Stop Trying to Divide Our Industry, NWAA Tells Washington’s Lands Commissioner
Seattle, Washington—On Wednesday, November 8, Commissioner of Public Lands, Hilary Franz, will be leading a panel discussion of out-of-state activists during the largest commercial trade show on the West Coast, Pacific Marine Expo (PME). Members of this panel also seek to disrupt PME through other means to show opposition to so-called “industrial” seafood production.
The Northwest Aquaculture Alliance (NWAA) is demanding answers as to why the state’s landlord believes it is part of her job to align herself with so-called “ocean experts” whose vested interests run counter not just to those of Washington’s citizens, but also to all US consumers, who benefit from access to a steady supply of nutritious seafood.
As the global population increases, marine aquaculture has become the most environmentally efficient means of animal production on the planet, with the lowest freshwater use, with the lowest carbon emissions, and with the smallest environmental footprint. In Washington state, a multi-year NOAA biological opinion and the State Supreme Court have shown that farming fish in marine net pens has no adverse impact on endangered species or the environment.
Aquaculture represents opportunity in many rural communities in the United States and globally. Today, more than twenty million people worldwide work in aquaculture jobs, mainly in rural coastal communities, with women holding some 70 percent of all aquaculture jobs.
We suggest that the Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands should focus on managing public lands as the legislature intended, and not participate in activities that seek to divide the seafood industry at a time when the entire production sector, wild and farmed, needs to unify to keep producing one of the most nutritionally beneficial foods on the planet: Seafood.
