FROM THE CROWE’S NEST

Federally Funded Gold Rush

Another attempt at viable aquaculture is about to happen in the U.S, in a big way. Federal funding has paid for the development of offshore finfish aquaculture plans. The ground work for this has been laid by the 2007 Aquaculture Bill. Within many of the discussions are references to preserving the wild stocks. Promoters of the plan refer to the promise that aquaculture will feed the world.

Well, so much for working in a vacuum with someone else’s money to develop someone else’s ocean.

If the federal government spent what they spent on developing an aquaculture boom for investors on intelligently and realistically trying to preserve the wild ocean for credible fishing strategies, maybe aquaculture would be less the desperate gambit it now appears to be.

Of all the many questions and objections raised, one of the brightest red flags springs out of the language of the front men — billions in profits for investors, fixing the balance of trade, billions of tons of seafood, and of course “we are going to feed the world”.

This was the same pitch, used by the same type of corporate puppets who were dragged out to sell the Stratton Commission’s, NMFS enforced, industrialization of ground fishing in the 1970’s. That plan was also going to balance trade, make big money and go on forever. It was built on bogus numbers, no science, politics and general ignorance tempered by a particular arrogance.

The scientists trying to figure out how to make this thing work are probably sincerely interested in what they are doing. But, once its out of their hands and the drunk stunt drivers take the wheel — the investors who’ll pull profits off the top and make swaths of industrial feed lots out of it all — anything can happen and probably will.

Too many unanswered questions remain, and too many pieces don’t fit together. The math, the politics and the science all need a longer and broader look. Giving up on the wild fisheries that incompetent NMFS managers ruined, to rush into uncharted territory for a federally funded gold rush is irresponsible. Irresponsible and in need of a challenge.