paolo Bray, Founder and Director of Friend of the Sea.

The core criteria of the Friend of the Sea sustainable seaweed certification are:

  • No impact on critical habitat.
  • Water monitoring.
  • Prohibition of using hazardous substances.
  • Energy management.
  • Social accountability.
  • Traceability.

Norway salmon farming moves to cleaner waters: indoors

July 2, 2021 — Hundreds of thousands of salmon swim against the current in southeast Norway—in massive indoor tanks away from the nearest river as the controversial industry increasingly embraces greener land-based facilities.

The fish live in two gigantic pools inside an inconspicuous industrial building in Fredrikstad owned by a company that plans to raise salmon in similar settings even further afield, in the United States.

By raising the salmon on land, the industry is attempting to move away from the river or sea cages that have invited criticism over a slew of issues.

The problems run from costly mass escapes to fish infected with sea lice treated with chemicals to mounds of faeces and feed piling up on the seabed below the farms.

“At sea, you depend on the almighty for many things. In a land-based farm, we are suddenly the all-powerful one,” Fredrikstad Seafoods general manager Roger Fredriksen told AFP.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

MAINE: Meeting fails to quell salmon farm concerns

July 1, 2021 — American Aquafarms last week once again made a case for its $330 million project to raise Atlantic salmon off Bald Rock and Long Porcupine Island and process the fish at the now dormant Maine Fair Trade Lobster Co. facility in Prospect Harbor. But the Norwegian-backed company’s June 23 presentation did little to quell citizens’ fears that the proposed operation will harm the area’s robust lobster fishery and scenic values that draw millions of visitors to the region annually.

At the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ 3.5-hour scoping session, held via Zoom, American Aquafarms heard comments and answered questions about its proposal and draft applications to lease the two Frenchman Bay sites for up to 20 years. The intent, too, was for the company to inform the public about its proposed plan to harvest as much as 66 million pounds of salmon annually from the two 15-pen sites and process the fish at the Prospect Harbor facility. Sardines, lobster and other seafood have been processed almost continuously at that facility and transported to market from there for at least 115 years.

Attending the Zoom session, Acadia National Park Superintendent Kevin Schneider had a prepared statement to read aloud, but he was not among the 13 people who got to speak during the allotted time. In his statement, made public June 24, Schneider called for the DMR’s July deadline for submitting written comments on the long-term leases to be extended to Aug. 6. In his remarks, he noted that Acadia National Park is just 2,000 feet at the closest point from the two lease sites each comprising 60.32 acres. At both sites, two rows of eight and seven closed pens would be arranged in grids and anchored to the ocean floor in mooring systems encompassing 10 acres each.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

The Future of Ocean Farming

June 29, 2021 — Called regenerative ocean farming, this model involves growing shellfish and kelp in underwater gardens.

For all his life, Alaskan fisherman Dune Lankard has looked to the sea—for food, work and purpose. “I started fishing when I was five,” says Lankard, a member of the Athabaskan Eyak community, an Indigenous group from the Copper River Delta. “I really don’t have any skills beyond the ocean.”

Born in 1959, the same year Alaska became a state, Lankard has witnessed various natural and man-made disasters—including the commoditization of Indigenous peoples’ traditional fishing way of life—that have disrupted his industry and homeland. “As an Indigenous fisherman, I’ve seen it all,” he says.

In 1964, a massive magnitude 9.2 earthquake, fittingly called the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964, triggered a swell of tsunamis that killed more than 130 people and devastated fisheries. Exactly 25 years later, an Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound, spewing 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into the sea. The spill affected 1,300 miles of water and coastline, much of which is still considered to be in recovery.

Now, Alaskan fishermen are facing another urgent problem. Alaska is already feeling the effects of climate change, as the warming oceans have wreaked havoc on ecosystems of krill, wild kelp forests, salmon and birds. That’s all on top of the lingering losses caused by the 1989 oil spill. Before the Exxon spill, the Sound’s spring run of herring totalled more than 200,000 tons returning home. Today, there are only 4,000 tons returning annually. Lankard recently sold his fishing permit after several consecutive bad seasons.

To help mitigate the effects of warming waters, Lankard is now embracing an approach known as regenerative ocean farming, which involves growing seaweed and shellfish in small underwater gardens. Once a commercial fisherman, Lankard now mostly farms kelp.

“Alaska has always been based on extraction. We’re a natural resource extraction state,” says Lankard. “What regenerative ocean farming does is create a new regenerative economy that’s based on conservation, restoration and mitigation, as opposed to more extraction of resources.”

The burgeoning concept of regenerative ocean farming was developed and named by Bren Smith, a Canadian commercial fisherman turned ocean farmer. He believes ocean farming is the new farming model of the future.

Read the full story at Modern Farmer

TOM JOHNSON: Maine Compass: Restore Maine’s place as bastion of wild, native fish

June 29, 2021 — I am writing on behalf of the Maine chapter of Native Fish Coalition regarding the recent proposal by the state to allocate $20 million from the American Rescue Plan to update and modernize Maine’s fish hatcheries.

Native Fish Coalition (NFC) is a nonpartisan, grassroots, donor-funded, all volunteer, 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to the conservation, preservation, and restoration of wild native fish. Founded in Maine, we also have chapters in Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and West Virginia with members, partners, volunteers, supporters and followers.

