Dear editor,
Sustainable or seastainable?
How is increasing the number of shellfish aquaculture tenures and experimenting with wild species in Baynes Sound working with Mother Nature?
It certainly isn’t addressing the real problem. Industrializing Baynes Sound by increasing aquaculture tenures may in fact feed into the problem, ultimately creating its own demise.
The problem is C02 emissions. As long as we base our economics on fossil fuels and mass production of products to be shipped to faraway markets, C02 will rise.
The answer lies in the first of the three Rs — Reduce!
This includes how we market. If food is massed produced and shipped abroad, then the positive loop of C02 emissions is reinforced. It is time to change this model if we hope to survive.
Aquaculture can learn from land-based farming. The industrialization of farming has not only increased greenhouse gas emissions but has also resulted in inferior food.
People are returning to small local farms for their chickens, eggs and vegetables as the food tastes better and it has higher health benefits. Although we seem to always have a dollar value for marketing our industries, there is no price tag for health.
Let’s fix the real problem and not add more problems into this complex equation. It is time to stop the expansion of aquaculture and avoid risking Baynes Sound with experiments.
Why not let the ocean rest from our human egos. We have yet to prove we can perform better than Mother Nature.
Sue Vince,
Royston
