Obtaining seafood from the ocean wasn’t always controversial. In fact, it was seen as an essential part of life, especially for island nations. Food from the ocean provided essential calories and nutrition that was hard to find on land.
Now, though, the situation is different. Over-fishing for much of the last century combined with climate change means that many stocks are running low, and there’s a risk that future generations won’t be able to enjoy fish in the same way as we do today.
Because of this, many companies are stepping up to the plate and changing the way they operate. Maine Lobster Now, a leader in sustainable seafood delivery, is at the forefront of this movement, making needed adjustments to the way the industry works while still providing food to its customers at a low impact.
“We understand the challenges the industry faces,” explains Maine Lobster Now. “The situation was critical a few years ago, but has since improved enormously with new practices coming around. It’s something that we’ve been implementing in Maine and Alaska when sourcing lobster and wild-caught fish to our customers.”
According to the FAO, around 35% of global fishing stocks are now over-fished, meaning that fishing levels are under mortal threat. However, brands like Maine Lobster Now are looking for new ways to fish that don’t cause the same level of damage to ecosystems while still providing consumers with the seafood they need at an affordable price.
One of the biggest innovations is to actually use blockchain to determine the origin and provenance of specific types of fish, like tuna. A lot of fishing companies are now using the technology to track fish from the moment they hit the boat until the consumer purchases it at the store, perhaps in another country. Systems that combine RFID and immutable ledgers are hard to corrupt, so nobody in the supply chain can change them or fake them in any way.
Carbon-neutral aquaculture is another element that is coming to the fore in the fishing industry. The idea here is to create a closed loop around fishing farms, preventing them from polluting themselves or the environment.
Closed loop setups are hard to achieve in practice, as the experiment in Biosphere II in the UK made clear. However, technologies are improving and companies are getting better at cleaning up messes and ensuring that the entire operation has minimal impact on the surroundings. The goal is to produce a high volume of salmon without damaging the surrounding natural ecosystems or leading to excessive levels of waste. The quality of the fish isn’t as high as it is with wild-caught options, but it provides a more sustainable way to meet growing demand for fish in countries like India and China.
To counter the risk of over-fishing, many fishermen in regions around the globe are now using pole-and-line-only methods. These get rid of industrial fishing nets and trawlers entirely, protecting the environment against substantial harm. One of the problems with industrial fishing methods of the 20th century was how they would scour entire ecosystems and cause massive damage that went beyond the over-fishing element. This then led to collapsing supply chains and challenges with keeping fishing stocks healthy. Essentially, pole-and-line fishing remedies this issue, reducing the killing of dolphins, sharks, and turtles, while also allowing fishermen to be more selective in what they catch.
“This sustainability element is essential to how we operate at Maine Lobster Now,” the delivery company explains. “For us, it is about maintaining fishing stocks for posterity and ensuring that they never diminish to the lows seen at the end of the last century. Fish need to be protected so that the resource remains well into the future.”
It’s not just changes in practices, though, that are having an impact. Technology is also playing a role, enabling countries to get more from their fishing stocks while creating less environmental devastation.
For instance, we’re witnessing the rise of eco-engineering trawling gear. The idea here is to provide fish and other creatures with escape hatches that enable them to get out of harm’s way. These features are useful for higher species that sometimes get trapped in nets along with the rest of the fish.
These trawling setups are particularly useful for catching smaller fry. Many Japanese and US boats now equip them when trying to catch prawns and shrimp, collecting this type of seafood in the bottom of the net while enabling everything else to swim out of the top.
Ditching fish aggregating devices is also helping with this process. Many fishermen are now choosing technologies and nets that allow juvenile tuna and other species to escape while still getting results each time they throw the net over the edge.
AI-monitoring is also playing a role in cutting down on overfishing and enabling stocks to recover. Systems combine with GPS to monitor boat location and ensure that overfishing doesn’t occur in any areas. The ability to leverage big data and combine it with simulations means that determining where fishing is occurring and how it is affecting local stocks is simpler and more straightforward than ever before.
Finally, plant-based innovations are taking center stage. More people than ever are looking at ways to simulate the benefits of fish using non-fish sources of food. Some of the companies behind this trend are highly innovative and use ingredients like tomatoes to make tuna.
Ultimately, whether these moves make a difference to global fish stocks remains to be seen. Currently, things look like they are improving, despite the additional demand for seafood consumption, but whether that will last will depend on the collective decisions that people make. We could be witnessing a sea-change in the approach to the ocean by countries and companies.
“At Maine Lobster Now, we’re always looking for new ways to protect ocean stocks. That’s part of the experience and also makes for higher quality food. Wild-caught lobster and fish just taste better, so it’s essential they remain in the ocean.”
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — In the photo: Sea food innovation Cover Photo Credit:
