0:00:01.204,0:00:02.900
You may be wondering

0:00:02.900,0:00:04.574
why a marine biologist from Oceana

0:00:04.574,0:00:06.284
would come here today to talk to you

0:00:06.284,0:00:07.700
about world hunger.

0:00:07.700,0:00:09.441
I'm here today because

0:00:09.441,0:00:12.716
saving the oceans is more than an ecological desire.

0:00:12.716,0:00:14.780
It's more than a thing we're doing

0:00:14.780,0:00:16.468
because we want to create jobs for fishermen

0:00:16.468,0:00:18.932
or preserve fishermen's jobs.

0:00:18.932,0:00:21.900
It's more than an economic pursuit.

0:00:21.900,0:00:24.782
Saving the oceans can feed the world.

0:00:24.782,0:00:26.548
Let me show you how.

0:00:26.548,0:00:28.140
As you know, there is already

0:00:28.140,0:00:30.956
more than a billion hungry people on this planet.

0:00:30.956,0:00:33.116
We're expecting that problem to get worse

0:00:33.116,0:00:35.846
as world population grows to nine billion

0:00:35.846,0:00:37.940
or 10 billion by midcentury,

0:00:37.940,0:00:40.388
and we can expect to have greater pressure

0:00:40.388,0:00:42.246
on our food resources.

0:00:42.246,0:00:43.900
And this is a big concern,

0:00:43.900,0:00:45.956
especially considering where we are now.

0:00:45.956,0:00:48.668
Now we know that our arable land per capita

0:00:48.668,0:00:50.396
is already on the decline

0:00:50.396,0:00:52.805
in both developed and developing countries.

0:00:52.805,0:00:55.780
We know that we're headed for climate change,

0:00:55.780,0:00:57.876
which is going to change rainfall patterns,

0:00:57.876,0:01:01.186
making some areas drier, as you can see in orange,

0:01:01.186,0:01:03.647
and others wetter, in blue,

0:01:03.647,0:01:05.500
causing droughts in our breadbaskets,

0:01:05.500,0:01:07.530
in places like the Midwest and Central Europe,

0:01:07.530,0:01:09.172
and floods in others.

0:01:09.172,0:01:10.754
It's going to make it harder for the land

0:01:10.754,0:01:12.690
to help us solve the hunger problem.

0:01:12.690,0:01:15.584
And that's why the oceans need[br]to be their most abundant,

0:01:15.584,0:01:17.258
so that the oceans can provide us

0:01:17.258,0:01:19.521
as much food as possible.

0:01:19.521,0:01:21.498
And that's something the oceans have been doing

0:01:21.498,0:01:23.490
for us for a long time.

0:01:23.490,0:01:26.290
As far back as we can go, we've seen an increase

0:01:26.290,0:01:28.233
in the amount of food we've been able to harvest

0:01:28.233,0:01:29.897
from our oceans.

0:01:29.897,0:01:32.385
It just seemed like it was continuing to increase,

0:01:32.385,0:01:33.989
until about 1980,

0:01:33.989,0:01:36.985
when we started to see a decline.

0:01:36.985,0:01:38.353
You've heard of peak oil.

0:01:38.353,0:01:40.170
Maybe this is peak fish.

0:01:40.170,0:01:42.055
I hope not. I'm going to come back to that.

0:01:42.055,0:01:44.663
But you can see about an 18 percent decline

0:01:44.663,0:01:46.975
in the amount of fish we've gotten in our world catch

0:01:46.975,0:01:49.120
since 1980.

0:01:49.120,0:01:51.095
And this is a big problem. It's continuing.

0:01:51.095,0:01:53.577
This red line is continuing to go down.

0:01:53.577,0:01:55.543
But we know how to turn it around,

0:01:55.543,0:01:57.383
and that's what I'm going to talk about today.

0:01:57.383,0:01:59.583
We know how to turn that curve back upwards.

0:01:59.583,0:02:02.029
This doesn't have to be peak fish.

0:02:02.029,0:02:05.479
If we do a few simple things in targeted places,

0:02:05.479,0:02:07.702
we can bring our fisheries back and use them

0:02:07.702,0:02:10.246
to feed people.

0:02:10.246,0:02:11.886
First we want to know where the fish are,

0:02:11.886,0:02:13.457
so let's look where the fish are.

