Seaweed threatens reefs

Kappaphycus alvarezii and Eucheuma denticulatum seaweeds had been introduced to commercial level in 20 countries around of the world, in effort to motivate poor communities located in coastal areas of the tropics to cultivate them and acquire an extra source of income; unhappily the general result was a failure. In the south of India, for example, the k. alvarezii invaded the Reserve of the Manmar Gulf, covering reefs and killing entire colonies.

These seaweed species are called “hard”, since marine animals do not consume them, and exclusively cultivated for carrageenan extraction, agglutinant used in innumerable nourishing products. Nowadays, they are produced about 120mil tons per year in Philippines and Indonesia, native countries of these species.

E. enticulatum

K. alvarezii

The introduction of those seaweeds in Hawaii was made 30 years ago by a professor of the Hawaii University, Max Doty, creator of culture techniques that had been exported worldwide. Today, the country suffers with the infestation of the two species, which spread into the coast with a growth of 7% a day, covering reefs, frightening fish and destroying the local fauna.

Dead reef

The uncontrolled growth of the seaweed is resulted of a badly planned and executed project, in witch cultural factors of the region and public and private initiative integration had not been taken in account. Without having whom to sell or receiving low values for the seaweed, the majority of producers abandoned its cultivars, which today grow freely becoming one of the biggest ecological concerns in Hawaii.

Reef destruction by seaweed growth

Fighting against the reef degradation, the University, State and the Nature Conservancy had invented the “Super Suckers”, vacuum cleaners attached to Catamarans that suck up to 1,3 tons of seaweed per day.

- “In the current situation we would need 10 years to clean this bay”, said Brian Hauk, governmental supervisor of invading aquatic species.

"Super Sucker" and diver removing seaweed

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FAO makes partnership to extend Aquaculture in Brazil!

The representative of the FAO in Brazil, Jose Tubino, presented to the governor of Paraná a project for aquaculture development in the state that aims at a 30% growth of the production in the next three years (the current production is 17 thousand ton/year).

The project foresees legalization of activities as fishes and sea culture as a form to fortify the workers and give the consumers more security; also the sustainable development of the activity ally to increase of income and qualified manpower.

“The State already is the agricultural granary and could be the greater fish and shellfish producer. Rivers, barrages and the coast will become better structuralized places, with recognized quality of the product and guaranteed distribution”. Tubino

During it’s execution the project will count on the support of SEAP (Fishes and Aquaculture Special Secretariat) and state universities.Some cities of the state are already gaining prominence, as it is the case of Nova Aurora, where recently were installed one cold storage room with capacity of storage for 5 thousand ton/year that will be used by the Copacol company, known national for products based on bovine and bird meats, for distribution of fish produced in farms of the region.

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Sustainable Amazônia (Brazilian rain forest)

Article published in the magazine "Rumos - Economia e desenvolvimento para os novos tempos" (Routes - Economy and development for the new times), of interest for those who preserve nature, work with aquaculture and to the population in general.

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“Fish in the Net

Instead of advocating an absurd moratorium on the biofuel, the green freaks would make better in considering an immediate brake to the expansion of extensive cattle in the Brazilian Rain Forest, great culprit of the forest destruction. As the professor Joan Martinez Alier said in the “Ecologismo dos Pobres” (Publishing company Context, São Paulo, 2007): “100 tons of biomass for hectare are substituted by one cow for hectare.”

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of United (FAO), 70% of the deforested areas of Amazônia had been transformed into pastures, being that the cattle uses currently 30% of all land surface, including permanent pastures and one third of arable lands to produce rations.

The abundance of cheap lands conjugated with improved technology projected Brazil for world’s first place as exporting of bovine meat, producing few arrobas of meat for hectare and almost no direct jobs. In the long run, the cattle conversion of the extensive culture imposes, with good perspectives for its integration with the green energy. At the same time, it is good to think about other ways of animal protein production with a well inferior ecological footprint compared to cattle, that demands great grass or agricultural ground to produce ration. The ox is not a good converter of vegetal protein in meat.

Fish in the net - a new and well-succeeded restaurant in Brasilia D.C. - serves for a very reasonable price flavorful plates elaborated with Nile Tilapia. The fish comes from a fish farm installed in the outskirts of the capital, that produces seven tons of fish per year for each hectare of water blade. Seven tons of fish against some arrobas of ox for hectare!

http://www.peixenarede.com.br/

China is far the champion in the fish production, about 70% of the world-wide production, and counts on a millenarian tradition: some carp species living in different niches inside of the dam, horticulture in the levees, leaf leftovers serving of ration to the fish, ducks created to season the dam and to eliminate the insects that proliferate. A practically sustainable system of production of different types of food!

Brazil enjoys great conditions to become one of the leader countries in the “Blue Revolution” that is only starting; traditional fishes are a hunting system not creation. Brazil’s extensive Atlantic coast, the Amazônia with its water endowment, Pantanal and the numerous lakes of dam give well to pump aquaculture, regarding to preserve water quality and not to repeat the same errors committed in some countries of Asia and Latin America destroying the salt marshes for implanting shrimp farms, with catastrophic social and ambient consequences.

It’s worth to mention here a project of Oldebrecht Foundation in the low South of Bahia state, with the objective to integrally cultivate Nile Tilapias in tank-net serving them a composed ration of banana tree and cassava leaves, vegetal residues that do not demand a handspan of cultivating land. This would be the ideal solution: great amounts of animal protein produced with a modest ecological footprint, in contrast with the cattle extensive production. So far the Nile Tilapia had not accepted well this feeding, but the correct idea to use residues of agricultural production as food for the fish culture is what really matters in this episode.

Without going to the extremity and eliminate barbecue of our menu’s, it is worth to encourage fish consumption, recommended for health reasons and ambient arguments. “

Ignacy Sachs

Regarding the Amazônia, there is a site in favor of Forest preservation. Collaborate!

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www.amazoniaparasempre.com.br/

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