Read an opinion piece written by Paul Greenberg and Carl Safina titled 'Too Much of Our Seafood Has A Dark Secret', published in The New York Times on August 11, 2024. We're right in the heat of the summer lobster season. Ha! And for my part of the world, seafood is a big thing here. It's apparently 'plentiful still' but pricey.
The authors asked consumers to think deeper about where their seafood currently comes from, and if we could make better choices and ask our governments to help enforce sustainable fish farming or safeguard wild caught fish.
The proposed United Nations' Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement was presented to governments in 2023 and adopted in consensus, and would be ratified. It specifically protects marine biodiversity and covers a larger aspect compared to fragmented legal frameworks of the usual Areas Beyond Jurisdiction (ABNJ).
Singapore’s Ambassador for Oceans and Law of the Sea Issues and Special Envoy of the Minister for Foreign Affairs Rena Lee led the negotiations and talks for the BBNJ Agreement. The landmark agreement was a culmination of discussions that began in 2004 under the auspices of the United Nations to enhance the international legal regime for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in oceans beyond nations' exclusive economic zones and continental shelves. Singapore has ratified this BBNJ Agreement in September 2023. The Agreement is in effect, and we would hopefully have governments actively protect marine areas outside of national borders.
Expanding fish farming, or aquaculture, was once thought to be a potential solution to this problem, but it has also not, as hoped, given wild fish the break they need. Salmon and shrimp, Americans’ favorite farmed seafoods, are still fed wild fish caught in poorly regulated foreign waters. Highly nutritious fish, such as anchovies and sardines, that make up anywhere from 20 to 30 percent of the global catch are fed to salmon and shrimp — a staggering waste of protein.
Clearly, both wild and farmed seafood have a long way to go before they are actually sustainable.
So what do we need to put truly safe, resilient and ethically procured fish and shellfish on everybody’s plates? Consumers can make better choices, but to move past depletion and abuse, governments need to implement new fishery management laws, accompanied by rigorous enforcement.
Aquaculture is soooo important to Singapore. Yet it isn't prevalent or sustainable in our waters either. It's not even an irony because we're a port first and foremost, no longer a fishing village. Our waters are hard to keep clean. We have too precious coral reefs that have repopulated and shouldn't be killed off by fish farms that are built too near.
We used to have barramundi farmed in Singapore waters. But that was sadly unsustainable when the company reported a loss of $31.9 million the year before they shut down. They moved the operations to Brunei. When viruses or oil spills hit, the businesses have no alternative sites to move their healthy juvenile fish to. Our infrastructure is simply non-existent and whatever the companies can do, is inefficient to even out the bottomline.
I don't even know how much money our government would have to sink in to help fish farms set up in Pulau Senang and Pulau Semakau. After that, I'm not even confident that these farms could turn a profit since everyone uses open net cage farming systems which leave them vulnerable to eco threats. A closed containment system would help, but it really depends. We have a pilot project in the form of the Eco-Ark that began in 2019, and now, it harvests 30,000 tons of fish (grouper, sea bass and threadfin) a month for Singapore.
If the fish in front of you was caught in U.S. waters and can fit whole on your plate, it’s about the best meal from the sea you can get. And if nothing truly good from the sea is on offer, it might be better to cook something else for dinner.
The authors also asked us to consider eating smaller because bigger fish have been harder hit by industrial farming. I think even for us, the number of ikan kuning and ikan selar caught are low.
Sometimes, after reading these pieces, I think to myself, at this rate, I might as well be eating synthetically made food. If I stop eating out of guilt or a sense of responsibility to the environment, then I can't even be vegetarian. Grrrrrr.
Lobster rolls anyone?
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