The inauguration ceremony yesterday was noteworthy!
What was particularly important and noteworthy was that strong women, groundbreaking women, and peoples of color were prominent in the ceremony. It is impossible to predict how an event like this will impact us until we experience it. There was a profound emotion present in witnessing so many women and people of color at the forefront yesterday. It is heartening. And the ceremony was healing, in that, finally we have shifted to a sane, more conscious, and kinder tone in leadership.
Here are some stand out moments you won't want to miss:
Jennifer Lopez singing "This Land Is Your Land" (with interjected sentences of encouragement regarding justice for all in Spanish) prior to the swearing in of President Biden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEAtsgMsWmo
So far it seems that the importance and significance of this, of women and people of color being at the forefront of the inauguration, is being lost on male talk show hosts and other talking heads on air and online. For many others, it is not at all lost on us.
What a historic day it was! And the sun is shining bright today, giving a respite before we must once again dive in to face and address the many considerable challenges before us (personally and collectively). It was a good day, and hopefully a harbinger of better days to come.
Most important to me was listening to Amanda Gorman recite her gorgeous poem. There is nothing more wonderful than to listen to the fiery passion of a poet. I remember the timeless moment when Maya Angelou recited her poem for President Obama's inauguration, and Amanda Gorman's moment was just as important and great.
I saw strong women rightfully claiming space, rights, justice, truth, creativity, governance for all yesterday. It was altogether a new experience, and quite welcome, as the sudden moisture around my lashes informed me.
All About Shifting our thoughts and actions to create lasting change that contributes to the Common Good
Art by Warwick Goble, PD
After
I earned my MA degree in ethical leadership in the Spring of 2006, one
of the major lessons that stayed with me was the understanding that real
change — that is ethical and accountable, the kind that lasts — does
not happen overnight, it takes time.
For
an ethical leader (and the average person seeking to change destructive
habits and live more ethically), this means being dedicated to the best
possible outcome and positive impacts for all involved. It also means
caring more about long-term results than about immediate satisfaction.
This requires thoughtful, engaged patience, and an understanding of the
time and timing required for lasting change to be established and
maintained over time.
Impatience,
shortcuts, quantity over quality, greed, abuse of power and control,
and leaning on loopholes and convenience ultimately degrade long-term
progress, health, and sustainability. These practices also can have a
poor effect on morale, energy levels, trust, and confidence on a team.
Although
we may enjoy and see short-term progress by doing these things — in
most cases, that kind of progress won’t last, and if it does, it will be
riddled with compromises and harm to health, esteem, integrity, and
healthy communication and systems.
For
example, when we first bring a fish home to the aquarium, there may be
an impatient desire to get the new fish into the aquarium right away. If
we give in to that selfish impatience without gradually acclimating the
fish to the new water and temperature, the fish can go into shock,
become injured, sick, and/or die. Sometimes the shock and subsequent
illness or injury from that initial impatience won’t be immediately
visible — it may happen days later or a month later, but the harm was
done. Taking the 30 minutes to 2 hours or longer, that a new fish may
need to acclimate to the new environment makes all the difference.
So
it is with cutting corners to achieve something — it can give the
satisfaction of visual completion and short term satisfaction, but at
what ultimate cost to relationships, health, and a future ability to
really thrive?
We
also need to establish special cycles of time and space to receive
feedback on current: needs, practices and approaches, communication, use
of time, delegation, efficiency, transparency, ideas; and inclusivity
of processes, systems, and structures. It is important to listen deeply
and really take the time to benefit from all the feedback. Responded to
valuable feedback and implementing thoughtful changes based on feedback
is invaluable, and helps to boost energy levels and trust.
In
addition, we need to take the time to evaluate ourselves (as leader, or
leader of one’s own life) alongside the work, project, team, and/or
organization at regular intervals. Ultimately, we cannot administrate,
manage, or lead effectively — we cannot change destructive or
problematic habits, and systemic problems well — until we address our
own strengths, weaknesses, and evaluate our own personal blind spots via
feedback.
How can we evaluate
others and hold them to standards if we are not doing so for our selves?
No matter how far we’ve come, the need for this ongoing internal
practice remains true.
