Coastal Restoration

Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski is asking McDonald’s to stand down on an issue that could impact the long-term availability of one of its signature products — the Filet-O-Fish sandwich, according to Lance Morgan, president of the Marine Conservation Institute (MCI).

These canyons — Zhemchug and Pribilof — are the largest underwater canyons in the world and occur along the fruitful, yet totally unprotected, Green Belt zone.

“Comments urging precautionary protection for the canyons have come from a broad coalition of NGOs, together with more than 130,000 individuals, indigenous stakeholders, independent scientists, Seattle businesses, and even some of our nation’s largest supermarket chains,” writes Morgan.

Safeway, Trader Joe’s, SuperValue, Ahold USA and HyVee have all sent letters urging protection for the canyons, and other companies, including McDonald’s, have communicated their concerns directly to the fishing industry, he claimed.

FAO project to introduce simple raised drying racks improves livelihoods and nutrition for communities along the shores of Lake Tanganyika and beyond.

An FAO project to equip small fishing communities with the tools and know-how to dry fish on simple raised racks instead of on the sand has changed lives along the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Burundi.

Yet at the same time, the increase in supply has not put greater pressure on the lake’s resources, as the amount of fish being taken from the lake has remained relatively stable.

“The extraordinary thing is how this one very small project has created a snowball effect along the shores of the lake,” said FAO Fishery Industry Officer Yvette Diei-Ouadi. “It’s extremely rare now to see people drying fish on the ground – if driers can’t afford wire-mesh racks they will improvise with wood and fishing net. Even fishing communities in neighbouring countries have taken up the rack-drying technique.”

The new way of drying fish has brought other changes. Whereas in 2004, about 80 percent of driers were women, now men keen to join in the lucrative enterprise comprise 30-40 percent.