How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 096: Ocean Talk Friday
Nathan Johnson joins me via phone (internet problems!) to discuss this week's important Ocean Conservation topics, including: Fisheries declining faster than we thought; SCUBA diving is great for Africa's Oceans; Celebration of 15 years of Marine Protected Area for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands; and, a Researcher talks about plastic pollution in the Ocean and it's negative effect on seafood and the people who eat it.
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Show Notes:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/session96
Well, gonna speak up for blue podcast session 96 today is ocean Friday. Happy Friday people. It is my favorite time of the day or favorite time of the week I should say. We are going to talk about lots of things today. We're going to talk about how fishery global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining. I know it's a little confusing, but we'll explain a little bit in a second. We're going to talk about the scuba diving industry in Africa and how it's affecting the natural habitat and some of the solutions that they can offer for the scuba diving industry to make it better. We're also going to talk about it's a 15 year anniversary of the northwestern Hawaiian Islands protection area. So we're going to talk to all about that, how it came to be and what it's going to look into. And then we're going to talk about a Huffington Post article from an interview with Dr. Chelsea Rockman about plastic in our seas and seafood, how it affects our seafood and how it affects us in general. So that's all on the episode today, so stay tuned. Welcome to the Speak Up for Blue Podcast, helping you get involved in ocean conservation. And now, here's your host, can't get the song bad blood out of his head, Andrew Lua. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Speak Up for Blue Podcast. Your voice for the ocean. I am your host, Andrew Luan, founder, speakupforblue.com, marine ecologist and self-proclaimed ocean printer. And happy Friday, happy ocean talk Friday, my favorite day of the week. We're going to have a great show for you today. And I am joined by none other than the famous Nathan Johnson. How are you doing, Nathan? I'm doing a lot. How are you doing? Good. Good. I said famous because you're getting it famous from this podcast. I'm going to tell you that right now. From this episode specifically or from the entire thing. The entire thing, man, we're going to make you famous. We're going to get famous just to let people know we just passed a milestone today or this week. We actually have over 30,000 downloads and we've only been around for six months. So I just want to say thank you to everybody. We really appreciate Nathan. I really appreciate you guys giving your support and listening to the podcast. We've had a lot of people come to us and say, hey, you know, because of your podcast, we're changing the way we recycle and we're actually looking for recycling centers. I had somebody this morning actually just say he was a teacher of a great seven class. And he said that he uses one of our podcasts for the for how to manage plastic in your life for his great seven class. They listened to it and they did a report on how humans impact the environment. And they actually cited our pod the podcast on the report. So that was awesome. So great sevens. That's fantastic. Yeah. So it's nice to see people using the information that we're giving makes us feel really happy, really good and makes us look like we're actually doing a difference, which is awesome. So that's a lot of fun for us. So so yeah, so Nathan, are you ready to get into it? I am ready. All right. Let's do it. How about you describe the first one? We're going to go with the Nature Communications story. Yeah, this first article is in the Journal Nature Communications. It's titled "Catchery Constructions Reveal that Global Marine Fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining." And it's from a couple professors at University of British Columbia. And it talks about this statistical analysis they essentially did looking at the Food and Agriculture Organization's reports for total annual global catch of marine fisheries worldwide. So their first goal of this was to see if the total reported catch over the last few years is actually accurate because for an organization as large as FAO, it's part of the UN. It gets a lot of international contributions. And you never know just how accurate the data is because you have to collect it from a wide variety of sources. And they mentioned that even for reporting these catches most of the time, they're just rough estimates. So the study really tried to get at what is the average annual catch over the last few decades. What's the status of it now? Is it rising? Is it declining? And not surprisingly, they found that it's declining and at a faster rate than the official FAO reports would suggest. So one of the main things they did in this paper that differs from just the FAO reports was that they also took into account not just reported industrial fishing but a likely estimate taken from basically trends they've seen in the fishing industry over the last few decades to look at unreported catches as well. So it's an estimate they're very clear in their paper that this isn't supposed to be a hard number but it's supposed to be a more accurate representation of global fisheries industries worldwide. And so so they said that the FAO catch increased to about 86 million tons in 1996. Whereas they believe based on the study that the actual peak was about 130 million tons, which means not only was that catch underreported but it also under represents the amount of decline that we've seen since the 90s in fishery output. And so what it's essentially saying is fisheries are becoming less productive, we're catching less fish, we're spending more effort to catch the fish that we do and our reporting system isn't as accurate as it should be. And so even the manager measures that we take into account to increase stocks, let