Perspective: Future of Fish
By WorldLink Staff | April 8, 2013 | Leave a Comment
Seafood is often the forgotten story of the food movement. Cheryl Dahle, Executive Director of Future of Fish, provides a big picture analysis of the issues, and points to some innovative solutions.
What is Future of Fish? What unique role are you trying to play?
Future of Fish is a nonprofit innovation hub for the seafood industry. We identify and help entrepreneurs whose market-based ideas have the potential to disrupt the seafood industry practices that result in widespread overfishing. We’re trying to find the confluence of good-for-business and good-for-our-oceans and help those ideas get traction in the supply chain.
Why is seafood often the forgotten story of the food movement?
The history and experience of fishing is less accessible to people than that of farming. We can see the effects of industrial farming on the land and in our communities more readily than we can see the effects of factory fishing – most of which are underwater. It’s also true that much of the activist movement around fish issues has targeted saving charismatic species, like sea turtles, whales, and dolphins. Concerns about overfishing have been led mainly by marine scientists, who are often myopically concerned with fishery health.
The failure to illuminate the important connections to human health, livelihoods, community resilience, or energy consumption precludes the general public from relating to the problem on a visceral level. We are fundamentally self-interested beings – we learn about the value of environment through our lens of understanding how it affects us.
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