I hope that the focus is not just on the harvest, but also on the detrimental environmental alterations that mankind has made on our coasts and rivers. To a great extent, the nurseries have been trashed. Urban, agricultural, and industrial runoffs have soured what used to be a fertile marine environment.
Hydroelectric facilities block critical migration routes. Fishways and ladders may allow for upstream migrations, but the toll taken by turbines on anadromous species moving back to the oceans, have brought many species to the edge of extinction.
Restoring the bottom end of the food chain is critical to the revitalization of our oceans ability to feed us in the future. The sad fact is that we are over-harvesting the existing resource, but if the resource was healthy, it would be proving a great deal more biomass than currently available and in a sustainable manner.
Here is Maine, we've seen what happens when dams are breached and traditional spawning grounds are re-established.
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/6497600.htmlIt was almost ten years to the day that Edwards Dam in Augusta was removed, and only a year since Halifax in Winslow met the same demise. These were relatively small power producers (4.3 megawatt combined) that blocked tens of thousands of Alewife, (herring) Striped Bass, American Eels, Atlantic Salmon, Tom Cod, Sturgeon, etc. Mother Natures ability to heal herself is phenomenal.
The oceans do have the ability of being a free grocery store, within reason. We must restore the free flowing characteristics of our major waterways. We have to stop developing our coasts on and around critical habitat. We must stop using our water ways as sewers. We must understand the the whole life cycles and the interdependence of varying aquatic species.
Don't stop eating Maine lobster. Their numbers are greater than ever. Why? The Cod, Haddock, Wolf-fish, Monk Fish, etc. that used to be abundant in the Gulf of Maine, that prey on juvenile crustations (like lobsters) have been decimated. Keep the open Ocean bottom dwellers off the menu till their stocks have a chance to recover.
Support gear limitations that don't decimate a habitat. Dragging for scallops, urchins, and sea cucumbers has destroyed bottom habitat in a way not dissimilar to ridge top coal mining. We must get away from harvesting with gear that keeps on killing long after being lost to storms or ship traffic.
I'll leave it there and hopefully there will be further discussion.