populations rebuild, stuff like that, may not be based on accurate information. So it's a little worrisome. They mentioned in here though that it's a difficult process to get this data. You want to be as accurate as you possibly can but what they want to try and do is just try and get a more accurate number whether or not it's 100% true falls. Not super important in this regard. It's just trying to get an estimate of what the numbers have been over the last few years. And they mentioned that while it does mean that because the total accurate report catches were higher, that we've had much more of a decline over the last decade or so. It also means that there's more incentive to manage these stocks properly because we have more to gain once we're able to accurately manage them. What do you think of this article? You just gave the description. I'll give you the first crack at it. What do you think? I think it's a good article because for something like the FAO, I'm not surprised that their numbers are a little bit off because like I said, it's a difficult process. These people probably took a couple years to figure out this data to get this information and the FAO doesn't have that luxury to spend a couple years trying to more accurately represent their catch if they have to update it every year. There's a lot of really technical information in this paper that it would be really helpful to actually listen to what the authors say about it, figure out how they came up with these numbers and what it actually means. But I like it. It's sort of that same negative outcome that we hear a lot of in ocean conservation. There's less fish in the ocean. That's not a happy thing. So it's an unfortunate finding, but it's good in that it at least draws people's attention to it. And the authors do a good job of showing that management measures do seem to work even though we are seeing a decline in fisheries output. It's kind of even more important in that regard to create these management measures that can protect these stocks because like they said, there's more to gain. We're not going, if the total catches were in the 90s, as I mentioned, almost 50 million tons more than they reported. You can look at that as saying that's an extra 50 million tons that we didn't know the fishery, the oceans were producing that we stand to gain if we continue to manage them properly. So it's just kind of more information for policymakers to develop these management plans, which in my mind is always good. You just really hope that they take it into account and they use it for what it's supposed to be used for. I think what we need to realize too is this paper saying that fisheries are still declining at a faster rate, we have to realize that that is just a conservative estimate. It doesn't include illegal fishing because if we knew what illegal fishing brought in, it wouldn't be illegal because we'd be able to catch these guys. So I think we need to realize that it's a difficult process to actually gain that information. And the information that we do have, and it's saying that it's actually decreased at a faster rate than we originally thought, is a bit alarming. There's no doubt because you're probably thinking it's actually even more than that because of the rate of illegal fishing. It's definitely an article where you have to realize that you can't really, yes, you can blame FAO, but this is what science is all about. It's to look at something and say, well, is this the actual number or can we find, spend more time on the data and actually find ways to show that it's either more or less. I've been a part of studies like this, maybe not as big worldwide, but yeah, actually I have, where we've had to gather data from various resources, various sources, and put it all together into one database. It's very difficult to do that. You have to have a lot of exemptions, a lot of caveats, and you have to state them in their paper, which they tend to do a good job here. So it could be very difficult for the FAO to do, especially if they have to do an annual or biannual or five years kind of thing. That's going to take up most of their time to try and get that information, but it's even when you have it, it could be low estimates. I haven't read the FAO paper, or the report, but it may actually state that this is an underestimate, and maybe there's more out there. So you can't really fault the FAO for doing this, because like you said before, they may have reports to do, and they don't have the time to actually spend on it, and they give us general, it did say that it was declining a lot of the time. So the authors here do a good job of just re-examining that data, maybe adding some, and looking at it a little more closely. And that's what we do as scientists. We take something and we look at it a little more closely and find out that rates are actually faster than we think or slower than we think. Unfortunately, in this case, it's actually faster. So I'm glad this paper came out. It's not good news, obviously. I'm not glad about that, but it had to be said, and now we know that what it's going to be like for the next little bit. And we have to know that we have to curtail our fishing practices to make sure that we can keep these fisheries sustainable and avoid fisheries collapse like we did with COD or that happened with COD. So yeah, a really good article. Any last words on that article, article? No, I think you had on most of it. The authors do mention, as you said, that their own estimates are most likely under estimates, even though they seem to be a little more rigorous and valid than the FAOs. But even they mentioned the sources of data they collect from, namely, the FAOs reports. Some parts of the FAO section reports do say that these are most likely estimates. They don't put a whole lot of confidence or as much confidence as maybe the report doesn't have figures, but they also mention that in some other areas of these reports, the figures are indicated with no sort of disclaimer. So they say, even if the FAO is aware of these numbers, they should probably make that more known. And you've got to think, first