WEBVTT 00:00:01.014 --> 00:00:02.230 You may be wondering 00:00:02.230 --> 00:00:04.064 why a marine biologist from Oceana 00:00:04.064 --> 00:00:05.904 would come here today to talk to you 00:00:05.904 --> 00:00:07.140 about world hunger. 00:00:07.140 --> 00:00:09.291 I'm here today because 00:00:09.291 --> 00:00:12.526 saving the oceans is more than an ecological desire. 00:00:12.526 --> 00:00:14.670 It's more than a thing we're doing 00:00:14.670 --> 00:00:16.468 because we want to create jobs for fishermen 00:00:16.468 --> 00:00:18.552 or preserve fishermen's jobs. 00:00:18.552 --> 00:00:21.900 It's more than an economic pursuit. 00:00:21.900 --> 00:00:24.512 Saving the oceans can feed the world. 00:00:24.512 --> 00:00:26.338 Let me show you how. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:26.338 --> 00:00:28.140 As you know, there are already 00:00:28.140 --> 00:00:30.766 more than a billion hungry people on this planet. 00:00:30.766 --> 00:00:33.116 We're expecting that problem to get worse 00:00:33.116 --> 00:00:35.546 as world population grows to nine billion 00:00:35.546 --> 00:00:37.410 or 10 billion by midcentury, 00:00:37.410 --> 00:00:40.388 and we can expect to have greater pressure 00:00:40.388 --> 00:00:42.246 on our food resources. 00:00:42.246 --> 00:00:43.290 And this is a big concern, 00:00:43.290 --> 00:00:45.956 especially considering where we are now. 00:00:45.956 --> 00:00:48.668 Now we know that our arable land per capita 00:00:48.668 --> 00:00:50.096 is already on the decline 00:00:50.096 --> 00:00:52.805 in both developed and developing countries. 00:00:52.805 --> 00:00:55.460 We know that we're headed for climate change, 00:00:55.460 --> 00:00:57.876 which is going to change rainfall patterns, 00:00:57.876 --> 00:01:01.186 making some areas drier, as you can see in orange, 00:01:01.186 --> 00:01:03.497 and others wetter, in blue, 00:01:03.497 --> 00:01:05.240 causing droughts in our breadbaskets, 00:01:05.240 --> 00:01:07.090 in places like the Midwest and Central Europe, 00:01:07.090 --> 00:01:08.372 and floods in others. 00:01:08.372 --> 00:01:10.134 It's going to make it harder for the land 00:01:10.134 --> 00:01:12.690 to help us solve the hunger problem. 00:01:12.690 --> 00:01:15.154 And that's why the oceans need to be their most abundant, 00:01:15.154 --> 00:01:16.728 so that the oceans can provide us 00:01:16.728 --> 00:01:19.321 as much food as possible. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:19.321 --> 00:01:20.968 And that's something the oceans have been doing 00:01:20.968 --> 00:01:23.610 for us for a long time. 00:01:23.610 --> 00:01:26.290 As far back as we can go, we've seen an increase 00:01:26.290 --> 00:01:28.233 in the amount of food we've been able to harvest 00:01:28.233 --> 00:01:29.897 from our oceans. 00:01:29.897 --> 00:01:32.385 It just seemed like it was continuing to increase, 00:01:32.385 --> 00:01:33.789 until about 1980, 00:01:33.789 --> 00:01:36.585 when we started to see a decline. 00:01:36.585 --> 00:01:38.183 You've heard of peak oil. 00:01:38.183 --> 00:01:40.170 Maybe this is peak fish. 00:01:40.170 --> 00:01:41.970 I hope not. I'm going to come back to that. 00:01:41.970 --> 00:01:44.473 But you can see about an 18-percent decline 00:01:44.473 --> 00:01:47.425 in the amount of fish we've gotten in our world catch 00:01:47.425 --> 00:01:48.780 since 1980. 00:01:48.780 --> 00:01:51.040 And this is a big problem. It's continuing. 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:53.397 This red line is continuing to go down. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:53.397 --> 00:01:55.493 But we know how to turn it around, 00:01:55.493 --> 00:01:57.183 and that's what I'm going to talk about today. 00:01:57.183 --> 00:01:59.583 We know how to turn that curve back upwards. 00:01:59.583 --> 00:02:02.030 This doesn't have to be peak fish. 00:02:02.030 --> 00:02:05.219 If we do a few simple things in targeted places, 00:02:05.219 --> 00:02:07.702 we can bring our fisheries back and use them 00:02:07.702 --> 00:02:09.966 to feed people. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:09.966 --> 00:02:11.886 First we want to know where the fish are, 00:02:11.886 --> 00:02:13.457 so let's look where the fish are. 00:02:13.457 --> 00:02:15.351 It turns out the fish, conveniently, 00:02:15.351 --> 00:02:17.567 are located for the most part 00:02:17.567 --> 00:02:19.630 in our coastal areas of the countries, 00:02:19.630 --> 00:02:20.935 in coastal zones, 00:02:20.935 --> 00:02:23.339 and these are areas that national jurisdictions 00:02:23.339 --> 00:02:24.721 have control over, 00:02:24.721 --> 00:02:26.545 and they can manage their fisheries 00:02:26.545 --> 00:02:28.204 in these coastal areas. 00:02:28.204 --> 00:02:30.462 Coastal countries tend to have jurisdictions 00:02:30.462 --> 00:02:33.070 that go out about 200 nautical miles, 00:02:33.070 --> 00:02:36.441 in areas that are called exclusive economic zones, 00:02:36.441 --> 00:02:38.434 and this is a good thing that they can control 00:02:38.434 --> 00:02:39.595 their fisheries in these areas, 00:02:39.595 --> 00:02:41.111 because the high seas, 00:02:41.111 --> 00:02:43.404 which are the darker areas on this map, 00:02:43.404 --> 00:02:45.603 the high seas, it's a lot harder to control things, 00:02:45.603 --> 00:02:47.692 because it has to be done internationally. 00:02:47.692 --> 00:02:49.559 You get into international agreements, 00:02:49.559 --> 00:02:51.807 and if any of you are tracking the climate change agreement, 00:02:51.807 --> 00:02:53.519 you know this can be a very slow, 00:02:53.519 --> 00:02:55.501 frustrating, tedious process. 00:02:55.501 --> 00:02:57.223 And so controlling things nationally 00:02:57.223 --> 00:02:59.997 is a great thing to be able to do. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:59.997 --> 00:03:02.194 How many fish are actually in these coastal areas 00:03:02.194 --> 00:03:03.771 compared to the high seas? 00:03:03.771 --> 00:03:05.281 Well, you can see here about 00:03:05.281 --> 00:03:08.364 seven times as many fish in the coastal areas 00:03:08.364 --> 00:03:09.951 than there are in the high seas, 00:03:09.951 --> 00:03:12.167 so this is a perfect place for us to be focusing, 00:03:12.167 --> 00:03:14.311 because we can actually get a lot done. 00:03:14.311 --> 00:03:16.701 We can restore a lot of our fisheries 00:03:16.701 --> 00:03:18.895 if we focus in these coastal areas. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:18.895 --> 00:03:21.919 But how many of these countries do we have to work in? 00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:23.521 There's something like 80 coastal countries. 00:03:23.521 --> 00:03:25.507 Do we have to fix fisheries management 00:03:25.507 --> 00:03:26.910 in all of those countries? 00:03:26.910 --> 00:03:29.032 So we asked ourselves, how many countries 00:03:29.032 --> 00:03:30.439 do we need to focus on, 00:03:30.439 --> 00:03:32.301 keeping in mind that the European Union 00:03:32.301 --> 00:03:33.870 conveniently manages its fisheries 00:03:33.870 --> 00:03:36.237 through a common fisheries policy? 