0:02:13.457,0:02:15.351
It turns out the fish, conveniently,

0:02:15.351,0:02:17.567
are located for the most part

0:02:17.567,0:02:19.630
in our coastal areas of the countries,

0:02:19.630,0:02:20.935
in coastal zones,

0:02:20.935,0:02:23.339
and these are areas that national jurisdictions

0:02:23.339,0:02:24.851
have control over,

0:02:24.851,0:02:26.615
and they can manage their fisheries

0:02:26.615,0:02:28.534
in these coastal areas.

0:02:28.534,0:02:30.462
Coastal countries tend to have jurisdictions

0:02:30.462,0:02:33.040
that go out about 200 nautical miles,

0:02:33.040,0:02:36.351
in areas that are called exclusive economic zones,

0:02:36.351,0:02:38.614
and this is a good thing that they can control

0:02:38.614,0:02:40.175
their fisheries in these areas,

0:02:40.175,0:02:41.711
because the high seas,

0:02:41.711,0:02:43.744
which are the darker areas on this map,

0:02:43.744,0:02:45.913
the high seas, it's a lot harder to control things,

0:02:45.913,0:02:47.692
because it has to be done internationally.

0:02:47.692,0:02:49.559
You get into international agreements,

0:02:49.559,0:02:51.807
and if any of you are tracking[br]the climate change agreement,

0:02:51.807,0:02:53.379
you know this can be a very slow,

0:02:53.379,0:02:55.631
frustrating, tedious process.

0:02:55.631,0:02:57.543
And so controlling things nationally

0:02:57.543,0:03:00.247
is a great thing to be able to do.

0:03:00.247,0:03:02.194
How many fish are actually in these coastal areas

0:03:02.194,0:03:03.771
compared to the high seas?

0:03:03.771,0:03:06.111
Well, you can see here about

0:03:06.111,0:03:07.974
seven times as many fish in the coast areas

0:03:07.974,0:03:09.951
than there are in the high seas,

0:03:09.951,0:03:12.167
so this is a perfect places for us to be focusing,

0:03:12.167,0:03:14.311
because we can actually get a lot done.

0:03:14.311,0:03:16.351
We can restore a lot of our fisheries

0:03:16.351,0:03:19.255
if we focus in these coastal areas.

0:03:19.255,0:03:21.919
But how many of these countries[br]do we have to work in?

0:03:21.919,0:03:23.871
There's something like 80 coastal countries.

0:03:23.871,0:03:25.897
Do we have to fix fisheries management

0:03:25.897,0:03:27.510
in all of those countries?

0:03:27.510,0:03:29.222
So we asked ourselves, how many countries

0:03:29.222,0:03:30.669
do we need to focus on,

0:03:30.669,0:03:32.301
keeping in mind that the European Union

0:03:32.301,0:03:33.870
conveniently manages its fisheries

0:03:33.870,0:03:36.237
through a common fisheries policy?

0:03:36.237,0:03:38.669
So if we got good fisheries management

0:03:38.669,0:03:41.164
in the European Union and,[br]say, nine other countries,

0:03:41.164,0:03:44.173
how much of our fisheries would we be covering?

0:03:44.173,0:03:46.940
Turns out, European Union plus nine countries

0:03:46.940,0:03:50.344
covers about two thirds of the world's fish catch.

0:03:50.344,0:03:53.553
If we took it up to 24 countries[br]plus the European Union,

0:03:53.553,0:03:55.265
we would up to 90 percent,

0:03:55.265,0:03:58.265
almost all of the world's fish catch.

0:03:58.265,0:04:01.193
So we think we can work in[br]a limited number of places

0:04:01.193,0:04:03.345
to make the fisheries come back.

0:04:03.345,0:04:05.497
But what do we have to do in these places?

0:04:05.497,0:04:07.292
Well, based on our work in the United States

0:04:07.292,0:04:09.073
and elsewhere, we know that there are

0:04:09.073,0:04:10.881
three key things we have to do

0:04:10.881,0:04:13.617
to bring fisheries back, and they are:

0:04:13.617,0:04:15.553
we need to set quotas or limits

0:04:15.553,0:04:17.310
on how much we take;

0:04:17.310,0:04:20.273
we need to reduce bycatch, which is the accidental

0:04:20.273,0:04:22.929
catching and killing of fish that we're not targeting,

0:04:22.929,0:04:24.569
and it's very wasteful;

0:04:24.569,0:04:27.123
and three, we need to protect habitats,

0:04:27.123,0:04:29.073
the nursery areas, the spawning areas

0:04:29.073,0:04:31.810
that these fish need to grow[br]and reproduce successfully

0:04:31.810,0:04:33.665
so that they can rebuild their populations.

