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From the darkness emerges a boot. An old leather, steel-toed, work boot. It shouldn’t be there resting on the seafloor nearly two kilometers deep. I’m speachless. Even knowin this was going to be one of the toughest dives of my career, I’m still not prepared.

Seven years prior in 2010, Marla Valentine and Mark Benfield were the first scientist to visit the deep-sea floor after the Deepwater Horizon accident. On 20 April 2010, and continuing for 87 days, approximately 4 million barrels spilled from the Macondo Wellhead making it the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. Just months after the oil spill, Valentine and Benfield conducted video observations with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) of the deep-sea impact. Overall, they found a deep-sea floor ravaged by the spill. Much of the diversity was lost and the seafloor littered with the carcasses of pyrosomes, salps, sea cucumbers, sea pens, and glass sponges.

Researchers continued to find severe impacts on deep-sea life. The numerical declines were staggering within the first few months; forams (↓80–93%), copepods (↓64%), meiofauna (↓38%), macrofauna (↓54%) and megafauna (↓40%). One year later, the impacts on diversity were still evident and correlated with increases in total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and barium in deep-sea sediments. In 2014, PAH was still 15.5 and TPH 11.4 times higher in the impact zone versus the non-impact zone, and the impact zones still exhibited depressed diversity. Continued research on corals found the majority of colonies still had not recovered by 2017. However, studies examining the impacts of the DWH oil spill on most deep-sea life ended in 2014.

This gap in knowledge on the lingering impacts of one of the largest oil spills of all time is why I sit here in this cold, dark, ROV control room staring at a work boot in the abyss. A year prior, I had reached out to Mark Benfield about replicating his ROV methods and locations. I am here seven years after his study beginning to replicate his first video transect.

Within minutes of reaching the seafloor with the ROV, every scientist on the vessel staring at monitors showing live video from remote seafloor knew something was wrong. As Mark Benfield, Clif Nunnally, and I report in a new open-access article, the deep sea was not recovering at the impact site.  The seafloor was unrecognizable from the healthy habitats in the deep Gulf of Mexico, marred by wreckage, physical upheaval and sediments covered in black, oily marine snow.

Near the wreckage and wellhead, many of the animals characteristic of other areas of the deep Gulf of Mexico, including sea cucumbers, Giant Isopods, glass sponges, and whip corals, were absent.  What we observed was a homogenous wasteland, in great contrast to the rich heterogeneity of life seen in a healthy deep sea.

Conspicuously absent were the sessile animals that typically cling to any type of hard structure in an otherwise soft, muddy habitat.  Hard substrate in the deep sea is a valuable commodity but at the Deepwater Horizon site metal and other hard substrates were devoid of typically deep-sea colonizers.

The seafloor at impact site was characterized by high numbers of shrimps and crabs.  Crabs showed clearly visible physical abnormalities and sluggish behavior compared to the healthy crabs we had observed elsewhere.  We believe these crustaceans are drawn to the site because degrading hydrocarbons serve as luring sexual hormone mimics. Once these crustaceans reach the site they may become too unhealthy to leave much like those prehistoric mammals and the Le Brea tarpits.

The ROV dive began with a boot belonging to one of the workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig. The dive ended at the wellhead, now capped with a memorial to those workers who lost their lives. A dive bookended with reminders of the human tragedy of the oil spill. The narrative that unfolded between these was an environmental catastrophe. In an ecosystem that measures longevity in centuries and millennia the impact of 4 million barrels of oil continues to constitutes a crisis of epic proportions.

Valentine, Marla M., and Mark C. Benfield. “Characterization of epibenthic and demersal megafauna at Mississippi Canyon 252 shortly after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.” Marine Pollution Bulletin 77.1-2 (2013): 196-209.

McClain, Craig R., Clifton Nunnally, and Mark C. Benfield. “Persistent and substantial impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on deep-sea megafauna.” Royal Society Open Science 6.8 (2019): 191164.

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Ocean science and conservation, like any human enterprise, is subject to its fair share of internal messiness from time to time.  As someone whose expertise and experience intersects several discrete domains (coral reefs, sharks, marine protected areas, and policy), I’ve witnessed plenty of dust-ups, arguments, and spats over the years.  And this week’s flurry of discussion instigated by a New York Times editorial on ocean protected areas is just the latest kerfuffle. In his op-ed, Bigger Is Not Better for Conservation, coral reef scientist and California Academy of Sciences curator, Dr Luiz Rocha, argues that large-scale, remote marine reserves are a disservice to ocean conservation.  It’s Dr Rocha’s perspectives, however, that seem more damaging.

Rocha’s argument hinges on four key points:

1. The current tally of big, remote marine reserves is in low-conflict, easy to protect (ie, low-hanging fruit) areas of the ocean where human reliance upon them is negligible and therefore government willingness to protect is strong;
2. There’s nothing worth protecting in these big, remote areas;
3. More important, smaller, near-shore ocean areas with high levels of human use are in dire need of protection;
4. Marine protected areas should be science-based (eg, protected zones should be guided by “sustainable catch limits” of commercially targeted species).

Let’s go one-by-one to see if any of these points hold water. [Note: For the sake of brevity, I’ll be using the acronym MPA frequently in this piece for “marine protected area,” but it will also serve as shorthand for “marine reserve,” “protected area,” “locally managed marine area,” or “marine managed area.”  I recognize that an MPA may not be managed or enforced, but let’s forego that technicality for the moment.]