00:03:36.237 --> 00:03:38.529 So if we got good fisheries management 00:03:38.529 --> 00:03:41.794 in the European Union and, say, nine other countries, 00:03:41.794 --> 00:03:43.883 how much of our fisheries would we be covering? 00:03:43.883 --> 00:03:46.940 Turns out, European Union plus nine countries 00:03:46.940 --> 00:03:50.054 covers about two thirds of the world's fish catch. 00:03:50.054 --> 00:03:53.333 If we took it up to 24 countries plus the European Union, 00:03:53.333 --> 00:03:55.055 we would up to 90 percent, 00:03:55.055 --> 00:03:58.265 almost all of the world's fish catch. 00:03:58.265 --> 00:04:01.193 So we think we can work in a limited number of places 00:04:01.193 --> 00:04:02.885 to make the fisheries come back. 00:04:02.885 --> 00:04:05.497 But what do we have to do in these places? 00:04:05.497 --> 00:04:07.292 Well, based on our work in the United States 00:04:07.292 --> 00:04:08.880 and elsewhere, we know that there are 00:04:08.880 --> 00:04:10.721 three key things we have to do 00:04:10.721 --> 00:04:13.427 to bring fisheries back, and they are: 00:04:13.427 --> 00:04:15.373 We need to set quotas or limits 00:04:15.373 --> 00:04:17.480 on how much we take; 00:04:17.480 --> 00:04:20.273 we need to reduce bycatch, which is the accidental 00:04:20.273 --> 00:04:22.609 catching and killing of fish that we're not targeting, 00:04:22.609 --> 00:04:24.459 and it's very wasteful; 00:04:24.459 --> 00:04:27.123 and three, we need to protect habitats, 00:04:27.123 --> 00:04:29.240 the nursery areas, the spawning areas 00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:31.810 that these fish need to grow and reproduce successfully 00:04:31.810 --> 00:04:33.660 so that they can rebuild their populations. 00:04:33.660 --> 00:04:37.422 If we do those three things, we know the fisheries will come back. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:37.422 --> 00:04:38.770 How do we know? 00:04:38.770 --> 00:04:40.785 We know because we've seen it happening 00:04:40.785 --> 00:04:42.213 in a lot of different places. 00:04:42.213 --> 00:04:43.654 This is a slide that shows 00:04:43.654 --> 00:04:45.852 the herring population in Norway 00:04:45.852 --> 00:04:48.175 that was crashing since the 1950s. 00:04:48.175 --> 00:04:50.326 It was coming down, and when Norway set limits, 00:04:50.326 --> 00:04:53.244 or quotas, on its fishery, what happens? 00:04:53.244 --> 00:04:55.110 The fishery comes back. 00:04:55.110 --> 00:04:58.010 This is another example, also happens to be from Norway, 00:04:58.010 --> 00:05:00.468 of the Norwegian Arctic cod. 00:05:00.468 --> 00:05:02.524 Same deal. The fishery is crashing. 00:05:02.524 --> 00:05:04.484 They set limits on discards. 00:05:04.484 --> 00:05:06.598 Discards are these fish they weren't targeting 00:05:06.598 --> 00:05:09.200 and they get thrown overboard wastefully. 00:05:09.200 --> 00:05:10.812 When they set the discard limit, 00:05:10.812 --> 00:05:12.868 the fishery came back. 00:05:12.868 --> 00:05:14.135 And it's not just in Norway. 00:05:14.135 --> 00:05:16.094 We've seen this happening in countries 00:05:16.094 --> 00:05:19.153 all around the world, time and time again. 00:05:19.153 --> 00:05:20.686 When these countries step in and they 00:05:20.686 --> 00:05:23.820 put in sustainable fisheries management policies, 00:05:23.820 --> 00:05:26.636 the fisheries, which are always crashing, it seems, 00:05:26.636 --> 00:05:28.574 are starting to come back. 00:05:28.574 --> 00:05:30.432 So there's a lot of promise here. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:30.432 --> 00:05:32.124 What does this mean for the world fish catch? 00:05:32.124 --> 00:05:34.460 This means that if we take that fishery catch 00:05:34.460 --> 00:05:35.490 that's on the decline 00:05:35.490 --> 00:05:37.878 and we could turn it upwards, we could increase it 00:05:37.878 --> 00:05:41.416 up to 100 million metric tons per year. 00:05:41.416 --> 00:05:43.389 So we didn't have peak fish yet. 00:05:43.389 --> 00:05:44.916 We still have an opportunity 00:05:44.916 --> 00:05:46.217 to not only bring the fish back 00:05:46.217 --> 00:05:47.920 but to actually get more fish 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:49.371 that can feed more people 00:05:49.371 --> 00:05:50.873 than we currently are now. 00:05:50.873 --> 00:05:52.979 How many more? Right about now, 00:05:52.979 --> 00:05:55.860 we can feed about 450 million people 00:05:55.860 --> 00:05:56.834 a fish meal a day 00:05:56.834 --> 00:05:59.084 based on the current world fish catch, 00:05:59.084 --> 00:06:01.548 which, of course, you know is going down, 00:06:01.548 --> 00:06:03.203 so that number will go down over time 00:06:03.203 --> 00:06:04.806 if we don't fix it, 00:06:04.806 --> 00:06:07.216 but if we put fishery management practices 00:06:07.216 --> 00:06:09.780 like the ones I've described in place 00:06:09.780 --> 00:06:11.885 in 10 to 25 countries, 00:06:11.885 --> 00:06:13.364 we could bring that number up 00:06:13.364 --> 00:06:16.918 and feed as many as 700 million people a year 00:06:16.918 --> 00:06:18.466 a healthy fish meal. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:18.466 --> 00:06:20.008 We should obviously do this just because 00:06:20.008 --> 00:06:23.000 it's a good thing to deal with the hunger problem, 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:24.177 but it's also cost-effective. 00:06:24.177 --> 00:06:28.524 It turns out fish is the most cost-effective protein 00:06:28.524 --> 00:06:29.900 on the planet. 00:06:29.900 --> 00:06:32.030 If you look at how much fish protein you get 00:06:32.030 --> 00:06:33.030 per dollar invested 00:06:33.030 --> 00:06:35.762 compared to all of the other animal proteins, 00:06:35.762 --> 00:06:38.692 obviously, fish is a good business decision. 00:06:38.692 --> 00:06:40.292 It also doesn't need a lot of land, 00:06:40.292 --> 00:06:41.758 something that's in short supply, 00:06:41.758 --> 00:06:45.276 compared to other protein sources. 00:06:45.276 --> 00:06:47.907 And it doesn't need a lot of fresh water. 00:06:47.907 --> 00:06:49.979 It uses a lot less fresh water than, 00:06:49.979 --> 00:06:51.020 for example, cattle, 00:06:51.020 --> 00:06:53.174 where you have to irrigate a field 00:06:53.174 --> 00:06:56.317 so that you can grow the food to graze the cattle. 00:06:56.317 --> 00:06:58.436 It also has a very low carbon footprint. 00:06:58.436 --> 00:07:00.316 It has a little bit of a carbon footprint 00:07:00.316 --> 00:07:02.315 because we do have to get out and catch the fish. 00:07:02.315 --> 00:07:03.810 It takes a little bit of fuel, 00:07:03.810 --> 00:07:06.032 but as you know, agriculture can have a carbon footprint, 00:07:06.032 --> 00:07:07.586 and fish has a much smaller one, 00:07:07.586 --> 00:07:09.360 so it's less polluting. 