of all, how even feasible is it to get 100% accurate numbers? I would argue it's probably not feasible at all. But then it's even what would be the point of that. And so I think with this article, that does a good job of getting a little closer. And as long as we focus on, we don't need to have 100% accuracy with these, but we need to have a certain level of confidence in the estimates. And so every once in a while, it's good to spend a little bit more time like these researchers just to see how that's going. I agree. I completely agree. I think it's a good article to get to know. And I'm glad the authors put it out. And I must say, they're from British Columbia, UBC. That's my home country. So I'm glad to see some good articles being put out by them. And I know Daniel Poly, one of the authors, is actually quite known in Canada for some great fisheries articles. So he knows his stuff, which is nice to see. Okay, let's move on to the next article, which I'll describe. It's on a website called allAfrica.com. And it's entitled, "How Scuba Diving Is Warding Off Threats to Its Future?" And I find this article interesting. I don't know if the title really explains the actual article. The article goes in to, or maybe I'm just misinterpreting it, but the article goes into talking about scuba diving, and how important it is to the economy for the tourism in countries in Africa. They talk about specific hotspot destinations in the Red Sea, which is home to Thigglesgorm and Shark and Yolanda Reef at Charm al-Shaik, which is, I believe, near Egypt or in Egypt. There's the high latitude reefs of southern Mozambique, which are very popular. The cold waters of South Africa that hosts great white sharks, old mines, lakes, and marine parks. And they just talk about how the number of certifications that have grown rapidly for scuba diving, and the number, I think, has grown to 23 million at a pace of about 1 million every year. So a lot of people are scuba diving. So that's a good thing, because a lot of people are actually getting closer to nature. The bad thing is, for one, for scuba diving is the fact that there are more people scuba diving that may not know what they're doing. Scuba diving, when you do, do you have your certification, Nathan? Yeah, I do. Right. So when you did it, you're probably taught no touching, just observe you're there as a guest, and you look at everything, and you can see everything fine, but just no touching, and anything like that. However, a lot of people do tend to touch, they want to touch, they want to feel the animals, because there's a natural human tendency. However, I've spoken about it before, it's don't feed, don't touch, just be there as a guest, but a lot of people do it anyway, and they can harm the animals in doing that, even though they don't mean it. But other challenges that they're facing too is a global economic downturn has led people cutting down on unnecessary expenses, such as this leisure activity, which has negative consequences to tourism scuba diving and diving schools. There's a bit, in some of the countries such as Egypt, there was a bit of a social political instability a bit. There was a huge instability a few years ago, and I'm sure it's still not perfect. So that's affected, apparently, the diving numbers. Natural disasters, climate change, coral bleaching events have its herd divers from visiting affected destinations. Now, normally when divers go down to tropical areas to dive, which is where most divers go, they want to see a nice diverse reef. And there are some places that dive masters will take you, and it's just not as nice as you expect it. And so you demand that those reefs are nice. But when you go back home and you don't see that, you're going to say, "Oh, those reefs and wherever aren't very good." So don't go diving there, or go diving here and not here. And that can affect tourism and impact the local economy. Like I said before, direct damage from pollution and development. You have things like overfishing and poaching, which can affect habitats. So again, if you don't have a nice habitat, people are not going to want to see it. So unfortunately, several sites have been closed to diving because of poaching and overfishing. And that's frustrated a lot of the operators. Now, there are a number of initiatives to find solutions. To manage the tough economic environment, the industry has begun to take steps to attract different markets. So there's initiatives to cater to different types of divers. So that may be specialty divers and so forth. Divers are also being advised on how to travel in a tough economy. So there's a lot of education on divers and what they can do when they arrive in these different places in Africa. There have been summits that people have organized to inform people on climate change and its consequences. Awareness is raised among divers about carbon emissions and promotion of sustainable resources. Problems like overfishing, trawling, poaching, and pollution from boat traffic have been addressed with this establishment of marine protected areas. And now marine protected areas, some of them are going to be closed off to everything. Some of them are going to be opened up to specific activities like recreational activities such as kayakers, maybe canoes, I guess, small boats, unmotorized boats, and divers, of course, which can be a very nice spot to go because you're going to see that replenishment in the marine protected area, hopefully if it's enforced properly. So there's a lot of things project aware, which is a patty derived organization are out to protect divers as well as the environment and ensure that divers are acting appropriately when they're under their edge through education, but also by embracing awareness of some of the issues that they take it to heart because scuba divers see things. They see change. If you talk to a scuba diver who's been scuba diving since 1970 or 80, and you talk to them now, they're going to say they've seen a huge decline in diversity and coral reef habitat and seagrass habitat and a lot of things. So you're going to hear from them. Project aware is