The Great Barrier Reef: clouds of reef fish and corals, French frigate shoals, NWHI
“The coastal zone may be the single most important portion of our planet. The loss of its biodiversity may have repercussions far beyond our worst fears” – G. Carleton Ray
Earth’s oceans are gigantic; humans have only explored about five percent of oceanic water bodies. Respectively, we do not know very much about the ocean’s biodiversity. However we do know that the ocean’s biodiversity is concentrated in coral reefs, estuaries, and the ocean floor, and that water bodies with greater proximity to the coast and higher elevations from the sea floor tend to have the most biodiversity. Marine systems are economical as well as ecological frontiers, providing highly valuable services that provide opportunities for medicinal cures, bio-technological ingenuity, ecotourism, earth cycling processes (namely carbon and water cycles), as well as drinking water (from freshwater sources).
EXXON VALDEZ aground on Bligh Reef being lightered to reduce oil spillage and lighten ship to get off reef.
Despite all of the ocean’s benefits, humans have degraded aquatic habitats by means of habitat loss, invasive species, population growth, pollution, climate change, and overfishing (represented in the acronym, HIPPCO). Regarding habitat loss, humans have destroyed over half of the world’s mangrove forests, over half of the world’s costal sea-grass beds (which serve as fish and shellfish nurseries), and around 20-40 percent of the world’s coral reefs (which are the spawning grounds for 90 percent of fish species. Economic prosperity is a major driver of habitat loss, especially with dredging, which is a kind of ‘marine clear cutting’ that instantaneously scrapes decades (even centuries) worth of habitat growth off the sea floor. Also lethal to aquatic diversity are invasive species, costing the United States 16 million dollars an hour in damage and 2/3 of the country’s fish extinction. The most common of these invasive culprits are Undria, Asian swamp eels, lionfishes, carp, nile perch, and algae blooms. Increased global interconnectivity and trade, transporting invasive species to foreign destinations, only exacerbate these issues further. The next factors of HIPPCO are population growth and pollution. Because any population growth increases the demand for overfishing and the creation of polluting industries, population growth and pollution are intimately related issues. Humans contribute to 80 percent of the ocean’s pollution in forms of pesticides, fertilizers, oil spills, and toxic chemical dumping/sewage overflows. Climate change also tampers with aquatic biodiversity because an increased sea level from the melting of polar ice has the potential power to damage coral reefs and drown entire islands and costal wetlands. Finally, overfishing rounds out the end of HIPPCO, damaging aquatic diversity by humans consuming more fish than nature can replenish. Currently, the world is fishing 57 percent more than the sustainable yield, via trawler fishing, purse-seine fishing, long-lining, and drift-net fishing. Miller is careful to note that all the problems in HIPPCO run counter to nature’s three pillars of sustainability, especially in regards to mass extinction and major loss of biodiversity.
Unfortunately, people encounter four major problems when trying to protect aquatic biodiversity. There four are as follows: (1) humanity’s ecological footprint is hard to track because it is growing so rapidly, (2) damage to aquatic systems are not as visible to human eyes, (3) people incorrectly view the ocean as an inexhaustible dumping ground and eternal source of resources, and (4) most of the world’s water bodies lie outside of the legal jurisdiction of specific nations.
Australia’s most precious ocean environments will be protected by the world’s largest network of marine reserves created by the Gillard Government.
In recent decades, however, people and governments have shown increased interest in the protection of endangered and threatened marine species. A regulatory approach for species protection attempts to pass laws and treaties, such as the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and the US Endangered Species Act. Regulatory movements also include moratoriums of sea-floor trawling and whaling. Many countries have agreed to follow such regulations voluntarily. In addition to regulatory approaches, economic incentives work to make protection of aquatic diversity a more economical option than biodiversity destruction. For instance, a World Wildlife Study found that turtles bring in almost three times more money then the sale of turtle products, and therefore, citizens are continually educated that turtles are much more valuable alive then dead. Additionally, work has been made to establish Marine Sanctuaries, providing similar protection to that of a National Park (except most marine protected areas, or MPAs, allow dredging and trawler fishing). Finally, an ecosystem approach to protecting aquatic biodiversity builds on the work of MPA’s and go one step further to create entire networks of marine reserves world-wide. Comprehensively more protective than just MPAs, a global network of marine preserves have been proven to adequately protect aquatic species they hold as well as create a more plentiful stock of natural resources for human use (an ecological and an economic benefit).
