From Alana:
From “Hawai’i has a lot to gain from open ocean aquaculture” in today’s Honolulu Advertiser:
Just as we need to be off imported oil, we need to be off imported seafood. This opportunity can be an economic engine for Hawai’i, and hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.Let’s not stand in our own way. There’s a lot to gain for everyone.
Absolutely.
The amount of seafood that we import is really astounding. It is upsetting, though, that in the wake of a very large aquaculture operation, which would export up to 90% of its ahi products, statements like the above, are used to defend it.
The article, by Jay Fidell of ThinkTech Hawaii, goes on to say that:
There are anti-aquaculture groups who don’t want “greedy” corportations to make a profit and export aquaculture products to outside markets. Those groups don’t acknowledge andvancements in the technology, and regularly diseminate disinformation about the industry. They’ve been pulling out all the stops, apparently bent on wiping out open ocean aquaculture in Hawai’i. Theyre’re completely wrong. Without open ocean aquaculture, Hawai’i would have to depend on foreign unregulated producers and overfished wild stocks. Those options are not nearly as secure or sustainable as the development of homegrown open ocean aquaculture.
I do not think of myself as entirely “anti-aquaculture”, I just think it should be done right. My cause is not to “diseminate disinformation”, it is to let people know that there are serious implications that multiple aquaculture ventures could have on Hawaii’s marine ecosystems. It is also to open peoples eyes to aquaculture in other parts of the world, and to how it has affected those places. This article makes it seem like there is some hidden agenda beneath fighting these giant open ocean aquaculture projects. But really, I have nothing to gain from this. I have neither read nor heard anything pro-open ocean aquaculture, aside from the people who would benefit direcly from it.
Love the quotation: “I have neither read nor heard anything pro-open ocean aquaculture, aside from the people who would benefit direcly from it.” Sorry that you don’t read the scientific literature or comments by knowledgeable people who know a lot about the subject of offshore aquaculture and are strong supporters, without benefiting directly or even indirectly (except for better seafood availability).
I do have experience with recycle aquaculture systems (RAS) and my consulting activity would benefit greatly from the activists push to closed recycle systems. However, having made a living in the RAS area, I fully understand the fundamental limitations of recycle aquaculture and the huge advantages of offshore aquaculture.
Recycle aquaculture is excellent for maturation, spawning and producing fingerlings for offshore net pens, but you can’t beat offshore for growout where the weather and water temperature is adequate (ie Hawaii). The high capital cost and energy consumption of recycle systems is inherent in the physics and biochemistry of the problem and no amount of hope, desire, activist beliefs, or taxpayers money will change the situation.
Have you even seen the operation in other areas of the world or are you just depending upon other activists for you information about the problems? Most of the activists in the anti-aquaculture camp do have fund raising objectives, where it is easy to fight a non-significant opponent than one that can fight back like commercial fishermen, long liners, bottom trawlers, etc. Disinformation is par for the course for fund raising.
Mahalo for commenting!
What scientific literature is this? I would love to read it.
Alana
If you read the journals like “Aquaculture” and “Aquacultural engineering” along with all the studies sponsored by Sea Grant on the environmental impacts of the offshore systems in Hawaii, and the Cobia operation in Puerto Rico along with the actual research studies done around the world. To put things in perspective, you also need to read the scientific studies on the impacts of commercial fishing (the alternative to aquaculture) and view the relative ecological impacts per ton of fish produced.
My web site has a study of bottom trawling. Examples of what I was referring to:
Assessment of some chemical parameters in marine sediments exposed to offshore cage fish farming influence: a pilot study
Felipe Aguado-GiménezCorresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author and Benjamín García-García
Instituto Murciano de Investigación y Desarrollo Agrario y Alimentario (IMIDA), Departamento de Ganadería y Acuicultura, Las Salinas 7, San Pedro del Pinatar, P.O. Box 65, San Pedro del Pinatar, 30740, Murcia, Spain
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T4D-4DFX368-1&_user=3902383&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=971623754&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000047720&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=3902383&md5=86fc8010bdba7c023e5ddb5ede9e02d0
ScienceDirect has about 2600 references for “offshore aquaculture environmental”