kind of representing that and trying to make things better so they do a lot of things from an organization perspective. So what's nice is that there's a problem. I guess what they're trying to say in this article is that scuba diving is important to Africa not only to maintain its reefs, but also to local tourism, maintaining the habitats, just say not just reefs, but also maintaining tourism, which brings in a good sustainable economy to these countries. So I think this is a great article. I think it's nice to see that this that Africa, like countries in Africa are understanding that diving is important not only from from an economic standpoint, but also from a tourism standpoint. It sustains their economy, it brings in jobs and all sorts of things. And I think it's important, but they also realize that there's some threats and they need to find ways to stop those threats through marine protected areas and other policies. What do you think, Nathan? Yeah, I think the article really hit on what I thought was kind of a key issue. We've talked a lot about how snorkeling scuba diving is a really great option for ecotourism, which as an industry ecotourism is a great alternative to a lot of extractive ocean process to get people involved more in ocean conservation, more passionate about it without removing fish and destroying habitats and stuff like that. I think what you touched on as far as inexperienced divers messing with coral reefs or something like that, it's certainly an issue but the article also mentioned that most of the large proportion of damage caused by scuba diving snorkelers is caused by a disproportionate number of divers. So basically, you get those really few inexperienced divers who've never gone before and the first time maybe they accidentally kick their flipper on a coral reef or something. It's not good, but it's not like there's some sort of rampant problem among divers destroying these habitats, which were just positive, but I think it's also any time you mention that scuba divers and snorkelers can damage habitats. I think you just have to throw that caveat in there that yes, technically, but not to a point where it's not worth continuing the activity. The other thing is that the article mentioned that scuba diving itself is just expensive and it is a luxury leisure activity and in order to use snorkeling and diving as a way to get enough people passionate about the ocean to make these large-scale changes and especially these poor or low-income communities like you have in Africa, I think you need to get more people actually diving. At least for me, someone who's young, someone who's out of grad school who doesn't make a lot of money, scuba diving is something that I would definitely like to do more of, but you just can't afford to do it because the equipment is really expensive. I got certified mostly because I really wanted to try it out and I was able to piece together enough gear to do it, but I remember when I was in grad school, A&M in Galveston down here in Texas has a really big scuba diving program and they'll offer scientific scuba diving certification classes each semester. As a marine biology grad student, a lot of us wanted to take that course and get our scientific certification, which if you don't know, that will help you, because they don't research cruises as scuba divers and do more stuff than if you just get the first-level open water diver certification. But it's also really expensive because you need to go on a lot more dives, you need to have more advanced equipment, and unless your advising professor was willing to pay for it through grants or something or if unless it directly impacted your research and that you needed to dive to do your research, usually that wasn't the case, you wouldn't be able to have money for it. So, you know, it would be great to see if there were in more inexpensive options to scuba diving, but the reason it's so expensive is just because the gear is expensive and it costs a lot to run these shops and everything. So, you know, for people who have never gone scuba diving, who would really be interested in doing it, but maybe like me, either don't have access to these areas so often and may or may be able to get a chance to go down to coral reef on vacations or stuff like that, or are just aren't willing to spend the money to, you know, buy tanks, buy all the suits, buy all the gear, take training classes, that sort of thing. I would really recommend snorkeling, and it may sound kind of simple that, you know, snorkeling is a lot cheaper. You just need bathing suit slippers and a mask pretty much, but that really is, you know, for a lack of a better term, it's kind of a gateway drug to scuba diving, because I think if you go snorkeling, even if it's not in the most pristine conditions, you'll really just appreciate what the activities can offer, and it's hard to explain it to people who've never gone, but it's really inexpensive, pretty much any sort of beach community in tempered or warm waters, probably has a snorkeling option close by. You don't need to take any classes. You can go out with tours if you want, but it's a really easy way to do it, and I would also say, if you don't have a wetsuit, I would recommend that would probably be an essential piece of equipment to get, just because, you know, if you go to a place and you want to snorkele, but the weather's kind of chillier, you might be dissuaded from doing it, but with a wetsuit, if you've never used one before, it really does help in those conditions where technically it's not cold enough or it's warm enough that you could go, but you're not feeling super comfortable, so, you know, I would think if you are really interested in getting any experience scuba diving or snorkeling, I would highly encourage you to find a place close by, spend a day, plan an afternoon to snorkel, get a wetsuit, make a day out of it, spend a few hours underneath the water, and I'm sure you'll be more willing to look in the scuba diving option in the future, but I think the problem that they mention is just that, you know, right now it is a luxury leisure activity. People