How
can we, as ethical leaders/individuals, best serve our purpose, the
people we work with, our teams and/or those in our care? What are some
of our weaknesses and needs that we need to manage well in order to
ensure that we are able to do our best in leadership?
The
leader sets the tone for everyone else. The way that a leader deals
with problems, delegates work, forms teams, addresses conflicts and
problems…becomes a standard for everyone else. The leader establishes
what is acceptable and not acceptable through: tone, actions, style,
methods, policies, presence, and follow-through.
To
effect real, positive, lasting change we must be willing to do the kind
of work and collaboration that establishes new pathways in place of
familiar, comfortable, dysfunctional ones. We must be willing to see
systemic privilege and discrimination, and to see past assumptions that
run on autopilot. We must be willing to admit mistakes, learn, and
correct errors along the way with transparency.
The ethical leader asks,
“How
can I best serve my purpose, my team/employees/clients/customers right
now, this week, and for the long haul? How can I create a healthy,
thriving system that is sustainable, transparent, and energizing — for
the long haul?”
The
real answers require extra effort, time, and resources. We may need to
consult with experts, conduct experiments and trial runs internally with
the team, we may need to stop productivity to deal with internal issues
or conflicts that need to be addressed, mended, and restored.
The real answers also include the importance of taking the time to create and maintain effective teams — supporting
them without micromanaging, delegating and communicating with clarity,
addressing issues and questions, and then being able to walk away with
peace of mind, trust and knowing. If that isn’t possible, then there is a
lot of work to be done, and it won’t happen overnight.
Being
able to trust a team to run on its own means that, as a leader, you
have provided all the information, encouragement, resources, and tools
required, and you have successfully built a team that can fulfill the
clearly stated goals. This hard work pays off by then being free to
address the big picture issues while the details are left in capable
hands that report back.
If
we don’t have a team, it may mean doing a lot detailed work to
establish a healthy system that works for our business and our lives.
There has to be a willingness to do boring and disliked tasks sometimes.
There has to be an awareness that the ways we plan, act, and work each
day is shaped by our long-term goals and envisioned benefits. And, those
long-term goals are hopefully aligned with inclusive, sustainable,
healthy practices.
There
are many steps involved in getting to the point where we have
implemented enough planning, building, learning, listening, and action
to be able to sit back and know that we are on a better path.
Yet,
the results? The results may not be evident right away. Much like SEO,
it takes time to see results, and much of it depends on quality work.
Long-term
results depend on how healthy or not healthy things are to begin with.
Yet, the payoff for long-term top to bottom change is: greater
satisfaction, productivity, creativity with better results, and a system
of collaboration that is strong and can last. In fact, if we are
changing in order to be more sustainable, healthy, inclusive, diverse,
adaptable, and/or more ethical and we really commit to it, we will
indeed see immediate and long-term benefits. Yet, there will need to be
room for mistakes, learning, and course correction too. Depending on how
bad things were, some things may have to be as drastic as starting
over. But, it doesn’t have to be in every way. Surely, if we are
interested in improvement and healthy leadership, we must have been
doing good things that we can adapt and build upon. So, it is also
important to resist the urge to throw the proverbial baby out with the
bath water.
How
do we get there? We have to start with ourselves. All of this is
applicable to each of us. We are the ethical leaders of our lives, or
not. We are the administrators of our lifestyles and habits.
When
we keep our standards high and inspiring, we have motivation to do
better: personally, independently, and in collaboration. That doesn’t
mean that we always hit the high mark, but it means that we continue to
believe in our values and seek to live them out.
On
bad days, we implement patience, gentleness, and kindness. On average
days we encourage a bigger vision while taking care of all the steps to
get there, in order, one by one.
When
we instill standards of healthy communication and effective, responsive
accountability and pathways for it — we begin to build lasting systems
for positive change. This can be humbling, as it will require times when
we must admit mistakes, thoughtlessness, or weaknesses, and make
corrections. But, ultimately, that ability to remain grounded and
accountable, with a certain amount of vulnerability, becomes a strength,
and the glue that holds everything together.