POINT 1: “Big MPAs are easy and less consequential.”
As of today, there are approximately 20 large-scale protected areas across the ocean (ranging from tens-of-thousands to millions of square kilometers in protected area).  This includes a range from the Marianas Marine National Monument’s 16,400 square kilometers to the 1.15 million square kilometers of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawai’i.  These MPAs may consist of fully-protected, no-take (no fishing/extraction) designation to protection that still allows multiple uses.  According to the folks at MPA Atlas, there are approximately 15,000 small, coastal MPAs around the world.  Some of these, like Cordelia Banks off the island of Roatan in the Bay of Honduras, encompass only 17 square kilometers.  Many are even smaller.  Totaling all of the massive/remote and small/near-shore MPAs together gets us to approximately 2% of the ocean under some form of protection.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress, held in Hawai’i in September 2016, called for member nations to set aside “30% of each marine habitat” in “highly protected MPAs and other effective area-based conservation measures” by 2030, with the ultimate aim being ”a fully sustainable ocean, at least 30% of which has no extractive activities.”

For rhetorical effect, I’ll reiterate that as of March 23, 2018, only 2% of our global oceans is protected, and 2030 is only twelve years away.

As someone in the MPA biz, I can testify that there are at present a small handful of big, deep-pocketed, international NGOs working on big international MPAs: The Pew Charitable Trusts, Conservation International, Oceana, and National Geographic. These folks have the gravitas, influence, and resources to capture heads of state attention and convene forums necessary to get things done.  You can bitch all you want about the pros and cons, but this is the reality.  Alongside the big NGOs, there are tens-to-hundreds of small to medium-sized NGOs that are working simultaneously on everything from big/remote MPAs to smaller/near-shore MPAs.  Sometimes the big NGOs work in concert with the smaller ones.  Sometime not.  It’s all site dependent.

Having worked on everything from massive MPAs to tiny MPAs over my career, I can say that none of them were “easy wins.”  So-called “low hanging fruit” may represent a unique opportunity in time.  You may have a receptive government or local community that welcomes the process.  It’s always easier to work with the willing than the resistant.  But every MPA effort in which I’ve participated involved strategy, identifying champions, public consultations, negotiations, community organizing, building political will, battling nefarious characters, rebooting strategy, sweating-out votes, and of course finding funds to support all of this.  If there are “easy wins” out there, big or small, I sure would appreciate someone pointing me in that direction.

Protecting big/remote areas or smaller/near-shore areas is not an either/or game.  This is not a binary proposition of doing one or the other.  It’s a yes/also.  We need to protect small, not so small, medium, larger, big, bigger, and massive tracts of the ocean.  We need to protect what is easy to protect, and what is harder to protect.  We must gather every bit of low-hanging fruit, and plan to reach the currently out-of-reach fruit.  MPAs occupy a spectrum or continuum, and we need to be prepared to work with everything along that spectrum.  Some NGOs will have a mandate (and talent) for pursuing big swaths of ocean.  Others are more tuned to work on local needs.  But there is a lot of real estate between the biggest and smallest MPAs for organizations, individuals, and yes, even FUNDERS to find their niche.

POINT 2: “There’s nothing worth protecting.”
This is just wholesale wrong.  What is Rocha considering as “worth” protection?  Certainly, there are species whose entire life cycle may be captured by the boundaries of an MPA.  Other species may only spend a portion of their lives within the boundaries of protection.  Protected areas are designed to factor in these variables.  But not all MPAs are envisioned around biological significance alone.  The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary in North Carolina, the very first marine national monument designated by the United States in 1975, honors the historic significance of the shipwreck of the famed Civil War ironclad, USS Monitor.  Similarly, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and the entire Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, including the 110 seamounts, open waters, and all life in that area are considered biocultural resources and linked to the Hawaiian people through environmental kinship.

The ocean as a cultural seascape is vital to Hawaiian identity, their being, and essential dimension to their cognitive understanding of the world.  The ocean waters in Papahānaumokuākea were an ancient pathway for a voyaging sphere that occurred between this region and the main Hawaiian islands for over 400-500 years (ca. AD 1300-1800).  The practice of traditional wayfinding and voyaging—recently popularized in the film Moana and which is one of the most unique living traditions of the world—requires protection of the entire marine environment and open waters, not just the islands and reefs, because it relies on biological signs and natural phenomenon, such as winds, waves, currents, and the presence of marine life and birds at key moments and locations.

At the same time as Papahānaumokuākea was successfully expanded in 2016 by President Obama, the State of Hawai’i also supporting the establishment of small, coastal community-managed makai areas, driven by and for the community.  Yes, both can happen at the same time and using the same human capital, as many of the same people fought for both the small makai areas and the big Papahānaumokuākea effort.

POINT 3: “There are more important, smaller places to protect.”
Importance is relative and subjective.  It is place-driven and context-heavy.  What is important to someone in Brazil, might be less so to someone in Hawai’i.  So instead of casting stones at our neighbors, perhaps we should recognize that there are seriously limited resources, conservation bandwidth, and political will, and try to triage our priorities.  I recognize that the reality is that not all NGOs/organizations like to play-well together.  Furthermore, some places and approaches are simply not tenable due to practical considerations and political and social realities.  Again, this is a reality of modern conservation.  But as I mention above, effective MPAs do not occupy one half of a binary state.  It’s not either small or large.  Remote or near-shore.  Fully managed/enforced or paper parks/un-enforced.  Every single MPA in existence occupies a position somewhere along a continuum of effectiveness.  Even an un-managed, unfunded, and unenforced MPA is a work in progress along that continuum.