who scuba dive a lot typically make a certain income, and, you know, that just limits the market that these things can address, and so if we want to make ecotourism specifically snorkeling, it's scuba diving a more popular activity and get more engagement and passion for these conservation issues that you keep talking about, we need to find a way to make it more accessible. Right. No, I completely agree, you know, snorkeling is a great idea. In fact, when you mention snorkeling, I didn't even think about it, but when you mention snorkeling, there, I'm not sure if you, if you're on Facebook and you see on Facebook, but there's an ad where, I'm not sure if this is even real, but you can actually wear a complete mask and it helps you with breathing, and like, yeah, yeah, it's like a full mask, you don't have to worry about the snorkel itself, you know, messing up around your head, you don't have to worry too much about the seal around your mask, it looks like a pretty cool thing, maybe if we see the link, I'll post it up here, if I see it in that time, I see it every once in a while on Facebook, but yeah, I just find it quite interesting, the fact that, you know, when you look out from a beach or from a shore and you all you see, you see a nice sunset maybe, or you see just like a flat line of water or maybe the waves, but you don't, you don't see what's underneath, and I feel like a lot of people fail to understand what is underneath and how important it is to the functioning of the ocean, and with that, the fact that how it helps us even breathe, you know, where, you know, people still understand that, so the fact that however you get underwater, whether it's just regular swimming, whether it's snorkeling, or whether it's scuba diving, get under under that ocean surface and, you know, look at what's down there, even if you can't see it up close, it's okay, just look at what's down there and see how much, how active it is in a lot of places, whether it be plants, or be corals, whether it be anything, fish, it doesn't matter, but it's one of the most, one of the most beautiful sites you've ever seen when you get down into a productive system, so definitely on this article, you know, I'm glad they mentioned that scuba diving is so important, I still think we need to educate scuba divers a lot more on what they need to do when they're underwater, especially if there's, you know, a million per year being added to that sort of scuba diver list, but, and maybe that'll bring the cost down, I don't know, but I think, you know, the more people that do it, I think we need to put in more, I guess, I guess not restrictions, but more guidance for people who are coming in who don't know what they're doing, so that's something to look into. Let's move on to the next article, it's the, we'll let you go through this, Nathan, it's the Northwestern Hawaiian Island, celebrate 15 years of protection. Yeah, so the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands were one of the first marine, large, larger scale marine sanctuary that were established. It was in early 2001, I believe it was at the end of Clinton's administration, and it designated the most of the coastal areas around the Northwestern Hawaiian Island as a marine protected area, and so, you know, not only is it great that it's been in effect for 15 years, but that it's unique in that it's one of the only sites that's a natural UNESCO heritage site and a cultural one as well, and so, in addition to preserving all the biodiversity and cutting down on a lot of both the fishing that's going on in the area, or at least the restricted fishing, and then, you know, damages to the habitats, introduction of the data species, things that you really got to watch out around these coastal areas, but also it helps preserve a lot of the culture and the way of life around these islands, which I think is just as if not more important when you want to get public support for these projects. You know, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are historically a very ocean-focused culture and society, and so, a lot of these areas live off the ocean. They're very intrinsically tied to the health of the ocean and the coastal ecosystem. So, the fact that they're able to protect a lot of these areas in one single site, which, you know, uniform enforcement, uniform monitoring, that sort of thing, it's great that it protects the marine ecosystems, but I think what's more important is that it engages the community in showing, you know, we're treating all of this as important. We're protecting their ocean, we're protecting a lot of the societal practices by protecting these oceans, and it's just going to get more people who live there and who have a stake in these areas on your site, and more encouraged about these practices. And as we need more marine protected areas across the globe, it's going to be more important that we get public support for the projects. Absolutely, and this is nice to know that this, you know, 15 years ago, this was, you know, dozens of one of the largest marine sanctuaries in the world are, you know, and I think it's just, like you said, it's nice to have a cultural perspective and an ecological one. It's, it's interesting that they mentioned here that people who made it happen or who helped facilitate the dialogue that led to the creation of the reserve. I think that's awesome. There's quite a lot of people. This is not to get a marine sanctuary up or marine monument up is not an easy thing to do. It's very difficult, right? And it takes a long time and a lot of patience, and it can be frustrating at times. You have to work with a lot of different stakeholders. And I imagine in Hawaii, the New Lions, you're going to get a lot of people with conflicting uses. And so a lot of stakeholders, whether it be fishing, artisanal fishing, commercial fishing, there's a big aquarium industry in Hawaii, there's going to be development and all sorts of things. And I think, you know, the fact that they actually, they actually, you know, made this happen, then it just goes to show how much people care about it, because they