Face a Growing Storm of Public Opposition

(01/28/2009) Today, Gulf of Mexico federal fishery managers meeting in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi will cast a deciding vote on a controversial proposal to establish the first-ever management plan regulating offshore aquaculture in U.S. waters. They will face a stormy reception from a coalition of environmental and fishing organizations, consumer groups, seafood businesses, and scientists.

Citing lack of national standards, lack of legal authority, and lack of adequate environmental safeguards, 124 groups and individuals have signed onto a consensus statement opposing the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s plan. The Gulf Council’s proposed action involves the creation of a fishery management plan that would be administered under the nation’s fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The Marine Fish Conservation Network, representing nearly 200 conservation and fishing groups nationwide, is one of the national organizations opposing the plan. Formed to defend and oversee implementation of the nation’s fisheries law, the Network says the Gulf Council’s proposed aquaculture plan is ill suited to the Magnuson Steven Act’s mission of achieving sustainable fisheries and undercuts Congress’ efforts to establish a national framework for managing any future development of aquaculture in federal waters. The Network’s environmental and fishing interests have been unanimous in their opposition to the Gulf Council’s plan, noting that Fisheries Service is already under-funded to carry out its mission of conserving and sustaining wild fisheries.

“Congress never contemplated aquaculture as part of the ‘fisheries’ managed by the Fisheries Service and the Gulf Council, and never contemplated that aquaculture facilities would be treated as equivalent to fishing vessels,” said the Network’s Regional Representative, Tom Wheatley . “The purpose of the law is to manage and conserve wild fisheries, not to promote offshore aquaculture production,” Wheatley noted. The new authorities and responsibilities envisioned by the Gulf Council’s aquaculture plan would only add to the demands on the Fisheries Service and the Gulf Council at a time when they should be focusing all of their limited resources on the implementation of the ambitious new provisions and requirements of the reauthorized Magnuson Stevens Act of 2006.

The scale of fish farming in federal waters envisioned under the Gulf Council’s plan would conflict with fish and fishermen in numerous ways, Wheatley and others note. In addition to creating a source of fish production that would compete directly with fishermen in the seafood market, the proposed aquaculture plan lacks adequate safeguards ensuring that the operation of offshore aquaculture facilities will not result in the loss or degradation of fishing grounds or the transmission of disease from farmed fish to wild fish in surrounding waters. A 2008 report on ocean aquaculture prepared by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to the House Committee on Natural Resources concluded that multiple administrative and environmental issues remain unaddressed or unresolved.

The crowning irony, however, is that offshore aquaculture is touted by proponents as a way to reduce pressure on depleted wild fish stocks and yet offshore fish farms will only add to that pressure. The species of farmed fish that are the focus of open-ocean aquaculture are predators that require a high-quality diet similar to a wild fish’s diet and rely on wild forage fish that are processed into fishmeal and oil to supply the main ingredients of processed fish pellets. “We are very concerned that the scale of aquaculture development envisioned in the Gulf Council’s plan will only increase demands on already heavily exploited forage fish stocks,” says the Network’s Tom Wheatley.

Wheatley cites the menhaden fishery – the largest fishery in the Gulf of Mexico and the second largest fishery in the nation by weight – as a case in point. The Gulf menhaden fishery is a major source of fishmeal and oil in the United States, and Wheatley points out that the Gulf Council’s aquaculture plan could encourage unsustainable menhaden fishing to fuel the growth of offshore aquaculture. Wheatley is working with the Save the Bait Coalition to convince the Gulf States responsible for managing the menhaden fishery in state waters to adopt basic reforms aimed at ensuring that menhaden can sustain their role in the ecosystem as a major source of food for highly valued wild fish species that recreational and commercial fishermen like to catch.

Menhaden is not the only forage fish stock at risk.. Globally, about 30% of all marine fish landed each year are forage fish that are processed directly into fishmeal and oil and used in livestock and aquaculture feeds. The U.N Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that a rapidly growing global aquaculture industry is increasing the demand for fishmeal and fish oil and is projected to outstrip the available supplies of both within the next decade. Without measures to reduce and limit the use of wild forage fish as feedstock for farmed fish, Wheatley emphasizes, the push to establish offshore fish farms will pose a growing threat to the food supply of other fish, marine mammals and birds in marine ecosystems.

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Contact: Tom Wheatley , 727-452-5886