POINT 4: “They’re not science-based.”
Science should help inform MPA zoning and designation.  No questions or arguments here.  But the science needed may at times be incomplete or lacking.  Many decisions around the world, particularly in developing nations, on “sustainable catch limits” are not acted upon because data is deficient.  Should we be expected to wait for the science to be decided and settled (whatever that might mean) before action/conservation measures can be activated?  And science is but one arrow in our quiver that we should use to scope, establish, and manage MPAs.  The social sciences and economics are also driving MPA priorities and planning.

Finally…
I find an editorial like Rocha’s to be, quite frankly, dangerous.  Staking-out a claim on one side of a false dichotomy or constructing straw man arguments is the purview of graduate school.  I get it… Rocha would like to see more love shown to near shore/coral reef areas (including where he has worked in Brazil).  But what is the benefit to conservation as a whole to publish these half-baked propositions that large, remote MPAs are a waste of time in the pages of The New York Times and under the banner of an august and internationally recognized organization like the California Academy of Sciences?  We are not currently living in normal times, and this sort of rhetoric plays right into the hands of those keen to see less ocean protection, not more.

For the first time in US history, an administration is rolling back protections on national monuments, both land and sea.  Australia just this week has announced the possibility of cutting in half the protections for the Coral Seas MPA.  Conservation in one place in the ocean is not the enemy of conservation in another place.  And MPAs are not a binary switch of either big or small…  Local or remote…  Fully protected or not.  If we are going to get to the IUCN recommended target of 30% of our oceans under strong protection by 2030, we need to ramp up protections everywhere along the MPA continuum.  Yes/Also should become our mantra!  We must embrace a process of continuous improvement in our MPA work, not display a reflex of undercutting other conservation efforts.  And we need to keep our focus and attention on the real threats to a healthy ocean: over-fishing, illegal fishing, pollution, climate change, and lack of political will for action.

The post Embracing Yes/Also: Marine Protected Areas Are Not An Either/Or Proposition first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Threats of international boycotts. A conservation activism group’s boat burned in effigy. Government vehicles overturned by angry citizens. A cartel trafficking illegal wildlife goods worth thousands of dollars per kilo.

At the heart of this? An adorable porpoise – the vaquita, sometimes called the “panda of the sea.” It is the world’s most endangered marine mammal, occurring only in the Upper Gulf of California and threatened by bycatch in gillnets in local small-scale fisheries. Its fate is inextricably entangled (ah, bycatch puns) in a complex mess of human motivations and actions.

This high-profile conservation issue has drawn millions of dollars and decades of hard work by some of the world’s brightest and most dedicated minds. Yet we’ve reached a point where desperate, high-risk efforts to catch and keep vaquita in captivity is the only option for this species’ survival (here is a not particularly great, but widely read, piece in the NYT). How did this happen?

Well, one thing to consider is that there is a critically important group of players that are not represented in most media stories on this issue: the local communities. These include people now unable to feed their families, and worried about increasing rates of drug addiction and crime. People who feel disenfranchised and villified and misunderstood.  Numerous colleagues and I believe that this sector has been disregarded not only in media coverage, but also in decision-making, in a way that is ultimately counterproductive to conservation (not to mention human well-being).

My insights are based on a recent research project that I co-developed: “Stakeholder perspectives on the future of vaquita conservation.” With guidance from experts, my fantastic research team and I interviewed fishers and community members in San Felipe and El Golfo de Santa Clara, as well as conservation groups, researchers, and government agencies about their perceptions regarding vaquita conservation.

Given the heated nature of this topic, some fine print: These ideas do not necessarily represent the views of anyone besides me. This post presents a *very* simplified version of our project and the system. Our findings are based on what people chose to tell us – truths, deliberate non-truths, or inadvertent non-truths. Even though these might not be absolute fact, people’s perceptions are critically important.

The system

At the interface between small-scale fisheries and conservation, it is especially critical to understand the elements and interactions between human society and nature. So, what does the vaquita conservation system look like? Below is a (simplified) version of the entities involved:

At the heart of the system? The vaquita, local fisheries, and the illegal fishery for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladders sell at staggeringly high prices to Asian markets. This is run by cartels (one of my field assistants – somewhat jokingly – said, “Tara, please don’t get us killed”).

The infrastructure and economics of local communities, as well as the health and well-being of community members, heavily influence the feasibility of transitioning from a gillnet-based economy. The system includes how these fisheries and communities are managed, i.e. by government agencies (local and national), as well as conservation groups, and researchers who might be affiliated with government agencies, conservation groups, or academia.

These groups dynamics are complex. For example, fishers might belong to cooperatives, organized into federations.  The perspectives of a cooperative leader will differ from those of a fisher who works on a boat that someone else owns.  There are also independent fishers who do not belong to cooperatives. Furthermore, different priorities exist within the government agencies, researchers, and conservation groups.  Some focus more on fisheries, others more on vaquita conservation. This sets the stage for conflict not only among different stakeholder groups, but also within.

The “solution”

As an emergency effort to save this species, conservation groups pushed for a 2-year gillnet ban from 2015-2017. This ban was accompanied by a compensation scheme for fishers who would be losing their livelihood.  Additionally, social programs were promised to assist in transitioning to alternative livelihoods.  At the same time, trials were being run for “el chango ecologico,” a small, apparently environmentally-friendly, trawl. This vaquita-safe gear would be the proposed alternative gear for local fishers.  Additionally, enforcement efforts again the totoaba fishery were stepped up, by the Navy and Sea Shepherd.

