Wal-Mart V. Whole Foods

Yes, I lean a little far left with my conservation stances. I have long hair and I have hugged a few trees in my day so the modern-day hippy moniker can apply when describing me. Not to mention, I am definitely a crunchy, since I eat at least two granola bars a day and I am never far from my bag of all-natural trail mix. My bookshelf, write these titles down by the way, contain almost every book written by Carlos Castaneda, Edward Abbey (you must read The Monkey Wrench Gang), and all of the Beat Generation Poets-Kerouac's Dharma Bums and the poetry of Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Kenneth Rexroth all had profound effects on me as a young man. My final confession I USED to shop at Whole Foods Market-you know, that high priced, all-natural, free range, and environmental friendly Yuppie grocery store chain. However, as one following the Zen-Beat path, I can no longer in good faith support a corporation that does not support our oceans. I found a strange-picture me slapping myself here for saying this-conservation bedfellow in the almighty capitalistic whore Wal-Mart.

Last year, if you recall, Canada's Dalhousie University released an astounding report that stated our seas will completely collapse by the year 2040 from the affects of Global Warming and overfishing. The general media quickly got their hands on the report and ran with the doom and gloom aspects of the story and simply forgot to mention the positive work biologists and researchers are doing to stem or stop fishery declines. Moreover, the venerable National Geographic Magazine dedicated an entire issue to the report and ran a slick Hollywood production of the report on Geographic Explorer. For a couple of weeks, every media outlet one tuned into quoted, misquoted, or sensationalized the report. The report predominantly compiled information on major food fish populations like swordfish, cod, and tuna but offered no alternatives to fixing the problem or properly restoring fish populations.

We cannot deny the oceans are a finite food source. It is hard to look out at all that great big blue and not think it is an endless resource but the fact is there is an end to her supplies. As the world's population increases exponentially and the effects of anthropogenic carbon emissions pollute and acidify her waters, the stress she faces could very well lead to her collapse. So enters the lexicon of aquaculturing and coastal hatchery development.

TPW is currently exploring regulation and/or legislation mandates that will allow aquaculture companies the ability to waive commercial limits for fish they commercially aquaculture. Picture a large multi-football sized net with thousands of dolfin fish or cobia swimming in a slow vortex along the edges of the nets. Fish are bred in large offshore nets and kept until they reach edible size lengths. With their prolific growth and reproduction rates, aquaculturists are focusing their farming on these fish. Sounds great on paper, however, a few scientists have raised concerns over the affects a large aquaculture will have on a down current ecosystem. The argument is large aquaculture farms will pollute surrounding waters with the natural fish bioprocesses that occur in large populations-their waste by-products will lower the oxygen content of down current waters and contribute higher counts of nitrates. TPW regulation changes want to encourage this practice in the offshore waters off the Texas coast by raising limits and seasons for the commercially aquacultured feed stockfish.

With most focus on offshore fish stock, the Dalhousie Report over looked the interior estuary populations. Luckily for we Texans', TPW has the oldest and largest data set of bay fish populations. The 1984 Redfish Wars launched the science behind our redfish and speckled trout population censuses. They also launched the first Texas coastal hatchery. We have three hatcheries supplying fingerling reds, trout, and trout to each of our bay systems. Moreover, with the efforts of Dr. Holt at the UTMSI at Port Aransas and Dr.'s Maine and Leber at the Mote Marine Research Laboratory in Florida, snook may very well be the next mass stocking program in the US. This year, Florida released the first 3000 hatchery raised snook into state waters. David Abrego, director of Sea Center Texas, hopes to have an entire nursery dedicated to snook in the next three years to go along with his red, trout, and flounder.

Now back to Whole Foods and Wal-Mart and my 'awakening.' The oceans and her eco-systems are toeing a dangerous precipice. China, which consumes three-quarters of the world's fish foods, is growing exponentially and further stressing our world fish populations. American farmers and pet owners use commercially captured fish in their feeds and fertilizers. The American vitamin industry uses gill-net captured fish to harvest Omega-3 Fatty Acids for production in pre-natal and anti-aging vitamins. American retail leaders like Whole Foods Market still sell commercially captured Chilean sea bass although the sea bass is one of the species on the UN and the Pew Trust's unsustainable fisheries watch list-an unsustainable fishery is one that cannot restore itself to healthy population numbers through ordinary spawning and population management. However, it is not all gloom and doom in the retail sector. In 2006, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott pledged to conform to the Marine Stewardship Counsel's standard for wild-caught fish through sustainable and well-managed fisheries practices. Wal-Mart also pledged to work with suppliers to help create common sense management practices within under managed fisheries and help fund research and development to help recover overfished and stressed fish populations.

As we weave our way through the earliest part of the twenty-first century, the ocean, the planet, and humankind face difficult environmental challenges. Not only do these challenges arise from growing carbon emissions, overpopulation, and the threat of global terrorism but simply from our necessity to feed every hungry mouth. The oceans, long seen as an inexhaustible resource, have proved their selves as just the opposite. As more demands increase on the ocean and her fish populations, the piece of the pie each country and family shares with the rest of the world's populations needs to decrease at a fair and equitable level. I will have to remember that next time I get strange looks leaving Wal-Mart with my hemp-woven Whole Foods Market environmentally friendly reusable tote bag.