realize that they took all their differences away. And they said, okay, no, we need to protect, not only do we need to protect the ocean, but we need to protect our ecosystem services. So what we do for using ecosystem resources. So I think it's great. I like, I don't really have much to say on this. I think it's just fantastic that, you know, this, the Hawaiian Islands, these northern ones and Hawaiian Islands are protected. I think it's going to cause a lot of an increasing in diversity. I'm not sure if this is a heavily populated area. I don't think it is. However, it's going to, it's going to stay protected for a long time. And just because of taking out those human uses, human uses, and I think it's going to be fantastic. Do you have anything else to say on this one? No, I was just thinking it's, I mean, we're seeing an interesting trend with a lot of MPAs that we've talked about over the last few months in that, at least in the US, they're established in the last year or two of a presidency. And, you know, I think the interesting thing about that is it seems to reflect its priorities, at least in American politics. I all think when you, when you get to a point as a president or as a policymaker, when you're towards the end of your turn, you have nothing to lose. You don't really care if people don't like your decisions. Then creating these seems kind of like a no-brainer, because I don't think anyone can argue that protecting the ocean is important. The argument just comes into how are you going to do that? And what other things are you going to restrict when you do that? So, you know, you don't see a whole lot of presidential campaigns or elections based on their views on ocean conservation. That seems, you know, I'm sure they have views, but that probably won't come up until the last few years of the presidency when they're not worried about upsetting the energy sector or something like that. So, you know, it'd be nice to see more of that going forward. We've got an election coming up. Hopefully, in the first few years of the next presidential administration, they can, you know, expand on a lot of the work that's been done over the last year as far as expanding MPAs. But it's just interesting that the trend that you see at least in the States. Yeah, well, and we're seeing that trend up here. We're seeing, with a new government up here in Canada, we're actually seeing an increase in the value of our ocean resources and the protection of said resources. And when I mean resources, I mean everything, you know, what's in the ground, but also fish. We're looking at habitats. We're looking at just the environment in general. We have a very environmentally friendly, liberal government, which would be similar to the US Democrats. They acknowledge climate change and only do acknowledge it, but they've set some pretty big targets to meet for emissions to reduce climate change impacts. Plus, they've put in more money into the the Canadian Ocean Science program, the Canadian Government Ocean Science program, to monitor that money that was taken out. It was cut by the previous government. Now it's being put injected back in so that we can actually monitor our government a lot more. So it's nice to see that, you know, people have demanded change. We've had the previous administration was in for about 10 years. Now, you know, this administration's in for at least five. We wanted to see change. We saw change happen. Now it's all about action. And they've they've talked about increasing the marine protected areas from 1.3% all the way to 15% by 2020. So a big, big undertaking. But I have a feeling there's a lot of scientific processes and conservation processes that are that have been going on that just haven't moved because the last government wasn't so marine protected area friendly. Now we have what government that is. I think we're going to see a lot more happening. And we're going to see a lot more designated over the next five years, which is going to be fantastic. So let's move on to the next one. The last story of the day. I'm going to let you describe this because you picked this one out. It was a Huffington Post article by Tim Ward. Five questions for Dr. Chelsea Rockman, I guess. There's a Rockman about plastic in our seas and seafood. Why don't you just give us a breakdown of that one? So it's yeah, it's basic interview format with Chelsea about her work. I believe in Toronto on plastic pollution. And Canadian. I like how you're getting all these Canadian ones. We're just hitting the cream of the crop today. I love it. I love it. Sorry. But I picked it because it's always good to hear from someone who studied this for their career. We've covered a lot of plastic pollution. And you and I certainly know a good amount about it. But it's nice to hear what sort of the research has to say, what a lot of the current research also has to say because there's always kind of a lag between when the researchers know something and sometimes when the general public knows it. So she specifically looks at plastics impact on seafood. And so she says that at this point we pretty much know that there's plastic in practically every fish of the belly. It's not a surprise for them to see it. It's unfortunate, but it's not surprising. But the next step is how badly is that impacting our seafood because it's not too much of a jump to say, well, if it's in most fish, then it's got to be in most seafood too. So essentially what she said is that yes, it does appear to be in our seafood. I think the number was one in four. Seafood. Fish or, you know, they talked about different shrimp or invertebrates as well that one in four, when they tested them, had some sort of plastic form, whether it's a textile or thread or something like that. So they don't know too much about how that impacts the health of people who consume it. They're doing some more studies on that. But they do know that there are some adverse health effects in fish. And they mentioned a few impacts that reproductive system that can change their feeding behavior because the plastic gets lodged in their gut and it makes them feel full, so