This is my doodle rendition of the plan – with anticipated reduction of bycatch and totoaba fishing, recovery of the vaquita, and limited negative impacts (perhaps positive impacts) to local communities:

So…how did it go?

Well, not as hoped:

Vaquita bycatch continues, with the population dropping to a downright grim 30 individuals. The illegal totoaba fishery continues (and possibly has increased). And conflict between communities and conservation groups has grown even more heated.

The compensation program was mismanaged such that many fishers are not receiving it; no social support programs materialized; and many community members reported serious degradation in community and individual well-being. There was mention of some fishers entering the illegal totoaba fishery as the only feasible livelihood option.

The alternative gear is widely rejected by fishers, who state that it difficult and costly to use, inefficient, and damaging to the environment (more on this in a recent paper by Aburto-Oropeza et al. in Conservation Letter, summarized here). There is a daunting level of distrust between various groups involved in these trials.

All of this occurs on a long-standing foundation of conflict between stakeholders (e.g., Cisneros-Montemayor and Vincent 2016) .  Some community members stated that the vaquita is a myth invented by conservationists; that bycatch does not occur in their gillnets; that data related to this are faked.  Even those with more moderate beliefs expressed dismay about the lack of communication and inclusion by researchers and conservation groups. However, researchers firmly and exasperatedly emphasized to me that they had tried to share their research and findings.  Clearly, there is a disconnect here. Even though information has been shared, it has not been effectively received – for whatever reason.

On a certain level, the solution to bycatch seems to be fairly simple: reduce the overlap between gillnets and the animals of concern. Of course, bycatch does not occur in isolation. Not to belabor the “bycatch pun” angle, but bycatch is generally tied up in complex systems of interconnected strings and knots. Any attempt to disentangle the situation will involve pulling on certain strings, which are connected to other strings and knots.  In other words, each action will introduce tensions to other parts of the system.  If these tensions are not anticipated and managed, the whole tangle might just become more intractable.

The ban added tension to an already-complicated series of intertwined knots. It pulled on the complex interconections between gillnet fisheries and community well-being, and at the particularly intractable knot linked to the totoaba fishery.  Without a series of effective, concerted efforts to untangle these knots, this added tension has only made these knots more tight.

Narratives

Problems are easier to think about in simple terms. A bad side, a victim, and a good side. Evil, greedy corporations despoiling the earth for their own gain make for a storyline with limited moral ambiguity. This is an easy way to communicate a problem to the broader public.

Unfortunately, many conservation problems simply do not fit into this narrative. They are the products of complex systems – they are “wicked problems” (see Jentoft and Chuenpagdee 2009 on how this term applies to fisheries and coastal management) They make our heads hurt and force us to consider tricky ethical dilemmas.

So, it’s not surprising when a complex problem like vaquita bycatch becomes oversimplified in media coverage. Narratives that thoughtfully share the community side of this story are rare. The considerable impacts of the gillnet ban on their incomes, health, and well-being have not been widely covered.  And though the NYT story and others convey otherwise, most of the fishers and community members we interviewed had positive perceptions of the vaquita – viewing it as a beautiful animal that had a right to exist, that was a part of their natural heritage. Their objections were to conservation approaches that harmed their communities, but they were generally supportive of the idea of conserving the vaquita.

Community members are tired of being villified. Many of them feel that their communities also suffer from the totoaba fishery and related influence of cartels; they feel attacked from all sides, by the cartels and by the conservationists. While some community members have engaged in aggressive protests, there are others who feel that these actions do not represent their community in a favorable light – yet these are the actions grabbing headlines.

A shift from the simple “bad guy, good guy” narrative could promote greater demand and support for holistic and, one imagines, more effective approaches. Some key recommendations from our interviewees include: truly effective communication about research methods and findings; inclusion of communities in research and decision-making, including the search for alternative gears other than the chango ecologico; cooperative, community-inclusive efforts to combat the totoaba fishery, improve infrastructure, and develop job training and alternative livelihoods; and broadening the focus of vaquita conservation to include other aspects of the ecosystem and the needs of communities, as articulately argued for in two recent papers (Cisneros-Montemayor and Vincent 2016; Aburto-Oropeza et al. 2017).

Of course, easier said than done. And it’s very easy to criticize as an outsider looking back on past actions. However, with greater demand for these types of solutions, I hope that there will be more research on how to meaningfully design and implement these recommendations rather than having them be the “ta-daaah, we’re finished here!” final section of reports and papers.

What now?

The solutions indicated by our research are long-term efforts to effect holistic change in the system. These are not last-ditch, emergency measures. So, while conservation and research groups mobilize to save this species through captivity, what else can be done?

You might have seen calls on social media to boycott seafood from Mexico. Supporting a boycott is a personal decision, and not necessarily a bad one. I would be loathe to support a market linked to vaquita bycatch. But I’d urge you to carefully think: what happens with this boycott? What strings does that pull on, and what tensions might be worsened? Would this spur the government toward more effective conservation action, toward more effectively controlling the totoaba trade? Are there plans to ensure that communities do not bear the burden of a problem that isn’t necessarily their fault? I’d like to see those calling for boycotts to also call for complementary efforts to work with communities as partners, rather than opponents.

What else can be done? There are at least two major opportunities:

1. Invest in long-term social and environmental sustainability in the Upper Gulf beyond vaquita conservation, and involved the community in a more open, participatory approach to developing and designing creative, appropriate solutions for greater social and environmental well-being;
2. Take these hard-earned lessons from the vaquita mess and apply them to similar conservation problems globally, that do not have the amount of publicity or funding that have been showered upon the vaquita. Unfortunately, marine mammal bycatch is a global issue, and we need to evaluate all attempts to solve this problem.

