Why is this tour important? Niaz Dorry, the Executive Director of NAMA, says we need to protect small-scale fishing in order to ensure fair jobs, good health, strong communities, and sustainable environments.:
“We believe there is a direct link between who fishes and the health of our ocean, marine ecosystem and commercial fisheries. Fisheries managers and policy makers are deciding on the rate and limits to consolidation and accumulation of fishing power within the fishing industry. Considering fishing is done to feed our food systems, we need to apply lessons learned from what happened when consolidation and accumulation of power happened to farmers who bring our land based foods to our table. In the end we realized that who farms matters to the health of our food, biodiversity, economies and communities.”
Shannon Eldridge of Chatham, MA tells her story:
Check out more testimonial videos by fisherfolk here.
I have to be honest, my love of shrimp is deeply rooted as my ‘go to food’ when back in the day I wanted something low calorie and low fat to eat. Of course, this was in the days before we worried about our cholesterol levels. Salad and shrimp cocktail were not going to pack on the pounds.
Back then, I had no idea where my shrimp came from but my guess is that it was wild and lived in the ocean. Now, it’s still a challenge to figure out my shrimp’s origins and on top of that I find my food choices have become more complicated.
So, it’s summer and the perfect time to eat outside, and to eat lots of shellfish. I decided I would try to get a sense of where the shrimp that I order in a restaurant comes from.
Why should you ask where the shrimp (or any animal protein for that matter) is sourced?
Here’s why.
The shrimp we order at a restaurant is most likely farm raised. They are fed antibiotics, GMO feed or some other unnerving food source. According to Food and Water Watch, “Fish-lovers would be horrified to learn that huge quantities of fish and shrimp are now being grown in giant nets, cages, and ponds where antibiotics, hormones and pesticides mingle with disease and waste. These industrialized aquaculture facilities are rapidly replacing natural methods of fishing that have been used to catch fresh, wild seafood for millennia.”
Not sounding good to me.
A 30-million-square-meter shrimp farm in Indonesia
In one high-end restaurant I visited recently, I asked, “Can you tell me where the shrimp is from and if it is wild or farm-raised?” The waiter came back with the answer that the shrimp were wild and from Guatemala.
Another thing to think about is that shrimp are often farm-raised in foreign countries like Indonesia, where the workers rights are questionable and the effects of shrimp farms can be devastating to their ecosystems. And, let us not forget the increased carbon footprint created when shrimp travels hundreds if not thousands of miles to make it to our dinner plate. [read entire article…]
In the small coastal town of Sitka, Alaska, nestled on the west coast of Baranof Island in the heart of the Tongass – the nation’s largest National Forest, students eat local food for lunch. The Sitka Conservation Society incorporates all the key elements that make an excellent farm to school program: health, sustainability and community, and then apply those themes to fish.
The students eat fish at school, are taught stream to plate curriculum and develop an appreciation for their natural environment. Simultaneously, they connect with community-based fishermen. Recently, fishermen were celebrated during a special fish lunch at two local schools. Since the event coincided with St. Valentine’s Day, fishermen even received Valentine’s Day cards from the students.
Christina Schiavoni, WhyHunger’s Director of Global Movements, recently traveled up the East Coast to connect with our partners at the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance….
I had an eye-opening visit to the fishing community of Gloucester, Massachusetts, last week, hosted by Niaz Dorry of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, or NAMA. NAMA is a fantastic organization that works tirelessly on issues impacting family fishermen, coastal communities, and marine ecosystems, connecting to broader issues of food justice and food sovereignty. One of the things that impresses me about NAMA is how they work side by side in the trenches—and waterways—with small-scale fishermen, fighting corporate consolidation of the fishing industry while building viable alternatives, like Community-Supported Fisheries.
Another thing NAMA is spending a lot of time on these days is educating people like me—people in the food movement who might have some awareness and concern about fishing issues, but whose thinking has been largely “land-locked.” Let me be the first to admit that, yes, I fall into this category. But groups like NAMA are helping us to realize how absolutely critical fisheries issues are when it comes to food justice and food sovereignty, and how the same alarming trends happening in agriculture are happening in fisheries. Food producers being driven out of business and into poverty; pressure to “get big or get out”; dismantling of communities, cultures, and traditions; large-scale operations wrecking havoc on the environment and threatening future food supplies; the commodification of food, jobs, and people—all this and more is happening in the realm of fisheries, just as it is happening in agriculture. And just as agriculture and fisheries are inextricably linked when it comes to the problems of our food system, so too are they linked when it comes to the solutions. [read entire article…]
Welcome to the Connect blog, a project of WhyHunger’s Grassroots Action Network.
The Connect blog shares the stories of community-based organizations who are leading by example and working together to build the movement to end hunger and poverty.
Learn more about the Grassroots Action Network here.
A 30-million-square-meter shrimp farm in Indonesia
