This year, as an SOC ambassador, I am doing a year-long environmental project in my local community. In an effort to choose an area which I am interested and have skills and knowledge, I decided to spread awareness of the environmental impact of seafood in my town. After meeting 2 owners, I wanted to amend my project to be about exploring the business side of sustainable seafood and gaining understanding of how businesspeople think about this issue.
The first place I went was a Japanese haha and oto-san restaurant, and I really had my naive little eyes opened. In all my talking about sustainable seafood, conservation, etc. I never stopped to think very much about the business side. The chef had a few things to say that were game-changing for me. Regarding yellowtail, known as hamachi he said that he knew about the environmental issues, and had tried the more environmentally friendly choice, and it tasted "inferior". I never thought that the fish wouldn't taste as good, but the idea made sense to me. Why change if the taste is not as good? Another fish he mentioned, monkfish, and its liver, known as ankimo and ankoh are apparently a traditional delicacy, akin to corned beef and cabbage for Irish families. As I was getting ready to leave, he said something that stuck with me, in a really positive way. "We are all for ocean-friendly here!"
My second stop was the one small fish market in town, Pappy's Fish Market. The owner was very nice, and he also had some interesting things to say. We were agreeing about most of the sustainable seafood idea, but he was violently opposed to farmed seafood, for understandable reasons, but their are plenty of exceptions, which was the confusing part for me. The thing from there that really stuck with me was the idea that a business owner might have some reason to not serve a particular item, in this case it was taste, method of harvest, and health effects.
Both places said they would like to work with me, and would allow me to post some Seafood Watch Cards. SCORE!!
SOC was great fun! I arrived early to work on an experimental SOC podcast, which would consist of a recording of the speaker, and the Q-and-A time, available for download on Itunes. This session was just a test to see what we would need to do to make it perfect next time. The speaker was actually a panel of a local resturant P.R. lady, the excutive chef at the MBA resturant, and one of the MBA staff. Great questions from the kids, so encouraging. My favorite question was a follow-up to a question about what other environmentally practices the speakers were involved in. One of the answers was using CFL's, and the follow-up was "CFL's have been shown to have high amounts of mercury, are they the best choice, or could you do something else to lower your power consumption?" This question, and others like it are near and dear to my heart. Cynical, pessimistic, and contrary, we need more people like that, tempering the conversation everywhere.
Hopefully before the end of next week I will be able to keep moving forward with my local campaign.
That's it. If you have any conservation questions, feel free to ask.
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