Even
if we need to work quickly with intense deadlines, there are still ways
to implement systems within culture and operations that are ultimately
healthier, refreshing, sustainable, and invigorating for the long haul.
If
we aren’t taking measures to ensure that mental and physical health are
accounted for, with breaks and healthy outlets, that will have a
negative effect on the quality of our changes. If we aren’t recognizing
how we may be perpetuating unhealthy practices, or putting our ego needs
above all else, then we probably won’t really hear the feedback we have
asked for. We must have a true desire for change and improvement. We
must be willing to truly listen to and fully consider constructive
feedback.
We simply must stop and take the time to listen, to adapt, and to respond.
We
need to find ways to relieve the pressure of intense deadlines in fun
and healthy ways that fit in and make sense with our
team/environment/goals. Work places that deal with intense deadlines in
healthy ways makes the process worthwhile, meaningful and an exciting
challenge — rather than draining and miserable.
All
of this is applicable to each of us. We are the ethical leaders of our
lives, or not. We are the administrators of our lifestyles and habits.
In
the face of challenges and setbacks, the patience to grow real, lasting
change remains a core value for the ethical leader. The big picture is
not lost, the big goal is kept central during setbacks. And, core
motivation includes knowing that: facilitating healthy restoration of
systems (relational, environmental, etc.) eventually translates into
returns and legacies of lasting value. In this same way, each of us may
apply values and more sustainable practices, in order to navigate and
wield the authority of leadership for our own lives, and increasingly,
in the best ways possible.
Begin With Yourself: Understanding Habits
This
approach and these lessons are adaptable and applicable for most
everyone. But where to start? We want to begin the long, demanding, and
worthwhile, rewarding path by being aware of and changing our own habits
and autopilot blind assumptions/norms. In beginning this process on the
personal level, we may then effectively respond to changing needs,
emergency situations, and a troubled human world and Environment in
flux.
To do this, we must first grasp what habit really is.
Creating
a habit demands a considerable investment of our time and energy. Much
like Artificial Intelligence requires tons of data in order to learn,
grow and operate well — human habits are also established by tons of
repetition and concerted effort in order to become autopilot functions.
HABIT
is defined as: “something done often and regularly; a behavior or
action repeated regularly so as to have become automatic.”
Some synonyms for HABIT include: routine, pattern/norm.
The
idiom, to be “on automatic pilot” can be defined as: “completing a task
without awareness or thinking because it has been repeated so many
times that the function is automatic.”
With autopilot, in this sense, the meaning also connotes a degree of unconscious, mindless behavior.
Many
parts of operating and driving a vehicle become habitual — we go on
autopilot with many aspects of driving. We also operate with a good
measure of trust for the maps in our memories that help us to navigate
in the area in which we live without much, if any, thought. It is much
the same in navigating and operating within our homes and at work each
day. Some of us have mental memory maps so well-defined and subtly
present in our neural pathways that we can even walk with our eyes
closed (or in the dark) and find our way around the house (or
neighborhood) with little to no problems.
In
“Primal Leadership” by Daniel Goleman, the author explains how habits
form strong, rigid neural pathways in the brain. These pathways are
solid and resistant to change. Yet, the author reported, it was
discovered that those pathways can be altered and changed — however, it
takes a lot of conscious effort and persistence to succeed in doing
this.
Repetition
is the key to creating a habit (healthy, neutral, or destructive) and
to set a more fixed pathway in the brain, and therefore, in one’s life.
Anyone who has developed a somewhat destructive habit can attest to the
effort and determination required in order to alter that habit.
Inner Peace Matters
Art by William Blake, PD
One necessary component for making change that lasts is to achieve a complete sense of resolve about the change that is needed.
A
resolute belief or motivation is the fuel that transforms a habit.
Being free of any conflicting feelings or beliefs regarding the needed
change is quite necessary, in order for any of the effort to succeed for
the long-term. If even a quarter of our mind and/or heart is conflicted
about changing the habit, the effort will most likely fail in the
long-term. Most often, it would happen via subconscious and subtle
sabotage, or a very conscious and clear defeated or jaded attitude.
