User:Lunahuertas/sandbox

Chefs and restaurants[edit]
Due to growing public concern about overfishing, many seafood restaurants have begun to offer more sustainable seafood options, with some restaurants specializing in sustainable seafood, exemplified by Miya's, a restaurant headed by chef Bun Lai, a 2016 White House Champions of Change for Sustainable Seafood recipient.Miya's is on the vanguard of the sustainable seafood movement as the first sushi restaurant to specialize in sustainable seafood. Today, there are sustainable sushi restaurants throughout the U.S., Canada, and England, and many more sustainable seafood restaurants in general. Due to eco-labeling, seafood guides, traceability schemes, sourcing policies, and awareness initiatives there are more chefs and restaurants involved in the sustainable seafood movement than ever before.

(BY ME) The rising "trash fish" trend of expanding the species of popular seafood consumption, is another way chef's and restaurants are supporting sustainable seafood. NOAA approximates 20,000 species of seafood in the world and most of them edible. Ten species account for 86% of seafood consumption in the United States, chefs and restaurants engaging in the trash fish trend are looking to increase the amount of species consumed. The desired outcome is to decrease overfishing and revitalize populations of the more popular fish and redirect the attention to more sustainable species.

Sustainability[edit]
See also: Overfishing, Sustainable seafood, and Sustainable seafood advisory lists and certification

Research into population trends of various species of seafood is pointing to a global collapse of seafood species by 2048. Such a collapse would occur due to pollution and overfishing, threatening oceanic ecosystems, according to some researchers.

(BY ME) Social and economic pressures enable continuous advance in production to keep up with the population and its demand. Ocean pollution and temperature rises have created areas in the ocean where there is a lack of oxygen leading to dying sea creature populations, these are known as dead zones. At the same time, fisheries stocks are being overfished to meet demands which can not be met entirely by aquaculture. Globally 42% of seafood consumption is produced through aquaculture, which is the practice of farming fish and shellfish, however not all aquaculture farms are sustainable. Companies, NGO's and other proponents of ethical seafood consumption have created labels and certifications to measure the sustainability of fisheries. These certifications and labels are leading consumers to spend more on seafood that is ethical and sustainable rather than cheaper choices that lack ecolabeling. Research by the Seafood Choices Allience shows an increased interest in the sustainable seafood trend which shows a positive awareness in the seafood industry.

A major international scientific study released in November 2006 in the journal Science found that about one-third of all fishing stocks worldwide have collapsed (with a collapse being defined as a decline to less than 10% of their maximum observed abundance), and that if current trends continue all fish stocks worldwide will collapse within fifty years. In July 2009, Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, the author of the November 2006 study in Science, co-authored an update on the state of the world's fisheries with one of the original study's critics, Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington at Seattle. The new study found that through good fisheries management techniques even depleted fish stocks can be revived and made commercially viable again.

The FAO State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2004 report estimates that in 2003, of the main fish stocks or groups of resources for which assessment information is available, "approximately one-quarter were overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion (16%, 7% and 1% respectively) and needed rebuilding."

The National Fisheries Institute, a trade advocacy group representing the United States seafood industry, disagree. They claim that currently observed declines in fish population are due to natural fluctuations and that enhanced technologies will eventually alleviate whatever impact humanity is having on oceanic life.

United States effects on seafood due to COVID-19
The world-wide epidemic of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, first emerged in December of 2019 in Wuhan, China. It has been spreading expansively and exponentially through the globe, transmitted through coughing, sneezing, and contact of infected surfaces.

The virus caused temporary and permanent closures of restaurants, bars and hotels due to placed restrictions on physical interactions to decrease the rate of the virus’s spread. Before the pandemic, two thirds of seafood consumption in the United States was outside of the home. The hospitality industry being on a temporary hold has led to decreased seafood consumption and a financial strain for small fishermen as well as many big corporations. Victims of this economic fall have seeked help from the government and President Trump to address federal funds for the purchase of “surplus seafood”. Research by Mark T. Gibbs shows coastal and marine dependent communities have little experience with management of resilience and that there is a lack of effective assessment for it. The Resilience Alliance defines resilience in terms of “amount of change the system can undergo and still retain the same controls on function and structure, degree to which the system is capable of self-organisation and the ability to build and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation”. Attempts by the United States to fit into the resilience definition include expanding domestic fisheries, fishermen adapting to different channels for sales and increasing local fish consumption.

Some organizations, catering to the one third who will consume fish at home, have thrived during the circumstances. CSA program Local I’a, based on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, is providing fresh fish to their community through home delivery of subscription boxes. This allowed for local fishermen to continue to work and at home seafood consumption to be possible through other means other than grocery stores. Kimi Werner, former U.S. national spearfishing champion, offers courses on spearfishing, scaling, cleaning and cutting fish as well as cooking it. An attempt to increase fish consumption at home through educating on seasonality and quality of fish as well as its preparation

In 2018,  ten percent of the seafood consumed in the United States was caught in local waters, the other was imported from other countries. In the world, NOAA approximates there to be 20000 species of fish and say most are edible, however 10 species account for 86% of seafood consumption in America. Chefs and restaurants are looking at diversifying the American seafood diet to reduce the dependence on imports and increase the local seafood economy and it’s resilience to crises such as the CoronaVirus one. President Trump has also created a task force to increase the United State’s seafood self sufficiency; this will entail an increase of sustainable domestic fisheries in North American coastal waters.