they stop feeding. It can just physically disrupt their digestive system just through abrasions and other sort of impacts like that. So they talked to all about that. And I think overall it's good to have a lot more awareness of plastic pollution. We talked about the ban on microbeeds. So that's a positive step that people are making. And she mentioned that, you know, it's great that it was bipartisan. It's great that it went through so quickly. It's great that it was unanimous, stuff like that. But I think it's just the more we hear about plastic pollution, the more people can't deny that it's an issue. And I think the further we go in that process, the quicker we'll get to some sort of solution. Yeah, and I like this article. It's nice. It's quick. It's to the point. It's easy to understand. And however, it is also alarming because just like the first article we talked about, because we now know that plastics are in fish. And even though it makes sense because there's plastic everywhere in the ocean, whether it be in large forms or minute forms or microscopic forms, I should say, we know that it's coming in. We talked so many times about plastic in the ocean and how sea turtles are eating plastic and large pieces of plastic that may or may not look like shrimp or some sort of food and they're mistaking and they're eating it. And to prevent choking on it, it actually goes up into their nose and it gets stuck. We see that. But we also, we're also seeing now we're seeing a lot of little pieces of plastic in their, in their, in their guts, which causes a lot of problems. And one of the questions I like how they ask, you know, is harmful, is plastic harmful to the fish and humans? And the fish, you mentioned that it is a little bit of, you know, a concern because the toxins that come out of the fish that are stuck in the gut, you know, as the, as the enzymes are trying to digest this piece of plastic, there's some toxin, toxic chemicals that come on to the fish. It could cause liver and it can cause stress on the liver and change the activity of genes related to reproduction. So this is a big problem to make sure that this population, that this is affecting or any population is affecting that the genes persist and reproduction can occur so that the population can persist. If you're going to get a bunch of infertile, you know, fish, you're not going to see a great, a great, the next generation really, or it's going to be a smaller generation is going to keep affecting us. And of course, this affects us in, in a way, we don't know exactly how, but having toxic pollutions, toxic, sorry, toxic chemicals in the gut or liver of a fish can really affect or just in the, in the blood system of a fish can really affect us as we eat this, as we eat these fish. And of course, the larger the fish, such as salmon, cod, haddic, halibut, some of the popular ones up here, you know, they eat a lot of other, they eat a lot of other fish, they eat a lot of other crustaceans, you know, they eat a lot of invertebrates that just bioaccumulates in their system after a while, those toxins, they don't go anywhere. They actually bioaccuminate in their system and that can be a big problem when we eat those are the fish that we eat here and kind of very popular. I'm sure it's popular in many parts of the states. And we could have all that, those toxins. Now, I know that, you know, that the, the FAO, the Food and Drug Administration in the states, up here in Canada, we have Health Canada, they always do tests to test mercury levels and other toxin levels. Mercury levels are specific levels that you can have that allow the fish to either be deemed healthy or unhealthy because of mercury levels. But I wonder how many other toxins they test for from plastic. I'm not saying that they don't, but I wonder how many too. I don't really, I've never seen a specific level of specific toxins that may be found in fish that are coming from, from plastic. It may, it might be something that people have to review from government perspective and a security perspective of health, right? So I think it's, it's, it's a shame that that this is, this is happening, but it is happening and we need to know about it. And we need to look out for that in our, in our seafood and talk to our government or health representatives to find out how much fish can you have a week? Because there's, they always recommend a specific amount because of mercury levels and other toxin levels. So just be careful of how many, how much fish you have per week. Just a quick story. And I think I've told this before, but there was a popular actor who, whose name is leaving my head right now. He was from entourage, shoot, played, Ari Gold. What's his name? Adrian Grande? No, no, no, no. Ari Gold, he, he's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Jeremy Piven. Jeremy Piven, thank you very much. Jeremy Piven ate sushi every day for like three decades from the 80s all the way up to the 2000s. And there was a story that came, have you heard about the story? Do you ever hear about this story? Oh, no. There is, and, and he, in the, I think it was in the 2000s, somewhere in the, in the mid 2000s, he was supposed to do a play. He's an actor, so he was supposed to do a play. Right before the play started, he felt sick. He went for a checkup, got a blood test. The doctors came back and said, you need to check into the hospital right now. Your mercury levels are through the roof. And he said he had six times more mercury than it was, was supposed to be in this body. The doctor said that you could, he could have died at any moment. Like they didn't understand how his body survived with so much mercury in them. So they had to go through a procedure that lasted a couple of weeks, I believe, to get the mercury out of his body, basically detoxify his body, his blood. So it was a scary thing. There was a big article about it because the production wanted to sue him because they didn't know why he was out because it happened so quickly. People were, were wondering if it was drugs or this and that, but it ended up being mercury poisoning from eating sushi every