Transgenic vs non-transgenic salmon Copyrigh t© 2009, Barrett & MacKay Photo All rights reserved.

Just as I was getting ready to head out for my Christmas break yesterday, my email Inbox signals that the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released its recommendation to approve the first-ever, genetically-engineered animal for human consumption. For those who track the FDA, they know this isn’t unusual – the agency often makes controversial rulings right before the holidays, when decision makers, media and the public are trying to have some well-deserved downtime with their families. Today was a kind of an unwelcome, fishy Christmas surprise, nestled among the garland and mistletoe.

Make no mistake: GE salmon is controversial. Since September 2010, when this issue exploded on the national stage, there has been unprecedented pushback on plans to grow an engineered variant of farmed Atlantic salmon for the U.S. market. Over 400,000 public comments in opposition have been sent to the FDA. Forty members of Congress called for a full Environmental Impact Statement before approval was granted. Ocean Conservancy and our colleagues similarly called for a complete analysis – that asks and answers the full range of tough questions – before the government allows private industry to head off down a path of genetically-engineering our seafood supply. But with today’s release, the agency basically blew all of us off.

One might think that FDA’s 158-page analysis contains all the information we need to feel comfortable about GE fish in our seafood supply. It doesn’t. As their 5-page summary states, the agency intentionally narrowed the scope of the analysis and thus completely missed the boat. FDA makes clear that it is green lighting only one small facility in Canada and another in Panama to grow out this novel fish, which will then be sent to the U.S. for processing and sale. While Ocean Conservancy is deeply concerned that FDA has not undertaken a state-of-the-art risk assessment on this particular facility, it is the larger ramifications of this initial approval that have always been the more important issue. No viable business can be built on growing only a small number of fish in Panama. But if this initial approval paves the way for a massive expansion of GE fish farming, both here in the U.S. and around the world, then we have the makings of a real moneymaker – and potentially big environmental problems.

The global salmon farming industry is entirely based in the ocean, where floating cages fatten fish for market. The environmental impacts of net-pen salmon farming are well established, where escapes are commonplace and disease can be rampant when fish are overcrowded. While this initial application to grow GE salmon is for land-based facilities, the prospect of even larger profits from growing GE salmon in the ocean will certainly create pressure for approval in these more environmentally risky systems in the future.

The U.S. is poorly equipped to deal with this future scenario. In June 2011, NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco released a National Aquaculture Policy to guide how marine aquaculture proceeds in our ocean waters. While the policy includes some strong environmental provisions, it does not categorically prohibit the growing of GE fish in the ocean. It should.

Given FDA’s action yesterday and NOAA’s failure to prohibit GE fish in its aquaculture policy, the time has come for Congress to intervene. Congress should work to pass Senator Mark Begich’s PEGASUS Act or similar legislation that requires FDA to take the environmental risks seriously before approving GE fish.

If Congress doesn’t act soon, the nation’s ocean may suffer from FDA’s efforts to chart a course for GE salmon.

“The cost of responding to ocean acidification may be substantial, but it is
still far less than the costs of inaction”

– Bill Ruckelshaus, co-chair Washington Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification, November 27, 2012

Consensus is hard. Any time you bring together a range of interests, it’s rare the group can speak in a unified voice and recommend a clear path forward. But that’s exactly what happened yesterday in Washington by its Governor and the state’s Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) on Ocean Acidification.

The panel  made clear that options exist for tackling ocean acidification. Coastal states and businesses that are dependent upon a healthy ocean now have a road map for action, thanks to Washington’s leadership – and oyster growers in Oregon first sounding the alarm. Ocean acidification is happening now, and we can and should take action.

Comprised of scientists, industry leaders, conservationists and government officials, the BRP reached consensus on a portfolio of actions needed to tackle ocean acidification.

1. There’s a critical need to reduce carbon emissions. This is the root cause of ocean acidification and Governor Gregoire spoke forcefully about the role we all have to play in tackling this important issue.
2. We need to work to control other, more local sources of acidification, including nutrient run-off from land.
3. Additional research and monitoring will be central to informing policy actions and modifying tactics as scientists learn more about how to try to prevent and prepare for ocean acidification. The Governor’s commitment to build a new center for ocean acidification studies at the University of Washington shows how important science will be to tackling this problem.
4. Improved coordination and collaboration are critical. Scientists must work with affected industries to help them adapt. Ocean and land-based businesses must unite against the common enemy of growing CO2 emissions. Government bodies need to share information and coordinate their responses to stay one step ahead of a rapidly changing ocean. And conservation organizations like Ocean Conservancy must work with our colleagues to help amplify the leading voices from all these sectors so the public understands what is at stake and embraces the actions needed.