This has prompted people to find sustainable ways to manage marine fisheries. Identifying the maximum sustained yield, or a projected estimate of the amount of fish resources that can be harvested annually at a sustainable rate, is what many consider the starting point for sustainable fishing. Other strategies begin with reconciliation ecology, or, for instance, attempts to restore coral reefs that have already died (such as Japan has done, to some success). In addition, consumers have the power to demand sustainable seafood to encourage more sustainable fishing practices in a grassroots-style boycott. Fishing regulations also work to protect marine biodiversity as many communities have already developed catch-share systems where each fisher gets a share of the total allowable catch or co-management where government and communities work together to regulate fishing. However, some people argue that the government sometimes actually encourages overfishing by providing extensive subsidies for fishers.
Men manually filling in part of a wetland in the 1880’s
The protection of wetlands and wetland biodiversity is also a major issue. Some countries, like Italy and New Zealand, have lost over 90 percent of their original coastal wetlands. Wetlands are commonly filled over with dirt to create cropland, rice fields, or urban development, are commonly intoxicated by mineral, oil, and gas drilling, and are in danger of being drowned with climate change sea-level rising. Efforts to save wetlands include zoning development away from wetland areas as well as wetland banking, which requires any destruction of existing wetlands to be replaced by an equal area of wetland creation or restoration. One of the biggest restoration projects in the United States is the attempted restoration of the Florida Everglades. Florida built a network of manmade canals that were designed to mitigate flooding and provide cities with a steady source of freshwater, but the project also drained over half of the Everglades and increased the acidity of the Florida Bay. While the plan is underway, it looks as if it lacks the political support and funding to complete. This is seen as a quintessential example of the consequences of ignoring the precautionary principle.
People are also attempting to save the biodiversity of freshwater bodies, including freshwater lakes, rivers, and fisheries. Like saltwater bodies, freshwater bodies have been susceptible to HIPPCO problems. Large freshwater lakes, like Lake Michigan, have been especially plagued by invasive species, such as the sea lamprey and the zebra mussel. However, efforts are made to avoid more invasive species and Lake Michigan officials stopped incoming carp species from taking over the lakes. As for river basins, many like the Columbia River have sustained huge losses of biodiversity from hydroelectric dams (which sever salmon populations from their spawning habitats). Issues concerning river basins, especially surrounding fishing and dams, are difficult to deal with because many people need dams and other developments to provide cheap electricity and services. Currently, fisheries are trying to implement sustainable management techniques by stocking a number of fish farms with multiple, symbiotic marine species in the same holding area to protect fish habitats from sediment build up, pollutants, and disease.
A cow suffering from extreme drought and undernutrition
“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace” Aldo Leopold
Food security is the ability to comfortably access food on a daily basis. Food insecurity, on the other hand, is the lack of reliable food sources and the greatest root cause of food insecurity is poverty (war, governmental insurrection, and famine are also main causes of food insecurity). The systems in place to cultivate and distribute food leave different problems for affluent nations than poorer nations: while poorer nations often suffer health problems from too little food, affluent nations often suffer health problems from too much food. This kind of mass disparity of food security isn’t healthy for global populations. People who don’t receive enough food suffer from chronic undernutrition (hunger), and those people whose small diet consists of mostly grains suffer from chronic malnutrition. People who don’t have a diverse enough diet, or much of any diet, commonly suffer medical conditions that pertain to the nutrient’s their body lacks (such as blindness due to a lack of Vitamin A). Conversely, overnutrition causes a person to gain excess body fat that leads to a lower life expectancy, increased susceptibility to illness and lower quality of life. There health costs come economic costs as well; every health problem from overeating or chronic malnutrition greatly increases a nation’s healthcare costs.