I was hoping to think of a humorous, catchy title for this post – for example, “Conservation at Cross Porpoises.” But that felt flippant in the face of this all-around depressing situation: a species will almost certainly soon be extinct in the wild, communities have suffered, scientists and conservationists have worked their hearts out, and the only obvious “bad guys” continue to reap the benefits from the illegal totoaba trade. My hope is that we can start to appreciate the complexity of these situations, and design strategies that match and adapt to this complexity for other cases.

—

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sincere “thank you” to all who participated in these interviews and to the communities of San Felipe and El Golfo de Santa Clara; to collaborator Samantha Young @ San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research and research team Areli Hernandez and Veronica Vargas; to the Gulf of California Marine Program. Research funded by NSF SEES Fellowship and SeaWorld Busch Gardens Conservation Fund.

REFERENCES

Aburto-Oropeza O, López-Sagástegui C, Moreno-Báez M, et al. 2017. Endangered Species, Ecosystem Integrity, and Human Livelihoods: Species conservation humans ecosystems. Conserv Lett.

Cisneros-Montemayor AM and Vincent AC. 2016. Science, society, and flagship species: social and political history as keys to conservation outcomes in the Gulf of California. Ecol Soc 21.

Jentoft S and Chuenpagdee R. 2009. Fisheries and coastal governance as a wicked problem. Mar Policy 33: 553–60.

The post Beyond drug lords and conservationists: Who is missing in the coverage of the vaquita’s demise? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Allow me to explain by indulging me in a little experiment.

If you have Yelp or a similar restaurant-finding app, fire it up and do a search for “tuna poke” from your current location.  Go ahead… I’ll wait.

For the benefit of poke noobs, poke (pronounced POH-kay) is a traditional raw fish salad that is an important part of Hawaiian cuisine.  While various seafood can be used to prepare poke, by far the most common and most popular preparation uses tuna, primarily yellowtail or big-eye tuna.  While poke has been eaten for millennia by Polynesians, it was Hawaii chef Sam Choy (the “Godfather of Poke”) who really put the dish on the map for a global audience.  So much so that Business Insider claimed in early 2016 that, “poke will be the next big thing in fast food.”

Fast forward to April 2017.  So how did your local tuna poke search go?  Allow me to share the results of my search from my home in Oakland, California:

Yelp apparently limits smartphone map results to a maximum of 20 locations per search presumably to avoid over-cluttering the screen.  But according to Yelp, I have at least 12 locations within easy walking distance where I can find tuna poke.  Some are mom&pop poke operations like “Poke Koma,” while others are mega-poke chains like “Poke Zone” (a wholly-owned subsidiary of “Poke Salad USA,” or “Ono Grill.”  Still others are sushi restaurants or sushi fast food retailers that advertize poke.  Maybe it’s just me, but I was amazed by how many poke retailers had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.  Granted, I live in the SF Bay Area, a proud foodie haven, but this poke bonanza was most definitely NOT the case just a year ago.  Tuna poke has really taken off.

Wondering if poke was booming across in San Francisco, I performed a few Yelp searches to check for patterns.  Here’s what I found:

San Francisco:
Again, the map search is limited to 20 results across the visible map area.  But tuna poke retailers can be found across the city, with a plethora of choices not surprisingly being concentrated in the downtown/financial and tourist-heavy neighborhoods.  But what if I drill down closer into a neighborhood?  Zooming in on The Castro, for instance, I can find another set of poke retailers who did not appear in the initial, broader scale search.

According to Yelp, I can find 17 retailers who carry tuna poke in The Castro alone.  Who knew there was so much fish eating happening in The Castro?

So let’s assume that the deeper, more selective geographical area you search for “tuna poke” on Yelp will return more unique options for procuring your poke.  But what does poke availability look like across the mainland US?  Here are my results…

Washington DC:

New York City:
With a drill down on south of 34th Street:

And from Tribeca to the Financial District:

Houston, Texas:

Minneapolis, Minnesota:

Anchorage, Alaska:

Portland, Maine:

And yes, even Fargo, North Dakota has poke according to Yelp:

Which raises an important point.  These are results of what Yelp reports as to the availability of tuna poke based on their users who have reviewed restaurants, posted photos, or restaurants who have advertised on their app that the menu includes tuna poke.  I would imagine that North Dakota readers may know of some great tuna poke spots in Fargo.  So take all of these results with a dose of context.

But it does indicate to me that tuna poke has gone from a specialty dish that required a holiday in Hawaii to enjoy to something that has been mainstreamed across the mainland.  This represents A LOT of tuna consumption.

But here’s the thing.  The Hawaii tuna poke brand identity that Chef Roy Choy and others have successfully built is one that conjures impressions of the freshest catch of the day (remember, you are eating raw fish) that is being harvested in Hawaii and shared with Aloha around the world.  When you eat poke, it’s supposed to evoke an image and a connection to Hawaii.

And this is where I smell a rat.
Take a peek at a Yelp search for tuna poke in Honolulu, Hawaii:

Again, the search is limited to 20 retailers, but not surprisingly Honolulu streets are lined with poke vendors from downtown to Diamond Head.  This is as one might expect at ground zero for tuna poke.