None of this will be easy but ocean acidification may very well be the defining ocean issue of our time.

Outgoing Governor Christine Gregoire stood up the BRP last March in response to a major economic catastrophe impacting the state’s oyster farming industry. The oceanic equivalent of the “canary in the coal mine”, oyster survival plummeted starting in 2007. The Whiskey Creek oyster hatchery in neighboring Oregon, which is normally the basis for much of the west coast industry, experienced upwards of 80 percent mortality of juvenile oysters. Without seed to buy, Washington’s industry was nearly brought to its financial knees before scientists determined that highly corrosive, carbon-dioxide-laden water was literally dissolving the baby oyster’s shells.

We’re now unwittingly conducting the world’s largest chemistry experiment. Oysters and other shell building plants and animals are the first animals to bear the brunt of this assault and Washington is on the front lines of the fight.

But oyster shells are only the beginning. The panel’s report shows that ocean acidification will likely threaten much more than Washington’s oyster industry, as the effects of changing ocean chemistry cascade through marine food webs, impacting the ecology and physiology of a wide range of creatures.

Everyone with a vested interest in the ocean needs to take ocean acidification very seriously, for the ocean of tomorrow will be fundamentally different from the ocean of today if we do not.

It’s time to act.

Buzz around proposition 37 has grown steadily over the summer and is peaking now. (Via Upwell)

The amount of money spent in politics is huge and ever expanding; for the first time, the two main Presidential campaigns raised more than 1 billion dollars. That’s billion with a “b”, a staggering sum. But the role of money extends well beyond big-time presidential politics; it has moved all the way down to state ballot initiatives.

Here in California we are on the front lines of the battle over the future of food and the role of money in that debate has come into sharp focus over the last two weeks. On Tuesday, Californians will vote on Proposition 37, a bill that would make ours the first state to mandate labeling of foods made from genetically engineered organisms.

I – and many others – have written elsewhere about how important Prop. 37 is to the future of food. Attention has grown steadily over the summer and is peaking now. Most of the discussion has centered on the growing food movement and the role of genetically engineered plants, however, at Ocean Conservancy we’re also concerned about plans to introduce the first genetically engineered animal – an engineered variant of farmed Atlantic salmon  – into the food supply and the potential consequences for a healthy ocean.

While Ocean Conservancy concludes we don’t have enough information about the impacts of GE fish to move forward yet, like many supporters of Prop. 37, we also strongly believe that GE salmon should be clearly labeled if the federal Food and Drug Administration approves it for sale.

Up until relatively recently, we were in good company with virtually twice as many California’s in support versus opposed to the initiative.

Then the money came in to play. With a huge war chest from Monsanto and many of the major food production companies, a blitz of ads has rapidly reduced support by 9 percentage points over a matter of days. While nearly every poll ever done on labeling of GMOs has shown upwards of 80 percent support for the basic right to know how one’s food is produced, Californians are now turning their backs on this innate desire, largely in response to these ads.

This increase in funding by the opposition shows how marketing and big bucks can truly influence voters. If you’ve ever wondered why politicians spend huge sums of money on ads, it is because they work. Prop. 37 is a prime example.

The “Right to Know” campaign is now fighting back with its own series of three ads that began to run this week. They’re compelling and absolutely worth a watch, not to mention a share on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. But like Senator John Kerry, who waited too long before he responded to the infamous Swift Boat campaign in 2004, the Yes Campaign is now playing catch up and time is running out.

Labeling genetically engineered food is not a radical concept, nor would it be difficult for food companies to comply with such a law. Already, over 61 other countries require GE food labeling. The well respected Mark Bitman has argued that this is a concept whose time has come in the US as well. But the track record of failure in the United States is tough to ignore: Twenty other state legislatures – including California  – have tried to label GMOs, but with well-financed opposition from Big Food, none has prevailed.

Unlike these states though, California has gone directly to the voters for approval. But if those voters don’t stand firm in their beliefs, the nation’s best opportunity to require labeling of GMOs – including genetically engineered salmon – may die at the voting booth this week.

