Privatizing the ocean
Our oceans are a shared resource that we have entrusted to our government to manage in the public interest. Yet every year, more and more family fishermen are forced out of business by government regulations that favor large corporations. These corporations are gaining control of our ocean resources even though they are more likely to use destructive fishing practices like bottom-trawling, are less likely to hire local fishermen, and provide a lower-quality product to consumers.
Currently, 18% of our federal fisheries already have been privatized.
One of the main problems with privatization is that many private companies and U.S. government agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), aggressively are promoting "open ocean aquaculture,” the concept of fish farming between three and 200 miles off the coast.
The Offshore Aquaculture Act of 2007 was introduced in Congress to make offshore aquaculture legal. In September 2009, the Department of Commerce approved implementation of an offshore aquaculture plan that will allow industrial fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico, setting a precedent for fish farming in all U.S. coastal waters. NOAA's first U.S. aquaculture guidelines were published in February 2011.
According to this report, Fishy Farms: The Problems with Open Ocean Aquaculture, ocean aquaculture is not environmentally sustainable, financially feasible, or technically possible on a commercial scale. In trials, equipment has broken, fish have died on a large scale, and sharks have threatened workers. At one aquaculture facility, each pound of fish sold costs about $3,000 in U.S. taxpayer money to produce.
PCC opposes ocean privatization and believes the U.S. government should not legalize open ocean aquaculture in federal waters.