According to the government officials this aquaculture plan offers powerful economic incentives if environmental, technological and political problems can be solved. NOAA announced a series of “listening sessions” in Rhode Island, Louisana, Washington state, Hawaii and California to be followed by a national call-in event on May 6. The press release of NOAA said that the first listening session will be held in Narragansett, R.I., next Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Corless Auditorium on the Narragansett Bay campus of the University of Rhode Island.
It also mentioned that the radical transformation of the wild stocks from shared ownership into allocated catching rights ripe for investment has dominated the national debate on oceans and fishing almost from the moment Jane Lubchenco was confirmed by the Senate to head NOAA 13 months ago.
According to NOAA the debate over ocean aquaculture is the propagation and rearing of aquatic marine organisms in controlled or selected aquatic environments for any commercial, recreational, or public purpose at least three miles from shore where federal jurisdiction begins and runs for 200 miles, arrives with much less certainty than Lubehenco’s catch shares. The privatization idea arrived all but fully formed, but Lubchenco has conceded doubts about ocean aquaculture.
Mike Rubino, NOAA’s director of aquaculture, expressed that the idea has been in the works for many years, and many lessons have been learned at the working waterfront level. Rod Moore, a West Coast commercial processor and member of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, informed that attempts to farm things like halibut, flounder and Dover sole have not done real well.
It is fact that globally, aquaculture already supplies half of the world’s seafood and the United Nations projects that most of the future increase in seafood supply must come from aquaculture. Criticizing the aquaculture plan Marinne Cufone, director of the fish program for the consumer group, Food & Water Watch, said that it seems to be a very unwise investment, and it could possibly devastate wild harvesting. The commercial fishermen are already struggling.