Large scale, monoculture, industrial corn farming
The agricultural industry mostly relies on high-input monoculture farming, meaning that most farms use high amounts of heavy machinery, pesticides, and financial capital to plant, grow, and harvest a single species of crop (especially corn, rice, and wheat). One form of industrial agriculture is plantation agriculture. Plantation agriculture (often practiced in third world countries to grow cash crops) grows their crops using greenhouses to deliver water in a more efficient manner. Water from plantation agriculture can be purified and recycled and the system doesn’t use as many fossil fuels, so while this form of farming might be more expensive upfront than industrial farming outdoors, it might be more cost effective in the long term considering the increase of environmental degradation and higher costs of fossil fuels. While food provides the earth’s systems with the energy necessary to survive, obtaining mass quantities of monoculture food types though industrial agriculture violates the three principles of sustainability, not respecting the biodiversity of plant species, getting energy from fossil fuels (and not the renewable sun or air), and not allowing for the renewable use of topsoil (which can go to waste via desertification).
Traditional agriculture takes two forms. Traditional subsistence agriculture uses only the energy from the sun and the labor of humans and animals to produce enough food for a family to survive and to store extra reserves for later. Whereas traditional intensive agriculture boosts their production through increased manure, animals, and labor, selling some of the extra food for income. Farms that grow multiple crops participate in a practice called polyculture. Slash and burn agriculture involves clearing a small plots of land in tropical forests, growing a polyculture of crops till the topsoil is depleted, and moving on to a new plot of land. There have been two green revolutions so far, the first green revolution in when the 1950’s-70’s United States increased water volume and fertilizer usage to grow more crops in a given area. The second green revolution has been taking place since the 60’s and encourages the growth of specially bred, dwarf-species of rice and wheat that help third world countries grow more crops in a given area (and protect biodiversity of existing forests, tying into the principles of sustainability). There are limits to green revolutions as scientists have proved that increasing inputs eventually produces no additional increase in the crop yields. Modifying traditional forms of agriculture can involve crossbreeding through artificial selection, producing a new, commercially valuable crop variety and genetic engineering, genetically improving the world’s existing crops (creating what is known as genetically modified organisms, or MGOs). The risk of using genetically modified food is that scientists do not have a long period of time to study the effect GM agriculture has on human systems or the surrounding ecology.
Globally, meat has increased dramatically in demand
The demand for livestock meat, animal products, fish, and shellfish has also increased dramatically. This is partly the result of economic drivers as more and more people are leaving poverty and entering the working and upper-middle economic class. Any increased demand in meat in turn must increase the demand for (1) grains to feed the livestock, (2) machinery to butcher/catch and distribute the livestock and (3) energy and natural resources to build that machinery and transport food products to a local or global market. When distributed to a global market, as much of the world’s agriculture does, it needs an exceedingly high energy input, often involving nonrenewable fossil fuels, habitat destruction, desertification, salinization, waterlogging (from excessive irrigation), overfishing/hunting/harvesting, soil erosion, and biodiversity loss.
Pests are a major problem humans face when trying to produce food. Humans often use pesticides to fight pests (including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and rodenticides). These pesticides can either be broad spectrum agents or selective/narrow-spectrum agents. Interestingly, pesticide usage has not reduced U.S crop losses to pests and Indonesia’s rice fields increased 15 percent in productivity when 2/3 of the pesticides were dropped. The EPA, the USDA and the food and Drug Administration (FDA) have some legal power in this area. Alternatives to pesticide use include crop rotation, polyculture, genetic engineering, the introduction of predators, insect perfumes, hormones, and the reduction of synthetic herbicides. Some farmers are employing integrated pest management programs, evaluating each farmer’s situation uniquely and evaluating the ecological context of the farmer’s land/situation to create and appropriate conglomeration of actions.