People
may turn to hypnotism and visualizations to undo self-sabotaging
behavior that is resistant to the desire to change. Sometimes this is
successful, sometimes it isn’t. Deep down, the knots must be untangled,
with visualization and hypnotism, or by other methods and modalities.
However it is done, the deeper issues of conflicted feelings, thoughts
and beliefs regarding the habit must be found, faced, and resolved
consciously.
Psychologists
often say that a bad habit often continues because a person is gaining
something from it, even when they say they want to stop. Perhaps an
unconscious bit of the person likes the negative attention, or ties it
to something learned in childhood. Sometimes, there is a hidden
sentimentality, judgment, pride, or sense of entitlement attached, no
matter how veiled. Whatever it is, we have to be willing to face and
evaluate our own inner workings and inner saboteur as we seek to change
habits and lifestyle for the better. It is essential that we search our
own thoughts and feelings regarding any needed change that must take
place. Right along with this searching, is prioritizing time to process
issues, and to begin to enter into the needed change with deeper
resolve.
During
and after that, asking for feedback from honest and trusted others is
also important. It is important to choose to hear feedback from those
who will tell the truth, not what we want to hear — yet also those who
care about us and want us to succeed in these positive changes. In this
way, we gain perspective and new ideas. It is an ongoing practice of
transparency and accountability — first in relationship to self, and
then to others. Here is an example for perspective. Please read it both
literally and figuratively:
Yard Restoration
I
have moved into two different houses where the yards needed
restoration. The first had been treated by pesticides for years, but had
fertile soil, and lots to work with. It took about three years for the
yard to fully recover — and became a thriving oasis of native plants and
a refuge for wildlife. The second also had been treated for pesticides
at one time, and the soil was greatly depleted and mostly sand. This
yard has taken longer to recover, and still can’t fully recover without
amending the soil. A big leap to lushness and progress was not evident
until five years had passed. That being said, I am no expert in
restoring yards, and I do the little by little approach in that regard.
Additionally, this second yard hasn’t been a main priority like the
other was. In aiming to restore the second yard — without expertise, or a
lot of dedicated time, or a lot of invested money/resources — the long
term results took longer.
Someone
once told me that when they moved in to their new house, their yard had
been treated yearly with pesticides as well. They took an intensive
approach, investing resources into immediate change that would improve
year after year. They had all the grass removed and planted clover as a
ground cover instead of grass. This ground cover is organic and provides
food for bees, and requires little, if any mowing.
While
I didn’t immediately invest in overall change for the second yard, I
did effect overall change in one way. Without pesticides and herbicides
involved, I was able to allow pollinator ground cover to take over
naturally. This took longer, yet it worked well. I allowed the plantain,
clover, violets, and dandelions to spread, while planting native
plants, and allowing them to propagate naturally as well.
Consciously Changing Habits
Art by Warwick Goble, PD
In
committing to needed change through ongoing self-reflection regarding
thoughts, choices, and habits — we will be able to maintain a vivid and
thriving approach that is more in tune with current and changing needs
and realities. In addition, we are then able to be in tune more
authentically to who we are, and who we are becoming. This can serve to
boost confidence, mood, and motivation. This also then, translates into
new ways of approaching leadership, management, care, and facilitation
for others.
Our
thoughts, once observed, reveal much. In observing and evaluating our
thoughts, we see, little by little, or all at once — what we have left
to autopilot each day. Most likely some of it will be unwanted,
outdated, and perhaps even counter-productive to our well-being and most
desired goals for life and work. Some of it may not even really be
ours, but expectations and distorted voices that belong to other people
(from the past or present), and that were put upon us. We can take that
weight off once it is observed for what it really is.
After
we make progress personally — re-shaping, discarding, and transforming
some of our thoughts and habits — the ongoing approach remains the same.
We begin by observing and evaluating our thoughts and actions each day.
We maintain a list of questions for ongoing self-evaluation check-ins.
Are we:
Contributing to positive long-term goals with our daily thoughts, habits, and actions?
Noticing and consciously choosing which thoughts are maintained?
Happy with our personal process and the results?
Noticing and addressing details, feelings, needs, inspiration? or ignoring them?
Noticing harmful elements, ingredients, or dynamics? or ignoring them?
Making the most of the choices available each day?
Allowing ourselves to remain in a rut of looped thoughts?
Allowing ourselves new options, new thoughts, new approaches?
With
ongoing discernment regarding our thoughts, habits, and daily
actions — we are instilling healthy, conscious pathways that can better
empower ourselves and others. Another example for this process is my
book, Recipe For A Green Life. It is a complete guidebook for this kind of holistic process, focusing on lifestyle and sustainability.
All
of this requires a dedication to some amount of life-long learning.
Finding pleasant ways to maintain interest and curiosity regarding the “who, what, when, where, how, and why”
of anything we are choosing and putting our energy into is most
helpful. Personal choices (at home, at work, and beyond) — from the
smallest, and most overlooked, to the biggest — all matter, to some
degree, and at some level. Start small, start big — start however this
all works best for you, and continue in whatever ways and at the pace
that allows you to keep going in the right direction. Consistently
showing up in this way helps us to more easily stay current and healthy,
and more primed to facilitate the process for others too.
Truth Telling
It
can be, and is important that we share our process and discoveries
(when we can, and as appropriate) with straightforward honesty,
integrity, and reasonable kindness. Sometimes the truth is ugly though.
Do we wrap it in kindness? Whenever possible, yes. Still, absolute
gentleness at all times is not possible or realistic. There are
exceptional times when even kind honesty can feel harsh. And there are
times when being too kind and too forgiving is a disservice to ourselves
and others.
The
standard mode of operation for the ethical leader is: to establish
trust with honesty, which is upheld by integrity and kindness. Even
better, if that honesty, integrity and kindness is informed with
impartial ethics and wisdom, which remain unswayed by status or
privilege.
Being
a truth-teller can make us very lonely at times, especially when others
are playing games, and don’t want to play fair or to be healthy.
However, as a leader, being a truth-teller is a needed and necessary
calling. And ultimately, that is rewarded with connections and teams of
integrity and advanced skills. That is what takes us to the next level.
And, that is why the ethical leader must be a truth-teller — who
utilizes kindness, integrity, and impartial wisdom at the helm. This
ability comes from living it out on a personal level— by having the
ongoing practice of self-evaluation in effect, which creates the
integrity in the first place.
By
dedicating ourselves to this considerable, yet worthwhile and rewarding
effort, we make progress in real time, and that grants us a warranted
hope in momentum and strength, which is gained by right action.
May
we go forward, onward, more mindfully, shifting to more healthy,
productive habits and leadership…on all levels. May these new and
healthier habits take hold and increase exponentially — dynamically
contributing to a great healing and new positive pathways for the future
and all life on Earth.
*Originally published on my old website, Wild Clover.
Starving marine life, and everything you need to know about sustainable seafood — if there is such a thing anymore…
There
are devastating impacts from overfishing and farmed fish upon wildlife
and our marine ecosystems. As we look at these issues, keep in mind that
overfishing and factory fish farms (aquaculture) make all the other
problems even more stressful and devastating. Sadly, the beautiful ocean
of this Earth has become an extremely stressful home for marine life.
While
humans may not live in the ocean, our lives depend upon the ocean as
well. If the ocean life cannot survive, we won’t be able to either.
Seeing all life on the planet as connected and interdependent, as
family, is the most accurate viewpoint, when it comes to seeking a
healthy future for everyone.
Graphic
fact sheet from Change Market’s “Until the seas dry up” April 2019
report: “Fish Laundering: Industrial Aquaculture’s Hidden Paradox”
The April 2019 report from Changing Markets on Aquaculture addresses many of the critical issues we now face. Their graphic above contains the following information:
the ocean is sick and severely depleted
overfishing,
along with climate change, demand, and pollution (sound, plastic,
chemicals, fabrics, waste) are destroying the ocean’s ecosystems
billions of wild fish and crustaceans are used to feed farmed seafood
aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector
overfishing takes food and livelihood away from the poor who are in countries without food security
the wild fish
taken to create fish meal and fish oil (“forage fish”) are key to the
food chain, including: plankton, fish, marine animals, and seabirds
the main forage fish within the food chain are: anchovy, sardine, herring, mackerel, and krill
Some
carnivore species rely on just one species of food in order to survive,
like the orca pod that is starving, in the NW Pacific, who depend on
endangered Chinook salmon. It may seem strange, but it is really no
different than the monarch caterpillar whose sole food source is
milkweed (which is scarce due to heavy use of pesticides in the
Midwest). Another example, breeding penguins rely on anchovies off the
coast of South Africa. When the anchovies are not there, then babies
cannot be born or are weak and may not survive. In South Africa, a ban was placed on catching “forage fish” like
sardines and anchovies to help the endangered penguins. Evidence shows
that bans like this help the penguins. Forage fish numbers can mean life
or death for marine life.