But in the motherland of poke, mass consumers of this dish (and by that I mean visitors and residents who eat poke regularly from high-volume retailers such as Safeway, Foodland, KTA Super Stores, and also numerous food courts that dot Waikiki as well as across the main islands) are NOT eating fresh-caught fish.  Volume tuna poke sellers are not buying their fish from small scale, sustainable, local fishermen (called pono fishermen) who fished that day but from the Honolulu Fish Auction Block.  The mass-market poke retailers are sourcing deep-frozen tuna (often treated with carbon monoxide gas in order to retain color) that were caught perhaps months ago by tuna longline fishermen, often from the waters of Micronesia or the Marshall Islands.

Very little of the premier quality tuna landed in Honolulu makes it’s way to Hawaii restaurants or poke retailers, but is destined for restaurants in Japan and other Asian markets where they fetch handsome prices.

So if the bulk of Hawaii poke eaten is sourced from long-ago frozen, carbon-monoxide color-stabilized tuna that was caught on longlining vessels, what do you suppose mainland tuna poke vendors are selling?

Make no mistake… I love poke.  It’s delicious, simple, satisfying in a way that is hard to describe, and I do truly feel (as much as a white dude can without sounding culturally appropriative) a connection to a Polynesian tradition.   Why I find the proliferation of mass-market tuna poke so alarming is that it’s coming at a steep series of costs to the ocean as well as to sustainable local fishermen.  First, there’s the reality that longline fishing, where miles of mainline are deployed with thousands of baited hook sets, is the absolute antithesis of sustainable, pono fishing.  The tally of bycatch and discards from tuna longline fishing is staggering, and it means that you carve a very deep impact on long-term ocean health with each serving of tuna poke that is sourced in this manner.

Secondly, in embracing mass-produced tuna poke we miss the fact that truly sustainable tuna poke is indeed possible.  Each of the Hawaiian Islands has communities and networks of local pono fishermen who use handlines and practice traditional methods to bring their catch to market.  Contrast this with the Hawaii commercial tuna longline industry that uses mostly foreign workers who work for slave wages and who cannot even step off their ships.  Of course pono fishing cannot supply mass global demands.  But that, in essence, is what makes this type of fishing pono (or correct/righteous/sustainable) in the first place.  Perhaps some food is simply not suited for globalization.

Finally, this explosion in tuna poke further stokes the mythology that our oceans are an inexhaustible source of food, irrespective of the fishing effort or methods.  This isn’t conjecture… this is free market reality.  If there is demand for a resource, there will always be a group seeking to exploit it.  Case in point, the Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council (WESPAC) is now urging President Donald Trump to remove fishing prohibitions within the Pacific marine monuments created by Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama and re-establish the councils’ supervision of the fisheries.  Why would a quota-based fishery that meets it’s federally determined quota every year be trying to open fishing once again in fully-protected marine reserves?  Simply put, it’s greed.  But it’s greed that is fueled by consumer demand, and cheap/affordable tuna is a big part of that.

Perhaps tuna poke will, like the cronut, fade away once the next food trend appears.  Or perhaps we will hit peak poke before that.  My crystal ball is hard to read.  Tuna has the dinstinction of being incredibly ono (Hawaiian for “delicious”).  That’s a good thing.  Now, if we can just try harder to also make sure it’s pono.

The post Peak Poke? (Or, Our Choices Have Consequences) first appeared on Deep Sea News.

“It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged.” –Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, 1962

“We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment” –Scott Pruitt, EPA Administrator, 2017

Rachel Carson had no idea how impactful her words would be over 5 decades later; yet after reading the EPA press release denying the petition to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos for agricultural use in the US, it’s hard to believe how little has changed since the 1960s. Despite decades of progress, our reality is that it is industry—not public or environmental health—that the new EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, aims to safeguard with “regulatory certainty.” While the EPA has based its decision to allow the continued use of chlorpyrifos on its uncertain risk to human health, the risks to environmental health, including marine and aquatic environments, have been well documented.

Chlorpyrifos belongs to a class of insecticides called organophosphates (OPs) which are popular because (1) a little goes a long way in killing pests (in the business we call this “high acute toxicity”), and (2) it is broad spectrum (effective at killing several crop pests). Chlorpyrifos, like other OPs, works primarily by blocking the proper function of acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme needed for normal brain and nervous system functioning.¹ This enzyme is common across the animal kingdom including invertebrate groups (like crabs and worms), fish, birds, and, you guessed it, humans. By essentially ‘clogging’ neural pathways, chlorpyrifos exposure can lead to a host of behavioral changes including muscle spasms, reduction in muscle coordination, and, with high enough doses, paralysis and death. It’s a nasty, highly effective chemical. So nasty, in fact, that it has been banned for household use since 2000.

But if chlorpyrifos is sprayed mostly on commercial crops, how can it be a problem for marine ecosystems? Chlorpyrifos and many other dangerous toxicants can be washed into nearby streams or sewers by rain storms or crop irrigation and end up in estuaries, where fresh water bodies like rivers meet the sea.² While chlorpyrifos usually doesn’t stick around in the environment on land, it tends to stick around longer in saltwater³ and anoxic sediment⁴ (the dark sludge that gives estuaries their sulfur smell). In fact, in the Santa Monica estuary in California, chlorpyrifos drove acute toxicity (i.e. high mortality of test organisms) observed in sediment and water samples collected in 2008.² Although this pesticide degrades over time, it is still found in high concentrations in both fish and crustacean tissues.⁵

Pesticide use has only increased through the years. For example, according to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, 15,412 lbs. of chlorpyrifos were applied to agricultural crops in 2008 (the same year as the study above). Compare that to 2014 (the latest available data), when 67,982 lbs. were applied (that is a 341% increase!).