I still firmly believe that it is too early to write a requiem for Prop. 37 and that it can pass this week’s test at the ballot box. But supporters of increased transparency and accountability in our food system need to vote “yes” on Tuesday.

Our trash tells a lot about who we are, what we value and how we behave. Some of the lessons are inspirational and uplifting but many more are troubling.

This year’s International Coastal Cleanup (ICC), and a subsequent research project, reveals the full range of trash tales. As part of Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas team, I helped lead a pilot project dubbed “Trashlab.” The project’s research initiative is to provide more accurate and ecologically-relevant information on the debris that clogs our waterways and spoils our beaches.

Much of what we uncovered during the project is unsettling so let’s start with the positive: It’s clear many people care deeply about their local beaches and the special ocean places they enjoy with their friends and family. Each year, over 500,000 volunteers from over 150 countries participate in the ICC, the world’s biggest volunteer effort on behalf of ocean health. Over the last 26 years, they have removed over 154 million pounds of trash from the shore.

At one beach in Santa Cruz County, California my colleague and I fortuitously pulled into the parking lot just as high school teacher Patrick Adams and his 107 student volunteers from Bellarmine College Prep posed for a picture in front of an enormous mound of trash they lugged up from the beach below. Heaving bags into the pickup-truck we arrived in, we learned that Patrick brings his students to this beach every year. Not content with just removing dozens of bags of trash, two old television sets, and a complete mattress and box spring set from the beach, Patrick and his students were transporting several abandoned bikes they found tossed off the cliff back to their school in San Jose where they plan to refurbish and donate them to those in need.

With our truck piled high with trash “samples” from area beaches, we ferried our booty to the Trashlab facility – a barn at the city’s Resource Recovery Center. Neither our small research project nor the global International Coastal Cleanup could be accomplished without an army of dedicated citizen volunteers, from the families giving up a Saturday morning to collect plastic water bottles off the beach to the city workers who provided us with a facility to sort and weigh what we’d collected.

After the day’s efforts I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside – until we opened the bags. What spilled out on the table was a cornucopia of our casual disregard for our beaches and ocean. The full frontal sensory assault was overpowering. Cigarette butts fell like quarters from a slot machine. ICC data reveal that butts are the most common item found on beaches around the globe. My immediate and visceral conclusion: smokers must stop using the world as their ashtray – now.

Bags from some of the beaches were bursting with bottles and cans of every variety. Beaches in the more rural northern portion of Santa Cruz County are well known by locals as “party beaches” and the trash left behind certainly confirms it. Beer is the clear beverage of choice but interestingly, brews range from the cheapest of swill to the finest of local microbrews. It appears that beer drinkers are equal-opportunity litterers. I expected beaches in the more populated areas, frequented by families and tourists might be cleaner, but only the nature of debris, not quantity, changed. Food wrappers of all types – from fast food takeout containers to every possible variety of potato chips, cracker, candy and other snack food were plentiful. It was clear – folks don’t come to the beach to eat health food.

After we removed and weighed these and the other obvious items, a mass of unidentifiable junk, including large amounts of plastic fragments, remained. The conclusion was apparent: pretty much anything you can imagine will, unfortunately, be found on the beach.

So, given its scale and scope, how do we stem the tide of ocean trash? This is a challenging and at times controversial question. From my Trashlab experience, I’d say there is no silver bullet.

At its foundation, we must all embrace a stronger ocean conservation ethic, committing to pack out what we pack in to our local beach. Just as throwing garbage out your car window is now politically incorrect (remember Keep America Beautiful’s famous 1971 Ad campaign featuring Iron Eyes Cody, the “crying Indian?”), so too must trashing our beaches become socially unacceptable. And while individual responsibility is critical, corporations and companies that manufacture the plethora of materials found on the beach and in our waterways must also take responsibility. Most of the debris found on the beach comes from single use products, whether they are straws, water bottles or plastic grocery bags. Innovative packaging, improved waste management and expanded recycling must all be part of the mix. New technology, like Ocean Conservancy’s iPhone app, Rippl, can help get all of us started.

Let us all commit to this challenge. When we dig deep into ocean trash we may reveal a collective commitment for greater respect for our beaches – and ultimately for ourselves.