day for the last like two or three decades. So, you know, obviously that's an extreme case, but I think doctors normally recommend no more than one serving of fish per week. And I think that's, I think that's it. So, but don't quote me on that, please look it up in, you know, your local government pages and stuff like that. But that's what, that's what a lot of them recommend. They recommend restriction of fish per week because, not just because of those stories, but because to prevent stories like that from happening. So it's, it's interesting that, you know, when we think about like, oh, plastics are in fish, well, we're going to be able to detect what kind of plastics in fish because we'll see it. And we're not going to eat, you know, something that has a, that has plastic in it. You may not always see it. You may not always see the effects from it because of the toxins that leach out of the plastic. And that's a big problem. If you can't see it and you're still eating it, you know, and they're not testing for it, that's a big, that's a huge, huge problem. And of course, the band of microbeads is awesome. You know, I'm glad Chelsea's really happy about that. And I'm sure everybody is. It was low hanging fruit, but it's great to have it before it becomes really high hanging fruit and becomes difficult to ban. And I hope eventually I believe they're trying to ban it here in Canada as well. And I'm sure worldwide. So it'll be interesting to see what happens with that in the future and how, you know, how that's going to, how it's going to develop if more plastic items. I mean, we know plastic bags are being, are being banned all over the world. I believe there's a country in Africa who just banned plastic bags, which is kind of awesome to see. So you're seeing more of those bands kind of come through more people trying to avoid using plastics because of this, trying to get it out of our ocean. That's the first thing is reduce the amount of plastics you use because the ones that we use actually get into the ocean. So, that's my long winded thoughts on that. Do you have any thoughts on that anymore? No. I mean, the only thing I would add is I like to the note that she made about how, you know, beach cleanups aren't super effective. And I think the comparison she used is, you know, if there was a pipe broken in your basement and your basement was flooding, would you try and just bail water out or would you fix the actual pipe? And so, you know, I think while it's, you know, if there's a beach cleanup going on in your area, I'm not saying don't participate, by all means, go participate in that and help out. But I think what she's addressing is that, you know, we have a larger issue of just the plastic supply that's entering, you know, landfills, trash cans, beaches, stuff like that. And so, if we have a way to cut out the plastic at the source, which in this sense is used less plastic, consume less plastic, consume more responsibly, then that is going to have an exponential effect on the road because it's just cutting a little thing out of everyone today or life, you know, if you go to the grocery store, don't get plastic bags. And that will have a huge impact on the amount of debris and plastic pollution that enters the ocean. Yeah, I agree. I mean, education is really the key here. Educate, educate and outreach. We need to let people know what the effects of their plastics are on everything. You know, on the ocean, on the environment, we just need to let them know. And I feel with a lot of education, and this could be low level education doesn't have to be expensive. But a lot of this education can really be instilled and people will actually clean up after themselves, use less plastic. People are not bad people. They don't want to pollute the ocean if they don't have to. So if we let them know what's actually causing this to happen in a positive way and just say, hey, look, if you change this, you can take out such like so much garbage out of the ocean, then I think it'll change people's minds, because I think that'll be very helpful. So yeah, anyway, that's just my opinion. But we're going to end it there. Nathan, thank you very much for joining us and finding these stories. And I know you've been having some internet problems. That's why we don't have a video today, which is fine. But I appreciate you making the effort. We're on your phone right now. And actually, it's actually not bad of a reception. So I'm pretty happy with that. No, I'm trying the new low tech thing out. Yeah, he did say people that he's trying like a week. It's been a week since he hasn't had internet at home. And he's surviving. All right, he's getting a lot more stuff done. It's purely because I dislike Comcast. It's not because I'm trying to do something noble. I'm just lazy and don't want to fight with them. I could understand that. I definitely understand that. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show. And people, if you I just want to also thank our supporters of the show today, which are Chris and Clara Jefford, Dr. Judith Weiss, Ron and Judy, I really appreciate your support. If you want to support the Speak Up For Blue podcast and support ocean conservation, this is what we do here. We let you know what's happening. And we let you we give you the information that you can change and live for a better ocean. You can do so at www. sorry, www.speakupforblue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. And you can go there and you can put in different support amounts per month. Just remember it is a per monthly support or a per month support. So just remember that when you put in not to do too high and get caught with a monthly charge. But anyway, we really appreciate your support. You're helping ocean conservation spread around the world. And we thank you for that. And if you like just what we talk about, give us some support. It would really help us out in the future. So thank you very much. You've been listening to Speak Up For Blue podcast. Happy Friday. I am your host Andrew Lewin. Happy Ocean Talk Friday. And we will talk to you later. Happy conservation. [Music]