Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘Dock to dish’ aids net zero plan

November 11, 2020 — There is a simple way to help combat climate change, and it tastes good: Eat local fish.

More than 90 percent of the fish consumed in this country comes from overseas, creating an enormous carbon footprint.

“The average seafood eaten in the United States travels 5,500 miles from dock to dish,” said Brett Tolley, adding that even in coastal communities, the numbers aren’t that different. “If that doesn’t wake you up, I don’t know what will.”

Tolley, national program coordinator for Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, was one of four fishing industry panelists participating in Net Zero, a virtual conference sponsored by the Cape Cod Climate Change Collaborative.

The conference in late October brought together public and private leaders in all sectors, from construction to creative arts, who are growing jobs and the economy while moving the region to “net zero,” meaning the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere is a wash.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Local Catch hosts discussion on supply chain issues in wake of Sea to Table expose

October 9, 2018 — Local Catch, a community-of-practice made up of fishermen, organizers, researchers, and consumers, had its first webinar in a series exploring the implications of the Associated Press story on Sea to Table.

That story, which was published in June, accused the company of falsifying the origins of its seafood and potentially being linked to slave labor in Indonesia. Given the overlap in mission between Sea to Table and a number of other fishing organizations and nonprofits, Local Catch’s first webinar – titled “Slow Fish 201: Good, clean, fair seafood supply chains” – was focused on discussing what other suppliers can do counteract any negative publicity, and how they can ensure they avoid similar pitfalls.

“What is the overall impact of the Sea to Table Story?” said Colles Stowell, moderator of the discussion and the founder of One Fish Foundation.

Coordinator of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance Brett Tolley said that the accusations levied against Sea to Table, and the adoption of similar policies by many organizations, are an inevitable symptom of the rising interest by consumers in the sustainability and origins of their seafood. The Slow Fish movement, at its core, developed as a way to connect people to harvesters and smaller fishing communities.

“The popularity of this model is giving rise to co-optation,” Tolley said. He pointed to the Fulton Fish Market, which re-branded itself with the moniker “community supported fishery,” which Tolley said is at odds with the smaller, local seafood driven model of Slow Fish.

Challenges in supplying sustainable fish with a known origin story are also not new to  TwoXSea co-founder Innokenty Belov. Belov – who first got into the sustainable seafood business with his San Francisco, California-based restaurant “Fish. Restaurant” – has witnessed firsthand how supply chains can be muddied and difficult to navigate.

“We would have local fishermen bringing us seafood, and we would be able to tell the story of those men and women and what they did every day to bring that bounty into our kitchen,” Belov said of the early days of the restaurant. “There was not nearly enough fish being caught in our local area, being caught in the way we wanted it to be caught.”

That meant going to wholesalers. Belov recounted one wholesaler that provided him with yellowfin tuna for fish tacos, which was reportedly from a boat out of the Marshall Islands.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

At U.N., Brett Tolley Touts Small-Scale Fisheries

June 14, 2017 — Fisheries activist Brett Tolley of Chatham has told many people about the plight of small-scale fishermen like his father, who left the industry because he couldn’t compete with big corporate interests. Last week, he told that story to world leaders in a special forum at the United Nations in New York.

A proud member of a fourth-generation fishing family, Tolley works as a community organizer and policy advocate for the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, which lobbies for healthy fisheries and fishing communities. Last week, at the invitation of the Slow Food International Network, Tolley testified as part of a panel at the U.N. Ocean Conference.

In contrast with fast food, Slow Food represents traditional and regional cuisine from local plants, livestock and seafood.

“It’s good, clean and fair food for all,” Tolley said. The movement was born around the same time as the agricultural crisis in the 1980s, acknowledging that high-volume, low-cost industrial farms were destroying small family farms and the communities they supported.

“The industrial food system is not working,” Tolley said. Mega-farms not only cause social problems, but they don’t actually achieve the goal of providing healthier food for the masses, he added. Intense industrial farming can also leave tracts of land unusable because of pesticides and other environmental threats. With small-scale farmers, “they inherently care about the health of the land,” Tolley said. The parallels between agriculture and commercial fishing are clear, with small-scale day boat fishermen battling against large corporations to stay profitable.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Chronicle

Catch Shares Take Toll Council Called To Task

September 4, 2015 — At the April New England Fishery Management Council meeting in Mystic, Conn., a dozen university students from New England, members of fishing families, other fishing organizations, and Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance community organizer Brett Tolley were in attendance. About a dozen people among this group wore orange “Who Fishes Matters” T-shirts.

Among the topics addressed, by these folks and several other groups, were the importance of Amendment 18 and its relationship to subjects such as fleet consolidation, reduced fleet diversity, the disappearance of the small boat fleet, and a report, paid for by the council, that said there was no evidence of consolidation.

The council chairman told Tolley there was no time for the group to comment during the public comment period. Tolley asked that the chair consider the long distances they had traveled to be at this public hearing. Again, the chair said no. He then publicly called Tolley a derogatory epithet. In the minds of critics of the council, that proved to be a statement that said much about how the council sees itself in relation to taxpaying citizens. (The council is overseen by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Members are selected by New England governors and appointed by the Secretary of Commerce.)

Read the full story from Fishermen’s Voice