Putting fisheries in the food bowlBridget S. Green

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia

• Sustainability of seafood– By broader measures

• Are we really running out of it?

Food security• In 2007 a global crisis in food prices

leading to riots

– Droughts, rising fuel prices (fertilizers, food transportation, and industrial agriculture.) •Decline in arable land

– Australia feeds about 60 million people with grain, • in a drought year only 25 million

– Recent droughts in US will have broad repercussion– These food price spikes the new norm

Food security is identified as a global threat to stability. Alongside terrorism

Perception of seafood as unsustainable

• Only 2 stocks of 111 overfished in Australia

Destructive historic fishing practices caused massive declines in some stocks

Globally: 83% of assessed stocks are sustainable

overfished and no opportunity for future contribution………

Mis-Perception of seafood as unsustainable

• Globally: 784 modern extinctions from 1500 to now– none were marine fishes (IUCN redlist)

• Locally: Tasmania has 680 threatened species – None of these are harvested for seafood. – Only 8 of the 680 listed threatened species are impacted by

commercial fishing.

– Most of the rest are impacted by land use.

• 81.9 m tons fish landed in 2006 • to replace that level of protein with cattle grazing would require 139

million km2 of grazing lands Requires 22.3 times remaining rainforest

Wild fisheries do not use fertilisers, freshwater, antibiotics, hormones, pesticides or clear land

Fisheries and Food securityGlobally:•10% of protein comes from seafood

– More in developing countries – as high as 40% in island nations

– Depend on fisheries for employment, nutrition, GDP

We can’t afford to leave seafood out of planning for food security

Sustainable seafood • ending overfishing of target species

• protecting ecosystems and non-target species

• Restricted access to resource

• economic, social and political objectives

• Fuel use?? Bait supply?? Material use??

• supply chain impacts??

Image by Jurgen Asp

Method

Image by Jurgen Asp

Life Cycle Assessment

Categories for comparing sustainability with other food production

LCA is a standardised method for quantifying a range of environmental consequences throughout a product’s supply chain

- Takes all the components that goes into the finished product from any industry, whether from food production or building or cloth versus disposable nappy and adds the inputs energy from all the components that go to making the product.

- the input energy includes all the materials and energy used to produce them e.g. the electricity to make the metal as well as the energy to mining the metal, as well the transport energies from source materials to final market.

Method

• Global warming potential – Kg CO2e

• Cumulative energy demand– MJ

• Eutrophication – Kg PO4e

• Water use – M3

• Marine aquatic ecotoxicity - DAY

Image by Jurgen Asp

Life Cycle Assessment

AimsAssess the environmental footprint of Tasmanian Southern rock lobster using Life Cycle Assessment under different management options

YieldValueMarket

LCA Southern Rock lobster

LCA Southern Rock lobster

CO2 emissions under different management scenarios

0

3.7500

7.5000

11.2500

15.0000

MSY

kg C

O2e

per

kg

SRL

CO2 emissions under different management scenarios

CO2 emissions under different management scenarios

CO2 emissions under different management scenarios

-44%

-80%-89%

CO2 emissions under different management scenarios

-44%

-80%

CO2 emissions under different management scenarios

-44%

-80%

+25%

MPA

-17% -19%-32% -35%

CO2 emissions under different management scenarios

MPA

Australia has Great fisheries managementAustralia imports 70% of its seafood.What are impacts of that?

Lobsters and crabsconsumed in Australia

Lobster at wholesale in Australia

pots

trawl

Prawns consumed in Australia

Frozen processed prawns at wholesale in Australia

Frozen fish at wholesale in Australia

Frozen fish at wholesaler in Australia

Lower trophic level not necessarily the most efficient

Frozen fish at wholesaler in Australia

Frozen fish at wholesaler in Australia

GLOBAL FUEL USE IN FISHERIESFu

el u

se in

tens

ity (l

itres

/tonn

es)

Impacts of seafood can be measured in a number of waysSustainability measures vary depending of what we value….And maybe on whether there is a carbon tax.

Are we really running out of Seafood?

FAO: wild seafood catch has stopped growing, and cannot match population needs

Increasing seafood production• Utilizing unfished / underfished species

Sardines, Australian salmon, school prawn. Fish boxes and Trash fish Friday

• Recovering overfished stocks

• Increasing production from “fully exploited” stocks (as rules are rarely optimal)E.g., southern rock lobster NZ estimated zonal management enabled harvests to be ~ 25% higher in fully exploited stock

• Intervention with recruitment, carrying capacity and mortality in wild fisheries e.g., Translocation of lobster increases biomass

Increasing seafood production• Utilization of reduction and bait fisheries for human consumption 2.48 million metric tonnes per year for pet food. Petfood + fishmeal = 13.5% of total 39.0-6 t wild forage fish not human food. New England herring 100,000 t for bait for lobster

• Increase in recovery rates Change in recovery rates range from rough filleting (~25%) to efficient

filleting (~35%) Consumption of other parts of the fish (roe, cheeks, eyes, skin) , Eating the whole fish as we do with white bait / fish stock (100%) Western rock lobsters from 25% recovery from tail to 100% recovery

including shell.

• Supply chain improvement

• Reducing legislative barriers e.g., restrictions on spatial allocation to seafood production, pot limits

• Aquaculture

More fish for thought

Fish is lower impact than many other forms of protein production Sustainable Plenty of fish for the food bowl

The team I work with

The authors acknowledge: •Sea Around Us project for global catch data•UNEP-WCMC for global database of protected areas•ANNIMS

Reg Watson, Ray Hilborn, Klaas Hartmann, Adrian Kitchingman, Gabrielle Nowara, Jessica Andre, Caleb Gardner, Sarah Jennings, Robert Parker, Sean Tracey, Colin Buxton, Brett Molony, Beth Fulton, Tony Smith, Anna Farmery, Jake Kritzer, Andrew Tobin, Renae Tobin, Nathan Pelletier, Ian Cartwright