0:04:33.665,0:04:35.082
If we do those three things,

0:04:35.082,0:04:37.662
we know the fisheries will come back.

0:04:37.662,0:04:39.001
How do we know?

0:04:39.001,0:04:40.935
We know because we've seen it happening

0:04:40.935,0:04:42.413
in a lot of different places.

0:04:42.413,0:04:44.484
This is a slide that shows

0:04:44.484,0:04:46.172
the herring population in Norway

0:04:46.172,0:04:48.435
that was crashing since the 1950s.

0:04:48.435,0:04:50.436
It was coming down, and when Norway set limits,

0:04:50.436,0:04:53.244
or quotas, on its fishery, what happens?

0:04:53.244,0:04:55.340
The fishery comes back.

0:04:55.340,0:04:58.057
This is another example, also[br]happens to be from Norway,

0:04:58.057,0:05:00.468
of the Norwegian Arctic cod.

0:05:00.468,0:05:02.694
Same deal. The fishery is crashing.

0:05:02.694,0:05:04.484
They set limits on discards.

0:05:04.484,0:05:06.388
Discards are these fish they weren't targeting

0:05:06.388,0:05:09.020
and they get thrown overboard wastefully.

0:05:09.020,0:05:10.812
When they set the discard limit,

0:05:10.812,0:05:13.168
the fishery came back.

0:05:13.168,0:05:14.805
And it's not just in Norway.

0:05:14.805,0:05:16.324
We've seen this happening in countries

0:05:16.324,0:05:19.153
all around the world, time and time again.

0:05:19.153,0:05:21.116
When these countries step in and they

0:05:21.116,0:05:23.820
put in sustainable fisheries management policies,

0:05:23.820,0:05:26.756
the fisheries, which are always crashing, it seems,

0:05:26.756,0:05:28.884
are starting to come back.

0:05:28.884,0:05:30.572
So there's a lot of promise here.

0:05:30.572,0:05:32.284
What does this mean for the world fish catch?

0:05:32.284,0:05:34.460
This means that if we take that fishery catch

0:05:34.460,0:05:35.580
that's on the decline

0:05:35.580,0:05:37.848
and we could turn it upwards, we could increase it

0:05:37.848,0:05:41.636
up to a hundred million metric tonnes per year.

0:05:41.636,0:05:43.389
So we didn't have peak fish yet.

0:05:43.389,0:05:44.916
We still have an opportunity

0:05:44.916,0:05:46.217
to not only bring the fish back

0:05:46.217,0:05:48.059
but to actually get more fish

0:05:48.059,0:05:49.371
that can feed more people

0:05:49.371,0:05:51.173
than we currently are now.

0:05:51.173,0:05:52.979
How many more? Right about now,

0:05:52.979,0:05:55.860
we can feed about 450 million people

0:05:55.860,0:05:57.364
a fish meal a day

0:05:57.364,0:05:59.284
based on the current world fish catch,

0:05:59.284,0:06:01.548
which of course you know is going down,

0:06:01.548,0:06:03.203
so that number will go down over time

0:06:03.203,0:06:04.806
if we don't fix it,

0:06:04.806,0:06:07.216
but if we put fishery management practices

0:06:07.216,0:06:09.780
like the ones I've described in place

0:06:09.780,0:06:11.885
in 10 to 25 countries,

0:06:11.885,0:06:13.364
we could bring that number up

0:06:13.364,0:06:16.918
and feed as many as 700 million people a year

0:06:16.918,0:06:18.676
a healthy fish meal.

0:06:18.676,0:06:20.268
We should obviously do this just because

0:06:20.268,0:06:23.032
it's a good thing to deal with the hunger problem,

0:06:23.032,0:06:24.407
but it's also cost-effective.

0:06:24.407,0:06:28.524
It turns out fish is the most cost-effective protein

0:06:28.524,0:06:30.092
on the planet.