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:11.741 It's already a big part of our diet, 00:07:11.741 --> 00:07:13.830 but it can be a bigger part of our diet, 00:07:13.830 --> 00:07:15.561 which is a good thing, because we know 00:07:15.561 --> 00:07:17.186 that it's healthy for us. 00:07:17.186 --> 00:07:19.511 It can reduce our risks of cancer, 00:07:19.511 --> 00:07:21.400 heart disease and obesity. 00:07:21.400 --> 00:07:23.371 In fact, our CEO Andy Sharpless, 00:07:23.371 --> 00:07:25.960 who is the originator of this concept, actually, 00:07:25.960 --> 00:07:29.880 he likes to say fish is the perfect protein. 00:07:29.880 --> 00:07:32.130 Andy also talks about the fact that 00:07:32.130 --> 00:07:34.636 our ocean conservation movement really grew 00:07:34.636 --> 00:07:36.868 out of the land conservation movement, 00:07:36.868 --> 00:07:38.360 and in land conservation, 00:07:38.360 --> 00:07:41.424 we have this problem where biodiversity 00:07:41.424 --> 00:07:44.424 is at war with food production. 00:07:44.424 --> 00:07:47.215 You have to cut down the biodiverse forest 00:07:47.215 --> 00:07:49.108 if you want to get the field 00:07:49.108 --> 00:07:51.338 to grow the corn to feed people with, 00:07:51.338 --> 00:07:53.180 and so there's a constant push-pull there. 00:07:53.180 --> 00:07:54.728 There's a constant tough decision 00:07:54.728 --> 00:07:56.567 that has to be made between 00:07:56.567 --> 00:07:58.588 two very important things: 00:07:58.588 --> 00:08:01.681 maintaining biodiversity and feeding people. 00:08:01.681 --> 00:08:03.981 But in the oceans, we don't have that war. 00:08:03.981 --> 00:08:06.538 In the oceans, biodiversity is not at war 00:08:06.538 --> 00:08:07.700 with abundance. 00:08:07.700 --> 00:08:09.805 In fact, they're aligned. 00:08:09.805 --> 00:08:12.978 When we do things that produce biodiversity, 00:08:12.978 --> 00:08:15.030 we actually get more abundance, 00:08:15.030 --> 00:08:18.846 and that's important so that we can feed people. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:18.846 --> 00:08:21.576 Now, there's a catch. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:21.576 --> 00:08:24.121 Didn't anyone get that? (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:24.121 --> 00:08:26.164 Illegal fishing. 00:08:26.164 --> 00:08:27.730 Illegal fishing undermines the type of 00:08:27.730 --> 00:08:29.980 sustainable fisheries management I'm talking about. 00:08:29.980 --> 00:08:32.460 It can be when you catch fish using gears 00:08:32.460 --> 00:08:33.489 that have been prohibited, 00:08:33.489 --> 00:08:36.140 when you fish in places where you're not supposed to fish, 00:08:36.140 --> 00:08:39.378 you catch fish that are the wrong size or the wrong species. 00:08:39.378 --> 00:08:41.343 Illegal fishing cheats the consumer 00:08:41.343 --> 00:08:43.550 and it also cheats honest fishermen, 00:08:43.550 --> 00:08:44.710 and it needs to stop. 00:08:44.710 --> 00:08:47.787 The way illegal fish get into our market is through seafood fraud. 00:08:47.787 --> 00:08:49.236 You might have heard about this. 00:08:49.236 --> 00:08:52.420 It's when fish are labeled as something they're not. 00:08:52.420 --> 00:08:53.955 Think about the last time you had fish. 00:08:53.955 --> 00:08:54.745 What were you eating? 00:08:54.745 --> 00:08:56.516 Are you sure that's what it was? 00:08:56.516 --> 00:08:59.240 Because we tested 1,300 different fish samples 00:08:59.240 --> 00:09:00.482 and about a third of them 00:09:00.482 --> 00:09:02.220 were not what they were labeled to be. 00:09:02.220 --> 00:09:04.960 Snappers, nine out of 10 snappers were not snapper. 00:09:04.960 --> 00:09:07.180 Fifty-nine percent of the tuna we tested 00:09:07.180 --> 00:09:09.150 was mislabeled. 