Oceans for Sale FAQ
What is open ocean aquaculture?
Open ocean aquaculture, or OOA, refers to offshore fish farming, which would locate fish farms about 30 feet under water anywhere from three to 200 miles off the coast. Giant cages are constructed to raise thousands of fish, most commonly red snapper, cod, or halibut.
How do I know if the fish I eat or buy is farm-raised?
Effective April 6, 2005, fish that has been farm-raised must be labeled with the method of production used to raise the fish and what country it was raised in. But there are serious loopholes in this law. Country-of-origin labeling (also known as COOL) only applies to fresh fish. If fish or seafood has been processed, which includes any kind of cooking, it doesn’t need a label. This means if you buy a tuna steak at the fish counter, it will have a label. If you buy a can of tuna fish, it will not. If you buy fresh shrimp at the fish counter, it will have a label. If you buy a bag of frozen cooked shrimp, it will not. Also, if you order fish in a restaurant, there are no laws requiring this information and often times restaurateurs have no idea where their seafood originates.
What is the WTO?
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a forum in which national trade ministers determine the rules that govern global trade. Established in 1994, the goal of the WTO is to increase the corporate-managed flow of goods among countries, which occurs at the expense of health, jobs and the environment. When countries become members of the WTO, they agree to follow its trade rules, meaning that if a rule is written at the WTO, countries must change their domestic laws and standards to conform to that rule.
What is NAMA?
NAMA stands for Non-Agricultural Market Access and is a term used in trade agreements to refer to products that don’t fall under agriculture within the World Trade Organization. These negotiations include manufactured products, minerals, lumber and notably fish and fish products. Simply put, including fisheries in NAMA will pose severe threats to sustainable development by intensifying the exploitation of natural systems, upon which millions of people depend for survival. These negotiations are placing a dollar symbol on every aspect of life that has not already been considered a commodity under WTO rules.
What is an IFQ (or ITQ)?
IFQ stands for Individual Fishing Quota (or Individual Transferable Quota) and refers to a voucher that entitles individual fishermen or businesses to own the right to catch a certain amount of one species. These systems privatize the right to fish, making the oceans a privately held commodity. ITQ systems allow shares of the public resource of fish to be bought and sold on a continual basis. Fishing companies can potentially buy, sell or lease shares on the open market. There was a moratorium on IFQ programs that expired in 2002. Since then, only two fisheries have begun to undergo an ITQ program: the North Pacific groundfish fishery and the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery. But the crab fishery in the North Pacific has a similar program with a new name, “rationalization.”