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Okay, so I've moderated most of our out-of-class meetings. It doesn't sound that impressive, I guess, but we've spent a lot of time discussing and I think that's where most of my contributions have come in. =)
Here's note-taking from the UTFs question-and-answer session:
• How does marine biology affect surrounding countries?
o Helps boost surrounding ecosystem
• international cooperation—how do we count China in?
o erm.
• problems with aquaculture and bio-engineered fish—what are ways to stop that?
o Stop GMOs—too passive in eating fish, and they're not always best-suited
How to help these slow-eating fish, in terms of Darwinism?
• Even a small amount would be better than none
• Flag hopping—land-locked countries, and their fishing rights?
o Cultures tend not to be highly fish-dependent if they're land-locked
o Problems revolve around international fishing—out of 200 miles. Keep it at that.
What about countries that don't care too much?
• Make incentives for those who don't care, to start caring. Prevent flag-hopping. Very little economic incentive to not flag-hop.
• Who will be enforcing? How will they enforce? How will this affect military/natural resources?
o International, impartial governmental organization—delegates from all involved countries
Is there any way to speed up process? Especially given the slowness of UN...
• Need to make it more powerful> tied into making the US more agreeable into enforcing the laws. Need more discussion.
• What is earth's carrying capacity for humans? What happens when we exceed it?
o Will depend on how much people are consuming. When population starts shifting towards US-style of consupption, we're already over CC. Number is unsure. Will shift, and will hopefully shift lower as we become more aware.
o Once oceans can't support it naturally, we can try to support it artificially via aquaculture.
• Historically, how do powerful countries react in response to this and similar issues? Have you taken this into consideration? Ie, Restrictions on technological research; Kyoto protocol
o We've kinda ignored it.
o Increasing role of education in the common people, making them push the government.
• Handlines and very primitive technologies are still being used. What happens when this group's technology develops?
o Since these more primitive technologies are better for fish (less efficient), if you used lower licensing $ for these technologies, it'd encourage fewer people to pay more $ for more-effective technologies.
o Disagreement—should NOT be subsidizing fish, obviously. But government probably shouldn't be wanting to promote more primitive anythings.
How are we regulating them right now? Do you regulate them?
• Yes, but to a much lesser degree.
• Suggestions about eliminating fish consumption? How would you do this realistically, considering health-benefits, life-styles, food consumption choice, etc...
Advertising other ways of getting same vitamins/proteins
Advocating buying fish that has been sustainably raised (but this would be more expensive)
Increase price, raise supply. Take money from subsidized fish to alternatives, ie, free-range poultry.
• Combating disease and other stuff in aquaculture?
o Making cages mobile>> food is concentrated beneath fish cages, thus making the ecosystem collapse. To move around cages would help food get equally distributed. Making them mobile all the time.
o Disease can be controlled by keeping facilities clean. Consistently fresh water should be supplied.
• How would you deal with world-wide education of people who seem resistant, especially those who are wary of US already? Since we're MIT, it'll automatically be seen as more US-oriented.
o Make it a more international community of scholars, rather than just "US-supported," so it seems less that the US is forcing it upon the world using its superpowers.
o Present it in a way that coincides with economy, or policy, or whatever side they seem to lean towards the most.
• How are we framing our topic? Ie, " Why should I care?"
o Fish provide more than just food—we use it for other products.
o Ocean itself is also completely necessary: over-fishing depletes the ocean, and would ultimately make the ecosystem in the ocean collapse.
o Fisheries are an integral part of many countries' economies—many countries' fisheries would collapse if the world's fisheries died out as well.
• Global warming affecting fish biology?
o Ie, Peru and Chile is rich in fishing grounds, but what happens for some years, "El nino" occurs. This is a current that heats up the water, and tends to push fish out of the coastal regions. Countries suffer because the fishing diminishes. We should come up with a policy that finds that out, and ccan regulate that.
How do they suffer? What are some fish that suffer?
• Temperature affects how many things can dissolve, including things like oxygen, which affect how well fish can survive.
How does this affect fish lifecycles?
• Spawn in different areas—salinity can be important, because it'll affect where they want to spawn, and whether they are able to spawn. Not all fish can spawn at the same levels.
• What about Africa? Case studies? Plans?
o Kenya vs. Tanzania. Governemnt behaves very differently—Kenya helps ecosystem, Tanzania improves fish stocks. Benefits everyone! Yay.
• Agriculture/Aquaculture: where do multi-trophic systems come into play?
o "I think I've heard that aquaculture is good."
o Need to have these multi-trophic levels, because the fish that we eat might be either predator or prey, and we can't deplete either because that'll just create an imbalance.
o Cycle fish that are being grown, just like growing different crops (corn, beans, etc) can help recycle nutrients and ultimately yield healthy crops and environment.
o Case studies:
China>> water quality under cages is being controlled, filtering out bad water
India>> waste management, algae can break down the waste of fish, keeping fish and humans healthy.
• What is your plan for places that are land-locked, fish internationally, and have a very high demand for fish, given the bottom line?
• How does your plan deal with natural disasters? Hurricanes, etc.
o Goal is to try to do as much as possible to let the ecosystem take care of itself, and understand that it's just a natural process.
o Marine reserves are kind of like our insurance policy. This creates networks of "backup plans," creating different habitats in discrete locations. This would be a buffer against localized regions that might experience disasters.
What about specific species that can't just be relocated?
• Stop polluting waters. Stop overfishing.
• Plan is focused on reducing human contribution to fishing depletion. We want to minimize human effects, but we aren't including a system to change things that have been naturally affected.
• These sound too easy. What if they really are beyond the point of no return?
o There has been proof that there are at least certain types of fish that we can help to change—there's pressure to change that, and we could definitely be successful. Question of whether we can get people to comply, not really whether we could change it.
o Key is international cooperation, not technology or policy.
o Education is a critical part of our solution—makes it all the more necessary for us to make sure that people in control know how severe the current situation is. It's our job to educate the world to let them know that we've got to stop overfishing.
• Fishing in salt-water... some forms of fish breed in different areas. How would you restore the breeding capabilities of these types of fish?
o Looking at dams—change migratory capabilities as well as the physical environment. How can we get fish to bypass that?
o Minimize need for dams, can we take them all?
o Looking at overall water quality.
o Adapting aquaculture technique, involve nitrogen soil testing
o Genetically modified crops—minimizing nitrogen runoff into these freshwater areas that are needed for breeding grounds of these fish.
• Is our current class organization the best?
• Everyone needs to have a feel for what the plan is, so that we're all in agreement.
• Think about the cost that's necessary.
• What are some specific models that we're using?
• Science project, not a business project. DO NOT MAKE THINGS UP. Need lots of citations and facts, especially since the people asking questions have already checked over what you've done.
• More than one person should have a solid topic about each of these topics, so that we're not always talking about the same things with the same people.
• Need more analysis.
• Look beyond the NE coast, and try to come up with solutions. Need more case studies, because we will get specific questions about specific topics.
• General proposal has to be reasonable, though you don't have to justify every single plan's feasibility. You just need to be able to justify why.