8 Regions, 8 Fish Fixes
🌎 Happy Earth Day, Fish Forward fans! 🌎
This post is inspired by the ongoing New York Times series “50 States, 50 Fixes.” This series matches the ethos of Fish Forward – highlighting hope even when things seem hopeless. The Talking Climate Substack summarized:
The project’s first stories highlight a car-free community near Phoenix, Arizona, how bridges and underpasses for wildlife are helping ecosystems in Colorado, and how 500 buildings in Boise, Idaho (including the state capitol building!) are now heated with renewable geothermal energy. “From state legislatures to county boards and community groups, from tribal lands to city parks and postage-stamp backyards, everyday people are doing quiet, vital work to confront climate change and biodiversity loss,” journalists Cara Buckley and Catrin Einhorn write.
Fish Forward is an effort shaped around the 8 fisheries regions established under the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. For Earth Day, we’re following the New York Times in celebrating 8 regional seafood projects that promote sustainable seafood, and support resilient fish stocks and fishing communities in unique ways. Please stay tuned for our deep dives into each region – we’ve got so many interesting things in store for you!
What hopeful seafood projects do you want to highlight from your region?
Western Pacific and Pacific - Reviving traditional practices
For U.S. fisheries management, the Western Pacific region includes the federal waters around Hawai`i, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and 8 remote islands.
In Hawai‘i, fishpond estuaries are a vital interface between land and coastal waters, providing habitat for native flora and fauna above and below the fishpond waters. Once prevalent along Hawai’i shores, many fishponds were destroyed or fell into disrepair in recent decades. Fortunately, some fishponds, like the Kiholo Preserve on the northwest side of Hawai’i’s Big Island, survived. Several organizations (The Nature Conservancy, and the Hui Aloha Kīholo community group) work together to restore productivity to Kīholo Preserve. The groups and volunteers rebuilt the pond’s traditional rock walls, removed invasive trees and weeds that encroached on the pond and clogged waterways, and restored native vegetation. The partner organizations monitor the effects of these efforts on water quantity and quality, fish abundance, diversity, and recruitment. At Kīholo, between three and five million gallons of submarine groundwater flows through the fishponds into coastal waters each day, boosting the productivity of nearshore coral reefs and reef fisheries. This ultimately maintains important traditional knowledge and culture, and enhances Hawaiian food security.
The Pacific region includes the waters off Washington, Oregon, and California, as well as the rivers in Idaho.
Northwest Coastal Indigenous people have historically built clam gardens by moving and clearing rocks, and building small rock walls to create terraces in the tide flats. Studies have shown that these gardens maximize clam production, increase wildlife diversity, and have high concentration of shell fragments that can improve habitat conditions as oceans acidify. In 2022, members of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community revived this centuries-old tradition and installed a clam garden on Kiket Island. The garden promotes tribal treaty rights and food security, and is a climate adaptation strategy for long-term resource use and conservation that can also be set up in other coastal fishing communities.
Check out the Indigenous Aquaculture Collaborative for more information on similar projects.
North Pacific - Diversifying commercial fisheries with kelp farms
In the North Pacific, which is synonymous with Alaska, some fishermen are finding creative ways to diversify their fishing businesses by turning to farming - kelp farming. And not only does it help them diversify their business and keep jobs in coastal communities, it’s also good for the environment! This article highlights Cordova fishermen that began kelp farming after several poor salmon fishing seasons. The video above focuses on Native Conservancy's Kelp Ocean Farmer Program, currently serves Native villages in Prince William Sound, Kodiak, and Southeast Alaska. Kelp farming helps keep jobs in small coastal communities during poor salmon runs or in the off-season. Diversification is key to helping businesses, especially smaller family businesses, survive through challenges. Kelp farming also helps the environment by creating habitat and removing carbon dioxide from surrounding areas. The Alaska Ocean Acidification Network’s website provides lots of great information and resources to learn more about how kelp can help counter some of the effects of ocean acidification and changing ocean conditions.
Gulf of Mexico/America - Innovating for the future
The newly named Gulf of America, formerly called the Gulf of Mexico, is going through a rebranding. The Gulf of America Reef Fish Shareholders' Alliance leads the way with innovative programs like Gulf Wild, the only seafood traceability program in the nation built for fishermen by fishermen, or the Reef Fish Quota Bank, started in 2015 to reduce red snapper discards and to support the next generation of commercial fishermen.
Caribbean - Promoting diverse seafood choices
The Caribbean Fishery Management Council recently published a cookbook titled Fish and Seafood Recipes for Underutilized Species of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Underutilized species are fish that are abundant and edible but not often eaten or caught because of lack of market demand, difficulty in harvesting, or consumer unfamiliarity. Increasing consumption of underutilized species can reduce pressure on highly desired fish stocks. You can download the cookbook for free!
South Atlantic - Building better business through recreational fisheries conservation
In the South Atlantic, as in many places around the country, recreational fisheries and guided angler trips are big business. Groups like the American Saltwater Guides Association know the value of conservation not only to insure fish for future generations to catch but also so there are jobs for future fishing guides. As their website touts, they are promoting sustainable business through marine conservation. Check out their podcast, the Guide Post, a community hub podcast where anglers, guides, scientists and policymakers connect to discuss our fisheries, their history, ecological outlooks and the importance of effective management.
“The biggest myth about saltwater fisheries is that it's an endless cornucopia. If you don’t treat it right, there may not be a tomorrow. The biggest threats are a lack of really good science, the lack of a unified front, and the wrong folks having a seat at the table.”
- Tony Friedrich, President and Policy Director for American Saltwater Guides Association
Mid-Atlantic - Bringing seafood to culturally and economically diverse audiences
Fishadelphia connects communities to create solutions for everyone. Seafood harvesters need to sell their catch, and city folks love eating seafood. They meet these needs by bringing fresh seafood directly from the NJ shore into culturally and economically diverse communities in Philadelphia. Fishadelphia offers a seafood subscription program (aka a community-supported fishery) in the Philadelphia region, hosts community events, and builds the next seafood-savvy generation by running youth programming for high school students who learn about business and seafood. Of particular note is their document, Casting a Wider Net, that provides recommendations for community-supported fishery and other food programs who want to reach broader audiences, especially communities of color and low-income communities.
New England - Less Waste
Both of these examples go towards letting fewer fish go to waste.
Twin Light Smokehouse (based in Gloucester, MA – the oldest U.S. fishing port and where we both used to live!) smokes “freshly caught, ethically-sourced seafood in small batches using simple ingredients and natural smoke flavors.” Its parent organization, Cape Ann Fresh Catch purchased the smokehouse in 2020 as a way to be a zero waste community supported fishery. They smoke any fresh fish not sold through their direct-to-consumer seasonal shares. Finally, they make spreads and limited release special items from pieces of smoked fish not used in finished goods.
Elsewhere on the east coast, fishermen who traditionally harvest other species are working to combat tasty invasive green crabs by eating them! Flavor-packed green crabs are all around the United States. This invasive species found its way to our shores from Europe in the 19th century. Green crabs are relentless predators of native clams and oysters, compete with native crustaceans for food, and destroy eelgrass and marsh habitats. You can help keep the population in check — eat up when you see them on a menu, or buy them online from Wulf Fish in Boston.
Oo-Nee Sea Ranch in Oregon is building a Sea urchin farm to reduce the purple urchin threat to the kelp. Contact aaron@oo-nee.com