When it was announced that Maine’s hatchery system will receive $20 million from the American Rescue Plan, it was stated: “At the core of Maine’s fisheries is Maine’s state hatchery system.” This is a gross misrepresentation of what Maine’s fisheries are, what makes Maine unique, and why people come to Maine to fish.

Read the full opinion piece at Central Maine

From Maine’s warming waters, kelp emerges as a potentially lucrative cash crop

June 28, 2021 — One bright, brisk morning last month, Colleen Francke steered her skiff a mile off the coast of Falmouth and cut the gas. A few white buoys bobbed in straight lines on the water. Francke reached down and hoisted a rope.

She has been lobstering for a decade and a half, she says, but as climate change warms local waters and forces lobsters northward, she’s been finding it harder to envision a future in that industry.

So, for the last two years, she’s been developing a new source of income. Heaving the rope aloft, she showed off her bounty: ribbons of brown, curly sugar kelp, raised on her 10-acre undersea farm.

Kelp, a seaweed more often thought of as a nuisance by fishermen, is emerging as a potentially lucrative crop, hailed for its many uses as a miracle food to an ingredient in bioplastics to a revolutionary way to feed beef cattle. And Maine officials, confronting a likely decline of the state’s iconic lobster fishing industry in coming decades, are now looking to kelp farming as a possible economic and environmental savior.

The state is working with local institutions to support training and grants for entrepreneurs such as Francke willing to move into kelp farming or other aquaculture ventures. It also labeled kelp a “natural climate solution” in its recently-released Climate Action plan. The goal, officials say, is to dramatically expand kelp farming as part of a reinvention of Maine’s seafood industry — and imagining a future in which kelp from Maine is held in something akin to the esteem that Maine lobster is now.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Comprehensive global study confirms restorative aquaculture has positive impacts on marine life

June 25, 2021 — The following was released by the University of New England:

The University of New England partnered with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the world’s leading conservation organization, on a ground-breaking new study that provides strong evidence that shellfish and seaweed farming are a critical component of regenerative food production.

The comprehensive study has been published in Reviews in Aquaculture at a time when much news of food production focuses on its negative impacts on the environment. Quite to the contrary, the study, titled “Habitat value of bivalve shellfish and seaweed aquaculture for fish and invertebrates: Pathways, synthesis, and next steps,” paints a bright picture of aquaculture’s potential to help satisfy food demand in harmony with ocean health.

Restorative shellfish and seaweed farming offers a sustainable method to meet the nutritional needs of the growing human population, while maintaining and improving the health of the waters, lands, and animals we live alongside. This study is among the first to demonstrate the global potential for regenerative outcomes in aquaculture systems.

“Aquaculture is among the world’s fastest-growing forms of food production and there is a growing biodiversity crisis that already exists in our ocean. It’s critical that we identify ways to develop aquaculture that benefits, rather than harms our ocean, that are based on sound science,” said Robert Jones, Global Lead for Aquaculture at The Nature Conservancy. “This study is game changing in that it clearly shows an opportunity through shellfish and seaweed aquaculture. For the first time, we’re able to put quantifiable global numbers on the benefits these farms can have on marine wildlife.”

Read the full release here

GAA Announces “Hybrid” GOAL Conference; In-Person Event Set to Take Place in Seattle This Fall

June 25, 2021 — The Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) is continuing to adapt to the current circumstances with the coronavirus pandemic. The organization announced on Monday that this year’s GOAL Conference will be going “hybrid,” with virtual events beginning in April and an in-person event set to take place later this year in Seattle.

This is the first time that GAA will be taking the hybrid approach to their GOAL conference. The 2020 event was supposed to take place in Tokyo, Japan, but GAA ultimately decided to make the event virtual due to COVID-19. The 2021 conference was supposed to take place in Tokyo, but GAA decided to postpone the in-person event in Tokyo to 2022. Instead, GOAL attendees will be able to participate in a face-to-face meeting in Seattle this fall. A venue and dates have yet to be announced.

Read the full story at Seafood News

MAINE: Bar Harbor to try to intervene on American Aquafarms lease

June 24, 2021 — As a controversial proposed salmon farm goes through the state lease process, Bar Harbor will likely be the first in line to ask for “intervenor status.”

The Town Council voted unanimously last week to apply to be an intervenor with the state Department of Marine Resources (DMR) on the American Aquafarms salmon farm project, which is proposed to be in the waters of Frenchman Bay off Bar Harbor, though it is technically in the jurisdiction of Gouldsboro.

The Norwegian-backed company has applied to grow salmon at two 60-acre, 15-pen sites northwest of Long Porcupine Island and northeast of Bald Rock Ledge in Frenchman Bay, sparking concerns among local conservationists and fishermen.

If the town is granted intervenor status, it would be allowed to provide testimony at a public hearing on the lease. In some cases, intervenors may also comment on draft decisions.

No other entity has applied for intervenor status yet, said Jeff Nichols, a spokesman for DMR.

The council’s decision to pursue intervenor status took only a few minutes with little discussion. The council had previously sat down with James Hanscom, a Bar Harbor lobsterman and member of the Lobster Zone B Council, and heard his concerns about the project. Before last week’s meeting, Hanscom delivered a statement of opposition on the project to council member Valerie Peacock.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander