{"id":187,"date":"2012-09-24T15:01:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T19:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/?p=187"},"modified":"2012-09-24T15:01:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T19:01:00","slug":"a-helping-hand-for-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/?p=187","title":{"rendered":"A helping hand for dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks, I\u2019ve gotten schooled in the history and current status of New England groundfish and shellfish. There are definitely some bright spots, like scallops and today\u2019s haddock catch in Georges Bank, but there are also some problems including the economic realities of fishing for a living. I love eating seafood, but I also want to feel good about the sustainability of my dining choices and the ecosystems that provide my food. At the same time, I really love the idea that fishing can be done by individuals and small groups using traditional methods. So the challenge, in my view, is to balance the needs of fishing communities with the needs of fishing stocks, the appetites of our seafood markets with the appetites of each link in marine food webs.<\/p>\n

This is no small order.<\/strong> There are so many beings involved, at times with conflicting view points, and there are quite a few variables that we are still working to understand. One concern of some scientists is that we are using a \u2018shifting baseline\u2019 as we make our decisions (Hutchings & Reynolds 2004)- we start to think of fish stocks from the past few decades as representative of historical levels and forget that those stocks may be much lower than they were 100 or 200 years ago. If we follow that path, we\u2019re constantly settling for fewer and fewer resources.<\/p>\n

What can we do to address these problems?<\/em> Depending on how involved you want to get and where you are located, there are a wide variety of ways that you can support sustainable fisheries and the people who catch our food.<\/p>\n