The
good news is: we can take steps to speak out against policies and
practices that contribute to this kind of overwhelming devastation, and
resulting starvation for marine life. It isn’t too late to take a stand
with voice, choice, and actions. It is best to start at home, with our
own lifestyle — and that goes hand in hand with political action. We can
change our demand for food, while we support political and business
leadership that upholds what is most ethical and sustainable.
Heartbreaking Impacts: Starving Marine Life
In
just the past year or so, if you search the internet for news about
overfishing and the impacts of aquaculture, you will find report after
report about all kinds of wildlife that are starving to death, with
little to no help on the way — like seabirds of all kinds, whales,
orcas, dolphins, and sea lions.
These
reports are not easy to read, yet it is important that we read them. If
we turn away from the difficult news, just because we feel small and
helpless about it, or too tender, we will not have the awareness that is
necessary in order to make informed decisions. When we are aware of the
problems we face, then we are able to respond to them more
appropriately and effectively. And, certainly, people are becoming
aware, and things are being done — but there is not enough momentum yet,
and too much suffering is continuing.
Just this week, I wrote about the ethical issues involved with the Native American Lummi tribe’s call to feed the starving orcas
in the bay of Seattle and Bellingham Washington. I do support their
call to feed the orcas now. The fact is, aquaculture (factory fish
farms) monopolize much of the food that would be in the ocean for our
fellow living beings, like the orcas. We need to re-direct what is
happening. There is a need to respond to starvation (whether they are
human or birds, mammals or other sorts of living beings) by providing
food.
Still,
we are dealing with difficult problems. Feeding those who are starving
leads to heart-breaking questions about a means for survival after the
starvation is alleviated — because of other ongoing problems like
pollution and ocean warming.
The
stark truth is that the starvation tragedies occurring worldwide are
due to: loss of habitat, pollution (like plastics and chemicals), loss
of food sources due to overfishing and farmed fisheries, ocean warming,
and climate change. It would be foolish to think that none of this will
affect us humans. What happens to wildlife and nature is surely
happening to us as well. However, we can still act to change some parts
of this. But first, let’s learn more about the issues of aquaculture and
sustainable seafood.
The Problems Of Aquaculture
Farming
fish is meant to take the stress off of the oceans, provide a way to
supply more sustainable seafood, and give us healthier alternatives to
other meats. Instead, farmed fish and aquaculture has not decreased the
demand for wild seafood, nor has it decreased the stress on ocean
wildlife and fishes.
Why is this? Fish farms need to feed their fish, and that requires huge amounts of wild fish to be taken from the ocean,
slaughtered, and turned into feed. In addition, almost all fish farms
are filled with wild fish at the start. On top of that, the way in which
fish farms are managed is for profit and expansion, not conservation
and healthy sustainability.
Beyond
these problems with fish farming, aquaculture also contains the same
dark side that all factory farms have, they are: huge, crowded, have
dirty containment with runoff; tons of antibiotics and chemicals,
genetic modification, and inhumane cruelty.
Another
problem: fish that escape from the industrial fish farms cause chaos
and damage the local ecosystem by way of pollution, non-native diseases,
and competition. The factory farmed fish that are crowded in nets in
the ocean, also cause great peril for marine life. The huge and
unethical crowding of the “frankenfish” draws attention from hungry ocean life, who then get entangled in the nets.
In
addition, overfishing also takes away the livelihood and food from
poorer populations around the world, who are dealing with the effects of
climate change, and loss of food sources and clean water.
