Posts Tagged ‘harvested’
Fish will still be on the menu in 2048 – if we live up to new standards
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
There was a time when the leading marine scientists Boris Worm and Ray Hilborn were sworn enemies.
Each looked at the ocean in very different ways and when Dr Worm published a paper three years ago predicting the collapse of all fish stocks around the world by 2048, Professor Hilborn hit the roof. The way he saw it, the fish were doing fine.
Science is supposed to be cold, impartial and evidence based, but the two had come to different conclusions. Professor Hilborn was concerned with measuring the size and populations of individual species of fish to determine how many could be safely harvested by fishermen. Dr Worm, meanwhile, looked at things from the perspective of the entire ecosystem — including all the different types of fish, invertebrate and plant life. Where Professor Hilborn saw a workable fishery, Dr Worm saw looming crisis…
After meeting face to face, when brought together to air their differences in the studio of a National Public Radio show, they decided to collaborate. The result, the Rebuilding Global Fisheries study, published in the journal Science, is being hailed as a landmark work by experts around the world.
“This paper marks a historical turning point,” Dr Worm told The Times. “We’ve been fishing for 10,000 years, but we’ve never been able to proactively manage it. The environment has always defined what fish we catch. What we’ve done is establish beyond doubt the ecosystem consequences of fishing, and what works to reduce those impacts.”
For two years the two scientists and 19 co-authors gathered data from the world’s fishing grounds to establish a consensus on the situation, and what should be done about it.
“The picture is much more optimistic,” said Professor Hilborn. “We’ve found that some areas have never been overfished, while others are well within their limits. There is an increasing fraction that are being overexploited, but the key thing is to understand and address the causes of that trend…”
Catching fewer fish is not an attractive option for many fishermen, for whom it means less income. Persuading them to accept cuts in return for greater gains in the future is a key challenge. “Yet, it remains our only option for ensuring fisheries and marine ecosystems against further depletion and collapse,” Dr Worm said.
I grew up subsistence fishing with my family. If we didn’t catch fish – we didn’t have that chunk of protein 5 or 6 days a week. Whatever was running – for months at a time – that’s what we ate.
That was a time before we needed to know about managing fish stocks. We learned about pollution and what disasters thoughtless industries could visit upon a sport and business – and the young environmental movements in the 60′s and 70′s won a great deal of that battle. At least until the days of Reagan.
This is a tale that’s better than cautionary because it’s about scientists who work at saving their part of the world through scientific methods instead of political crap and ideology. One can only hope the workers of this trade – fisherfolk – all adopt the lessons learned.
Portugal starts to revive their salt industry
Traditional salt-making, hand harvesting
Daylife/AFP/Getty Images
In the early 1990s, João Navalho, a microbiologist fresh out of graduate school, came to the salt marshes in the Algarve region with a handful of young partners to grow and harvest microalgae. The business foundered…After years of frustrated effort, the partners suddenly changed course. “We looked around and said, ‘We’re stupid!”‘ Navalho recalled. “We have a lot of land here. What we should do with the salinas is produce salt!”…
Like everything else in this undertaking, the answer was staring them in the face. Living on the edge of the marshes was Maximino António Guerreiro, a sunburned retired salt worker with a grizzled beard and missing teeth, who started harvesting here with his father more than four decades ago.
In 1997, the salt project began. Guerreiro cleaned out and rebuilt the long-abandoned patchwork of rectangular, clay-lined salt beds. With young workers from Eastern Europe, he opened sluices from the sea and set up a damming system to control the water flow. He shared the secrets of salt: how to measure evaporation levels and determine the correct salt density and water temperature, when to add water and to rake and skim.
Two years later, Necton, the salt company that Navalho created here, produced its first salt crop. Now it is one of the region’s new salt pioneers, struggling to revive what was once a flourishing trade in this part of Portugal. They are trying to persuade consumers of the health and taste benefits of handmade, nonindustrial salt and to compete in an increasingly sophisticated global salt market. “Life begins in the ocean,” Navalho said. “What we are selling is ocean salt water without the water. Call it sea dust.”
To many people, salt is salt. But to those for whom it is a gourmet condiment, few varieties compare to the crème de la crème of salt known as fleur de sel, harvested by gently skimming the white, lacy film from the surface of salty beds when weather conditions in summer allow.
RTFA. Lots of interesting history. A fair piece of info about the craft.
I have a favorite sea salt – though I won’t bring it up since it has naught to do with the article. I think all the methods and styles have a place – just like all the denominations of olive oil or where your favorite scallops grow. The flavor is in the taste buds of the taster.
