Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley held a press conference in Annapolis, MD last Thursday to announce a plan to restore the oyster population to the Chesapeake Bay by prohibiting oyster harvesting in selected areas (Baltimore Sun; oyster plan pdf).Those most affected by the plan will be MD watermen; O’Malley offered them $2.5 M in funding to transition from oyster tonging/dredging to commercial oyster aquaculture (Baltimore Sun). This shift from oyster harvesting to aquaculture in the Chesapeake Bay is just one example of the global trend toward aquaculture.
Not only will oyster aquaculture in the Chesapeake Bay provide jobs to underemployed watermen, but it will reduce stress on overharvested native oysters. Farmed oysters are considered a sustainable seafood product and were awarded Seafood Watch’s “best choice” label, because farmed oysters clean the water as they feed and any spat (juvenile oysters) that are produced as a result of the aquaculture operation can actually repopulate surrounding areas.In many ways, oyster aquaculture is a net benefit for the environment (Ulanowicz and Tuttle et al., 1992), which is not always true for other forms of aquaculture (“Marine Aquaculture in the US,” Pew Oceans Commission Report pdf).
I’d like to thank Governor O’Malley for addressing the oyster crisis in the Chesapeake Bay, and the MD Oyster Advisory Commission, whose January 2009 report (pdf) appears to lay the foundation for much of what Governor O’Malley proposed.
Citing the United Nation’s report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, Pachauri and McCartney warned that global meat production is responsible for more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation combined. The United Kingdom Press Association (UKPA) quoted McCartney as saying, “People are confused about what they can do – they can try one meat-free day a week. It’s kind of interesting once you get into it.”
Dr. Robert Lawrence, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, who has long supported and served as a scientific advisor for the Meatless Monday Campaign, was invited to attend today’s hearing in Brussels. While he couldn’t make it to Belgium in time, he did provide EP leaders with a letter. Read More >
The marvel of modern medicine is in jeopardy. A growing pool of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, increasingly immune to our arsenal of prescription drugs, weighs heavily on our already-inflated health care budget. Leading experts attribute much of the responsibility for this “Multi-Billion Dollar Health Care Crisis” to the practice of feeding low doses of antibiotics to livestock in order to expediate growth. Fortunately, Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has a plan that may serve as the first step towards solving this problem.
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