00:09:09.150 --> 00:09:11.778 And red snapper, we tested 120 samples, 00:09:11.778 --> 00:09:13.694 and only seven of them were really red snapper, 00:09:13.694 --> 00:09:17.238 so good luck finding a red snapper. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:17.238 --> 00:09:19.466 Seafood has a really complex supply chain, 00:09:19.466 --> 00:09:21.762 and at every step in this supply chain, 00:09:21.762 --> 00:09:23.952 there's an opportunity for seafood fraud, 00:09:23.952 --> 00:09:26.080 unless we have traceability. 00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:28.799 Traceability is a way where the seafood industry 00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:31.096 can track the seafood from the boat to the plate 00:09:31.096 --> 00:09:33.627 to make sure that the consumer can then find out 00:09:33.627 --> 00:09:35.274 where their seafood came from. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:35.274 --> 00:09:37.030 This is a really important thing. 00:09:37.030 --> 00:09:39.598 It's being done by some in the industry, but not enough, 00:09:39.598 --> 00:09:40.945 so we're pushing a law in Congress 00:09:40.945 --> 00:09:42.351 called the SAFE Seafood Act, 00:09:42.351 --> 00:09:44.990 and I'm very excited today to announce the release 00:09:44.990 --> 00:09:47.634 of a chef's petition, where 450 chefs 00:09:47.634 --> 00:09:50.306 have signed a petition calling on Congress 00:09:50.306 --> 00:09:52.508 to support the SAFE Seafood Act. 00:09:52.508 --> 00:09:54.336 It has a lot of celebrity chefs you may know -- 00:09:54.336 --> 00:09:57.540 Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali, 00:09:57.540 --> 00:09:59.216 Barton Seaver and others — 00:09:59.216 --> 00:10:00.970 and they've signed it because they believe 00:10:00.970 --> 00:10:02.298 that people have a right to know 00:10:02.298 --> 00:10:04.673 about what they're eating. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:04.673 --> 00:10:09.856 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:10:10.464 --> 00:10:12.420 Fishermen like it too, so there's a good chance 00:10:12.420 --> 00:10:14.020 we can get the kind of support we need 00:10:14.020 --> 00:10:14.954 to get this bill through, 00:10:14.954 --> 00:10:16.478 and it comes at a critical time, 00:10:16.478 --> 00:10:18.584 because this is the way we stop seafood fraud, 00:10:18.584 --> 00:10:20.650 this is the way we curb illegal fishing, 00:10:20.650 --> 00:10:22.522 and this is the way we make sure 00:10:22.522 --> 00:10:24.226 that quotas, habitat protection, 00:10:24.226 --> 00:10:26.106 and bycatch reductions can do the jobs 00:10:26.106 --> 00:10:27.283 they can do. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:27.283 --> 00:10:30.459 We know that we can manage our fisheries sustainably. 00:10:30.459 --> 00:10:32.101 We know that we can produce 00:10:32.101 --> 00:10:35.870 healthy meals for hundreds of millions of people 00:10:35.870 --> 00:10:38.115 that don't use the land, that don't use much water, 00:10:38.115 --> 00:10:39.300 have a low carbon footprint, 00:10:39.300 --> 00:10:41.102 and are cost-effective. 00:10:41.102 --> 00:10:43.090 We know that saving the oceans 00:10:43.090 --> 00:10:44.673 can feed the world, 00:10:44.673 --> 00:10:47.060 and we need to start now. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:47.060 --> 00:10:49.817 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:10:49.817 --> 00:10:53.525 Thank you. (Applause)