Over the last several years, we decided to focus our graduate thesis research on the sublethal (i.e. not quite deadly) effects of exposure to chlorpyrifos. Nick’s research investigated how chlorpyrifos exposure impacted predator-prey interactions between two estuary residents: the California Killifish and its prey, a worm that builds tubes in the mud. He found that when exposed to even relatively low doses of chlorpyrifos, fish struggled to accurately locate and strike the worms. He also found that the fish indiscriminately ate worms that had been exposed to chlorpyrifos, which suggests at least one way these fish are being exposed. This sounds crazy and gross, right? But think about how similar it is when you eat fruit or vegetables that have been coated in pesticides. You don’t know the difference! But the consequences can be devastating all the same.

Violet’s research looked at different types of ecological fish behaviors that could be altered by low doses of chlorpyrifos. She found that this pesticide made fish anti-social, oblivious to predator attacks, and less willing to forage for food. In other words, even small amounts of this pesticide can make fish an easy snack to their predators (leading, of course, to chlorpyrifos exposure for the unwitting predator!).

Each of our studies shows a small snapshot of the complex interactions that happen in estuaries daily, and together they paint a larger picture of some of the ways that chlorpyrifos can alter estuarine ecosystems. Estuaries are extraordinarily important systems, performing water filtration, providing nursery grounds for many fish you eat, and a variety of other ecosystem services. Aside from the importance of human health risks (because chlorpyrifos is a risk to human health), it is important to consider environmental health risks as well, because we all benefit from a properly functioning environment.

Sources

Fulton, M. H. & Key, P. B. Acetylcholinesterase inhibition in estuarine fish and invertebrates as an indicator of organophosphorus insecticide exposure and effects. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 20, 37–45 (2001).

Anderson, B. et al. Impacts of pesticides in a Central California estuary. Environ. Monit. Assess. 186, 1801–1814 (2014).

Bondarenko, S., Gan, J., Haver, D. L. & Kabashima, J. N. Persistence of selected organophosphate and carbamate insecticides in waters from a coastal watershed. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 23, 2649–2654 (2004).

Bondarenko, S. & Gan, J. Degradation and sorption of selected organophosphate and carbamate insecticides in urban stream sediments. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 23, 1809–1814 (2004).

Smalling, K. L. et al. Environmental fate of fungicides and other current-use pesticides in a central California estuary. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 73, 144–153 (2013).

About the Authors

Nick Hayman recently graduated with his Masters in biology from San Diego State University, where he studied effects of pesticide exposure on predator-prey interactions in estuaries. He is currently a contractor working in the exotoxicology lab at SPAWAR Systems Pacific performing environmental monitoring work.

During her doctoral research, Dr. Violet Renick looked to better understand the influence of pollutants (specifically chlorpyrifos) on the ecology and behavior of fishes. She currently manages the Ecotoxicology Lab for the City of San Diego.

The post The Return to Silent Spring first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The EPA:

The mission of EPA is to protect human health and the environment.

Scott Pruitt’s first address to the EPA employees (paraphrased):

Let’s all be civil and compromise. I learned about it in a book about the founding fathers. Alexander Hamilton said let’s reduce state debt. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison said, sure…but only if we completely develop this tidal plain in Virginia and call it Washington D.C.

Dear humans of the US, I’d like to hold your hand, stare deeply into your eyes and tell you it’s going to be alright. Sure, it all sounds reasonable. Businesses and government working together to get what they want. But in light of Pruitt’s history of suing the EPA, ties to the fossil fuel industry and complete non-mention of climate in this speech, I just can’t. I really can’t.

Was his use of this environmental anecdote was intentional or not? I can’t say. But what I can say is that Scott Pruitt will definitely be doing as he always has done, putting the interests of business and money ahead of human health and the environment. It’s going to be a long 4 years, so don’t stop paying attention and don’t stop speaking out. We won’t.

The post Scott Pruitt and the EPA: One of these statements is not like the other first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Would you want your taxi driver using a paper road map from 1892? Or would you rather he plug in the route on his Google Map iPhone app?

You just got off a 14-hour flight from Australia, you’re exhausted and sore, and counting down the seconds until you can crawl into the soft comfort of your memory foam mattress. You want to get home as fast as possible, and any further delay is unacceptable.

In this scenario, if your taxi driver pulled out a faded historical road map, you would literally shout at him “Are you fucking kidding me? Is this a joke?”. Old maps list wagon trails, not highways, since the modern interstate system wasn’t built until the 1950s. In another scenario, maybe your taxi driver agrees to use Google Maps, but he turns off the traffic settings and also takes away your own smartphone so you can’t see where you’re going. He might be driving down back roads on purpose, choosing to ramp up the mileage and ramp up his final fare to rake in the cash.

Any of these above scenarios would really suck. They’re not cool. You should DEFINITELY not stand for them. You also shouldn’t stand for the gag order (#EPAgag) and grants freeze (#EPAfreeze) that’s happening this week at the EPA – because the results will be sickeningly similar to the above taxi driver scenario.

NPR reports this morning that peer-reviewed research coming out of the EPA may soon face a case-by-case review before it gets cleared for release into the public domain. This is exactly what corporations do when they fund research – do you think tobacco companies would approve studies confirming that cigarettes cause cancer? Nope, they would bury the science and ensures it never sees the light of day – and that’s exactly what the Trump administration wants to happen at the EPA. Climate change facts? Bury them. Gag the scientists. The difference is that corporations don’t fund the science at the EPA – YOU FUND IT, as a taxpayer and US citizen, and you should have a say in how your tax money is spent:

Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency who want to publish or present their scientific findings likely will need to have their work reviewed on a “case by case basis” before it can be disseminated, according to a spokesman for the agency’s transition team.

