| Living Oceans

Wrecked boat spotted as more marine debris hits northern Vancouver Island

Monday, January 28, 2013

SOINTULA, B.C.— Another small Japanese vessel has been located intact among masses of debris accumulating on Vancouver Island’s western shores. Living Oceans Society’s Will Soltau made the discovery while on helicopter surveillance over the west coast of northern Vancouver Island on January 16. The small boat was approximately six meters in length, similar to a skiff found on Spring Island outside the village of Kyuquot, B.C. in August 2012.

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Closed containment aquaculture

Closed containment aquaculture offers a viable, sustainable alternative to the environmental impacts of net pen salmon farming. The top Canadian food retailers have joined with SeaChoice to embrace this new technology by asking the government to financially support closed containment innovations.

Retail industry giants, including Overwaitea Food Group, Safeway and Loblaws have written to to Canadian government officials expressing their support for closed containment and the need for federal support of this opportunity for sustainable aquaculture development.

Improving fisheries management

Living Oceans Society works to protect the ocean by improving fisheries policy and management. Sometimes, we do this by writing scientific reports: Our campaigners have co-authored How We Fish Matters, a report on the ecological impacts of Canadian fishing gears, and another on bycatch in the British Columbia trawl fishery.

From sushi craze to sustainability wave

One of the fastest growing sectors of the seafood market is sushi. Ranging from high end sushi bars serving up endangered bluefin to little mom and pop operations where you may not always be sure what’s in the California roll, the sushi world has some major sustainability challenges. We are seeing a shift in sushi sustainability in Canada too. Companies like Bento, Tomiyama and Tokyo Express are getting on board with SeaChoice to provide sustainable options to their customers.

Partnering with business for healthier oceans

Through the SeaChoice program we are working with businesses along the seafood supply chain to shift the industry towards sustainability.

Shoppers making a difference

Our oceans are in trouble and the seafood we eat is a major culprit. Unsustainable fishing and aquaculture threatens not only the fish and seafood we eat, but also habitat, biodiversity and food webs – the building blocks of healthy ocean ecosystems.

 But our seafood choices can help rather than harm the ocean. These tools make it easy.

New management measures protect deep-sea habitat, put B.C. bottom trawlers on the road to sustainability

For decades, environmentalists in British Columbia have clashed with the province’s groundfish bottom trawlers over the damage that the industry has caused ocean habitats. But in March 2012, both sides came together to forge ahead on this issue, and fragile ocean habitats are the big winner.   Living Oceans Society and the David Suzuki Foundation developed innovative management measures in a collaborative effort with the B.C. bottom trawl fleet. These measures conserve corals and sponges, and reduce the fishery’s impact on deep-sea habitats.

Creating an ecosystem-based management plan

What is ecosystem-based management? Basically, it's a way of managing human activities that takes into account our cumulative impacts on ocean biodiversity, habitat, food webs, and water quality.

This is a new approach to doing things in the ocean - until now, we've only worried about our impacts on a handful of valuable species.

With ecosystem-based management, our scope is broadened to include non-commercial species, deep-sea corals and sponges, and so on.

The Fallacy of “Organic” open net-pen farmed salmon

Canadian "organic" farmed salmon began appearing on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus in 2013, thanks to the Canadian General Standards Board's (CGSB) May 2012 release of the Canadian Organic Aquaculture Standard, sponsored by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).   

While some types of farm-raised seafood (such as farmed shellfish) follow more stringent guidelines to protect the health of our oceans, the "organic" salmon farming standard varies little from conventional open-net cage practices.  

Industrial fish meal and fish oil fisheries

Fishing to feed farmed salmon is taking food away from people and the oceanic food web.

Salmon require other fish in their diet and right now, farming salmon uses more fish protein than it produces. It takes more than one kilogram of wild fish to grow one kilogram of farmed salmon. Farmed salmon is a luxury food not intended to combat global hunger and some scientists claim it would be better to feed the fish being used to make salmon feed directly to hungry people.