Miller cites many possible solutions to create a more sustainable agricultural future, including soil conservation, or using a variety of methods to reduce topsoil erosion (terraced fields, strip cropping, agroforestry, etc) and increase soil fertility (organic fertilizers, animal or green manure, compost, tree planting, etc). Sustainable farming requires two major branches of change: consuming less and producing more sustainably.
I firmly believe that every environmental issue, including agriculture, is an interdisciplinary issue that requires multiple prongs of attack to reverse humanity’s environmentally detrimental habits. This means buying locally grown food to aid the economy and cut back on pollution/fossil fuels used for transportation. This means governments should subsidize sustainable farming practices (healthy political drivers can create healthy economic incentives). This means investing in organic polyfarming, as organic farming improves soil quality, reduces erosion, uses less energy and pesticides, eliminates pollution, and benefits wildlife and polyculture farming helps to preserve biodiversity. This means educating citizens about the effects of their consumption and creating a new global culture that promotes sustainable living through media campaigns, films, theatre, music, and other movements that are within easy reach of the general public. After all, some deep ecology work needs to be done here… this is a psychological issue as well! What things affect the human psyche so that humanity cannot seem to live more simply and consume a lot less?
I see the Croake Farm in British Columbia as a model of sustainable farming (employing all three of the principles of sustainability). A major reason why I typically don’t buy farmed fish is because the conditions in which they are grown is usually unhealthy and can lead to disease-ridden fish. However, it seems as if this farm employs methods of biomimicry to employ a polyaquaculture by raising many species of aquatic life together. This (1) improves fishery biodiversity, (2) encourages natural cycling processes by improving the environment and encouraging interaction between species, (3) uses kelp to provide nutrients instead of synthetic sources, and (4) makes a healthier product for human consumption. Especially because according to the Environmental News Network, outbreaks of fish diseases in tropical regions can wipe out entire stores of fish and that excessive uses of antibiotics can actually cause antibiotic resistance.
One of my designs (in a Fordham class project for Ecological Design) for wetland restoration in Arverne Queens. Our group worked to link the shoreline wildlife refuges together, restore the ecology, and create a boardwalk and community center to give the neighborhood an outlet for outdoor exploration and learning.
In regards to aquatic diversity, I agree with many of the solutions Miller’s text offers. I think more efforts should be made to map out exactly where the biological hotspots in our earth’s oceans are so we can devote out time and resources efficiently, preserving these hotspots and restoring sections of ecosystems to create a massive web of protected seascapes. By creating a global network of protected sea ecosystems, more habitats can be saved and entire corridors can be much more biologically productive than random, unconnected marine reserves. Restoration efforts should also be made alongside conservation efforts, because we should use as many tactics as possible to increase the number of healthy marine ecosystems on earth. Increasing the amount of healthy under-water ecosystems provides a larger, more productive habitat for sea creatures to spawn and helps oceans become much cleaner, healthier facilitators of carbon cycling. Also, the restoration of coastal areas, including wetlands, offers huge economical as well as ecological incentives for cities, protecting urban areas from the damaging effects of storms and increasing ecotourism. All in all, for the sustainability of both agriculture and sea, the public will need to press public officials and companies to make some serious changes. This will require a bottom-up political strategy of combined boycotting of unsustainable products, vocal support for clean technologies, purchasing of organic food from local markets, and voting for movements that are ecologically sustainable. By increasing the awareness of the general public about how their food and waters are currently managed, hopefully people can make smarter ideas about how to change their daily habits and lifestyles to more closely model the three principles of sustainability.
Q1: Are fisheries better or worse for the environment than catching wild fish?
Q2: Is it better to try an provide more food for starving countries or is it better to work on birth control methods and let the sick die out?
allthingsconnect 