Any review would directly contradict the agency’s current scientific integrity policy, which was published in 2012. It prohibits “all EPA employees, including scientists, managers and other Agency leadership from suppressing, altering, or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions.”

The EPA funds a stunning amount of stuff that effects your everyday life – the EPA monitors beach health (so you can swim in a seweage-free ocean!), water quality in lakes and rivers (so you can fish there!), air quality (don’t wanna taste smog on your run, right?), and even programs on Native American reservations to help with initiatives like recycling and sustainability.

If you want to know what the EPA funds in your local area, 1) Click here and enter your ZIP code to find your congressional district, and then 2) Go to the EPA search tool and search for grants awarded to your congressional district (you only have to fill out two boxes – your district number and state). The list of EPA search results will show you exactly what type of projects and how much $$ has been allocated to your town in the past few years.

Finally, CALL YOUR CONGRESSPERSON AND SENATORS to let them know that the #EPAfreeze and #EPAgag is NOT OK! All us scientists at Deep-Sea News are steaming mad, and you should be too. Click here to find contact info for your state senator. And click here and type in your ZIP code for your local congressperson in the House of Representatives. Phone calls are the best way to get in touch – inundate their district and DC offices with phone calls. Phone calls are scary for me as a millennial, but then again so is that dodgy taxi driver who wants to take me home using unpaved wagon trails and historical maps. Make a stand, make your voice heard.

———

UPDATE: 1/25/17, 1:42PM PST

To dig into this issue further, I did my own EPA award search. My congressional district (California 41st) has been awarded $26,369,556 in EPA grants over the last ~15 years. Here’s a screenshot of the awards:

To dig in even further, I started reading about the grants and tweeting short summaries of what the EPA had actually funded in my local area:

In my district alone, EPA has funded projects in basic research, terrorist attack prevention, drinking water and air quality #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

$218k EPA grant went to Fort Mojave Indian Tribe to train staff & implement new environmental protocols https://t.co/VSuUSQWAYQ #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

Other $15k EPA grant funded research on BBQ smoke (small particles that go airborne when grease sizzzles) https://t.co/8uVykdeyoN #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

One $15k EPA grant funded research to build a device that lowers pollution/exhaust from your lawnmower https://t.co/iVchR80lxn #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

A $1.2 million EPA grant went to Big Bear Lake to replace aging water pipes & ensure safe drinking water https://t.co/iVqo3lt6ia #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

$1.2 million EPA grant even went to “Air Quality Monitoring for Homeland Security” (w/ no other details) https://t.co/cCpdXgG1vi #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

More serious – $450k EPA grant went to the Luiseno Indian Tribe to fund water pollution control programs https://t.co/Ff9lhpj5df #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

A $408k EPA grant went to Chemehuevi Indian Tribe for community recycling program & to buy a wood chipper https://t.co/Lfq1K4941N #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

A $1.5 million EPA grant went to San Diego County to fund research and analysis on SoCal air quality https://t.co/xIYo9XSpk4 #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

$1.7mill EPA grant to “advance environ literacy & stewardship” for preschool, senior citizens, businesses https://t.co/GIH8SaZ1Su #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

A $115k EPA grant aimed to reduce vulnerabilities of large drinking water utilities to terrorist attacks https://t.co/Z48XapM2Si #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

I encourage you to do your own search – what has the EPA funded in YOUR local community?

The post Fight against the #EPAfreeze – Because you don’t want sewage on your beaches, right? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

1. President Elect Trumps transition team requested the Department of Energy name staffers who worked on climate change programs. Thankfully they refused.
2. A Trump team member just compared climate science to the flat-Earth theory
3. The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee tweeted a link to a widely debunked Breitbart article questioning warming due to climate change
4. Climate denier James Delingpole wrote an article for Breitbart recently, titled “When You Hear A Scientist Talk About ‘Peer Review’ You Should Reach For Your Browning” – a sentence taken almost word for word from the Nazi play “Schlageter”.  Steve Bannon, Trumps named Chief Strategist, served as Breitbart’s former executive chair (note DSN policy is not to link to websites that promote anti-science, sexist, or racist agendas)
5. Myron Ebell, who heads the transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency, is the leader of the Cooler Heads Coalition, an anti-climate-science group,
6. Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general, was named the head of the E.P.A. “Pruitt actively opposed to the efforts of the E.P.A. to regulate the environment and in a recent piece for National Review…Pruitt denied the veracity of climate science…also led the effort among Republican attorney generals tin resisting the Clean Air Act.” (note DSN policy is not to link to websites that promote anti-science, sexist, or racist agendas)
7. Trump tapped another climate change denier for Secretary of Interior

Trump’s own words indicate he actively denies the overwhelming evidence for climate change.

In an precedented move, current Interior Secretary Sally Jewell stated researchers must “fight disinformation” about science during the Trump administration.  She advocate to “Make your voices heard and make them relevant to the people you are talking to.” Secretary Jewell made these statement to audience of one of largest gatherings of scientists in the world, the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco

“I encourage people to speak up and to talk about the importance of scientific integrity, and if they see that being undermined to say something about it”

A mentor once told me that you cannot complain about losing a fight if you never fought.

The post The Trump Administration’s Attack on Science first appeared on Deep Sea News.