0:06:30.092,0:06:32.044
If you look at how much fish protein you get

0:06:32.044,0:06:33.440
per dollar invested

0:06:33.440,0:06:35.172
compared to all of the other animal proteins,

0:06:35.172,0:06:38.692
obviously, fish is a good business decision.

0:06:38.692,0:06:40.512
It also doesn't need a lot of land,

0:06:40.512,0:06:42.108
something that's in short supply,

0:06:42.108,0:06:44.676
compared to other protein sources.

0:06:44.676,0:06:47.797
And it doesn't need a lot of fresh water.

0:06:47.797,0:06:49.869
It uses a lot less fresh water than,

0:06:49.869,0:06:51.430
for example, cattle,

0:06:51.430,0:06:53.244
where you have to irrigate a field

0:06:53.244,0:06:56.317
so that you can grow the food to graze the cattle.

0:06:56.317,0:06:58.596
It also has a very low carbon footprint.

0:06:58.596,0:07:00.316
It has a little bit of a carbon footprint

0:07:00.316,0:07:02.315
because we do have to get out and catch the fish.

0:07:02.315,0:07:04.013
It takes a little bit of fuel,

0:07:04.013,0:07:06.172
but as you know, agriculture[br]can have a carbon footprint,

0:07:06.172,0:07:07.806
and fish has a much smaller one,

0:07:07.806,0:07:09.540
so it's less polluting.

0:07:09.540,0:07:11.581
It's already a big part of our diet,

0:07:11.581,0:07:14.076
but it can be a bigger part of our diet,

0:07:14.076,0:07:15.831
which is a good thing, because we know

0:07:15.831,0:07:17.476
that it's healthy for us.

0:07:17.476,0:07:19.681
It can reduce our risk of cancer,

0:07:19.681,0:07:21.460
heart disease, and obesity.

0:07:21.460,0:07:23.461
In fact, our CEO Andy Sharpless,

0:07:23.461,0:07:26.092
who is the originator of this concept, actually,

0:07:26.092,0:07:30.038
he likes to say fish is the perfect protein.

0:07:30.038,0:07:32.420
Andy also talks about the fact that

0:07:32.420,0:07:34.636
our ocean conservation movement really grew

0:07:34.636,0:07:36.868
out of the land conservation movement,

0:07:36.868,0:07:38.630
and in land conservation,

0:07:38.630,0:07:41.424
we have this problem where biodiversity

0:07:41.424,0:07:44.164
is at war with food production.

0:07:44.164,0:07:47.515
You have to cut down the biodiverse forest

0:07:47.515,0:07:49.108
if you want to get the field

0:07:49.108,0:07:51.338
to grow the corn to feed people with,

0:07:51.338,0:07:53.180
and so there's a constant push-pull there.

0:07:53.180,0:07:54.908
There's a constant tough decision

0:07:54.908,0:07:56.567
that has to be made between

0:07:56.567,0:07:58.268
two very important things:

0:07:58.268,0:08:01.681
maintaining biodiversity and feeding people.

0:08:01.681,0:08:03.981
But in the oceans, we don't have that war.

0:08:03.981,0:08:06.388
In the oceans, biodiversity is not at war

0:08:06.388,0:08:07.940
with abundance.

0:08:07.940,0:08:09.805
In fact, they're aligned.

0:08:09.805,0:08:12.478
When we do things that produce biodiversity,

0:08:12.478,0:08:15.048
we actually get more abundance,

0:08:15.048,0:08:18.956
and that's important so that we can feed people.

0:08:18.956,0:08:21.576
Now, there's a catch.

0:08:21.576,0:08:24.461
Didn't anyone get that? (Laughter)

0:08:24.461,0:08:26.304
Illegal fishing.

0:08:26.304,0:08:28.020
Illegal fishing undermines the type of

0:08:28.020,0:08:30.012
sustainable fisheries management I'm talking about.

0:08:30.012,0:08:32.460
It can be when you catch fish using gears

0:08:32.460,0:08:33.819
that have been prohibited,

0:08:33.819,0:08:36.470
when you fish in places where[br]you're not supposed to fish,

0:08:36.470,0:08:39.378
you catch fish that are the wrong[br]size or the wrong species.

0:08:39.378,0:08:41.343
Illegal fishing cheats the consumer

0:08:41.343,0:08:43.890
and it also cheats honest fishermen,

0:08:43.890,0:08:45.098
and it needs to stop.