All
of this translates into a massive humanitarian and environmental crisis
and disaster. Suffering among the most vulnerable will continue and
increase, until major efforts are made to end the corruption,
exploitation, and abuses that are going on in our country and world.
A
solution that is proposed for the impacts of aquaculture overfishing to
feed the fish in their farms, is to depend more on freshwater and
plant-based food for the farmed fish.
Unfortunately,
plant-based food for farmed fish and other farmed seafood is another
empty solution. Fish farms that apply this method, most often depend on
massive crops, which demand huge amounts of resources. According to Anthropocene magazine, “demand for freshwater went up by 63%, both land-use, and phosphorus use (for fertilizer) surged by over 80%.”
This
translates into increased pollution and stress on freshwater and land
resources and ecosystems, due to corporate farming practices. All in
all, aquaculture, as it stands now, is not sustainable. Just as factory
and corporate farming are not healthy, sustainable, or humane.
Whenever
profit and quantity are prioritized over life and collective and
environmental health, we will find disastrous results for life
and future.
~ C.S. Sherin, author of “Recipe For A Green Life”
Many
of the major producers of fish meal and fish feed for factory fish
farms commit to transparency and sustainability in word only. There are
no real disclosures or transparency about the amount of wild-caught fish
that are taken, sourcing, or sustainability measures — if any.
Despite
all of these serious problems, aquaculture (including fish, shrimp and
mollusks) are booming. Yet, most of these harbor all of these dark and
dangerous issues, which are threatening the survival of life on our
planet.
Sustainable Seafood Problems
If
we are going to eat seafood, we need to make sure that we are choosing
seafood that is healthy and sustainable. With all the marine life dying
and starving around the world, we have to really sit with the question: is seafood really ever sustainable anymore?
Let’s
start with the big official certification for sustainability. Does the
seafood have a certification in sustainability from the Marine
Stewardship Council (MSC)? Then it must be sustainable and good, right?
Certainly, it is an important marker. Yet, much like loopholes and other
transparency issues that exist with organic certification, this seafood
sustainability certification also has problems and challenges regarding
transparency and accuracy of claims. The Pew Environment Group thinks it is misleading for the MSC certification to use the word “sustainable”.
Some critically endangered species,
according to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) include:
southern bluefin tuna, hawksbill and leatherback sea turtles. Some endangered species
include: loggerhead, green, and olive ridley sea turtles, sawfishes,
and blue whales. Whale sharks, humpback whales, grey nurse sharks and
great white sharks are likely to go extinct if nothing changes. Close to being endangered: stellar sea lion, gaudalupe fur seals and California sea otters. Depleted species
include: bottlenose dolphins, spinner dolphins, fur seals, spotted
dolphins, and beluga whales. The Marine Bio site explains that the
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) cannot give a
complete picture of all species in peril. For example, barely any
invertebrates are listed, because information on invertebrates is
difficult to track. Source: Marinebio.org.
Is Our Seafood Sustainable Or Not? When thinking about seafood and where to get it, consider the following first:
How is the fish or other sea life caught or farmed?
Is the species being overfished? Is the fish farm dirty, irresponsible, and/or contaminated?
Is the fish or other seafood’s food source (forage fish) being overfished?
Is
there an issue of bycatch? Young fish, hundreds of thousands of sea
turtles, sea birds, and mammals like whales, dolphins, threatened
sharks, and porpoises are victims of bycatch. There are 250,000 endangered sea turtles victim to bycatch yearly.
Shrimp and tuna cause some of the biggest negative impacts of bycatch, and are in high demand in the US.
How much are fossil fuel driven practices a part of the supply of the seafood via ships, farm, and transport?
Consider the source carefully. For instance, some aquaculture is a type of monoculture (like shrimp farms in Thailand) that cause serious pollution and mangrove decimation.
While
there is not a lot of research about the long-term impacts of pollution
like radiation, crude oil, microfiber and micro-plastic pollution (and
the persistent chemicals that are attached) — these are all issues worth
keeping in mind.
These
are important issues to talk about, explore, and act on. I hope this
has been a helpful and motivating guide for you. If you know of more
helpful resources related to this, or good news related to any of it,
please do share in the comments.