0:08:45.098,0:08:46.917
The way illegal fish get into our market

0:08:46.917,0:08:48.178
is through seafood fraud.

0:08:48.178,0:08:49.426
You might have heard about this.

0:08:49.426,0:08:52.042
It's when fish are labeled as something they're not.

0:08:52.042,0:08:53.955
Think about the last time you had fish.

0:08:53.955,0:08:55.105
What were you eating?

0:08:55.105,0:08:56.746
Are you sure that's what it was?

0:08:56.746,0:08:59.570
Because we tested 1,300 different fish samples

0:08:59.570,0:09:00.892
and about a third of them

0:09:00.892,0:09:03.290
were not what they were labeled to be.

0:09:03.290,0:09:05.330
Snappers, nine out of 10[br]snappers were not snapper.

0:09:05.330,0:09:07.250
Fifty-nine percent of the tuna we tested

0:09:07.250,0:09:09.150
was mislabeled.

0:09:09.150,0:09:11.778
And red snapper, we tested 120 samples,

0:09:11.778,0:09:13.884
and only seven of them were really red snapper,

0:09:13.884,0:09:17.628
so good luck finding a red snapper.

0:09:17.628,0:09:19.466
Seafood has a really complex supply chain,

0:09:19.466,0:09:21.762
and at every step in this supply chain,

0:09:21.762,0:09:24.292
there's an opportunity for seafood fraud,

0:09:24.292,0:09:26.002
unless we have traceability.

0:09:26.002,0:09:28.799
Traceability is a way where the seafood industry

0:09:28.799,0:09:31.346
can track the seafood from the boat to the plate

0:09:31.346,0:09:33.627
to make sure that the consumer can then find out

0:09:33.627,0:09:35.234
where their seafood came from.

0:09:35.234,0:09:37.130
This is a really important thing.

0:09:37.130,0:09:39.538
It's being done by some in[br]the industry, but not enough,

0:09:39.538,0:09:41.525
so we're pushing a law in Congress

0:09:41.525,0:09:43.101
called the Safe Seafood Act,

0:09:43.101,0:09:45.002
and I'm very excited today to announce the release

0:09:45.002,0:09:47.884
of a chef's petition, where 450 chefs

0:09:47.884,0:09:50.306
have signed a petition calling on Congress

0:09:50.306,0:09:52.508
to support the Safe Seafood Act.

0:09:52.508,0:09:54.316
It has a lot of celebrity chefs you may know

0:09:54.316,0:09:57.890
—Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali,

0:09:57.890,0:09:59.506
Barton Seaver, and others—

0:09:59.506,0:10:00.970
and they've signed it because they believe

0:10:00.970,0:10:02.578
that people have a right to know

0:10:02.578,0:10:05.323
about what they're eating.

0:10:05.323,0:10:09.856
(Applause)

0:10:10.554,0:10:12.330
Fishermen like it too, so there's a good chance

0:10:12.330,0:10:14.080
we can get the kind of support we need

0:10:14.080,0:10:15.434
to get this bill through,

0:10:15.434,0:10:16.678
and it comes at a critical time,

0:10:16.678,0:10:18.584
because this is the way we stop seafood fraud,

0:10:18.584,0:10:20.650
this is the way we curb illegal fishing,

0:10:20.650,0:10:22.522
and this is the way we make sure

0:10:22.522,0:10:24.226
that quotas, habitat protection,

0:10:24.226,0:10:26.106
and bycatch reductions can do the jobs

0:10:26.106,0:10:27.513
they can do.

0:10:27.513,0:10:30.749
We know that we can manage[br]our fisheries sustainably.

0:10:30.749,0:10:32.401
We know that we can produce

0:10:32.401,0:10:35.210
healthy meals for hundreds of millions of people

0:10:35.210,0:10:38.385
that don't use the land, that don't use much water,

0:10:38.385,0:10:39.650
have a low carbon footprint,

0:10:39.650,0:10:41.372
and are cost-effective.

0:10:41.372,0:10:43.098
We know that saving the oceans

0:10:43.098,0:10:44.673
can feed the world,

0:10:44.673,0:10:47.490
and we need to start now.

0:10:47.490,0:10:49.667
(Applause)

0:10:49.667,0:10:53.525
Thank you. (Applause)