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Current Activities
IATP's Fish and Marine Conservation Program promotes the following strategies: increased regulation and enforcement, adoption of voluntary standards by producers, buyers and sellers, organized consumer pressure through market campaigns and direct assistance to help local communities protect themselves from the hazards of industrial fish farming.
1. Regulation and Enforcement
a) Working to get government agencies to strengthen and enforce existing laws and regulations related to fish farming, including water quality protection, food safety issues related to contaminants, colorants and dyes, workplace safety and the Endangered Species Act, among other troublesome issues.
b) Introducing more sophisticated and comprehensive environmental laws and regulations at the local, county, state and federal levels designed to achieve one or more campaign objectives. Our top focus will be on new laws to reduce contamination from toxic chemicals, heavy metals, antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals.
c) Convincing policymakers and industrial aquaculture companies to adopt a moratorium on further expansion until adequate environmental and social protection laws and regulations are in place and fully implemented.
2. Voluntary Standards
a) Working with major buyers, including wholesalers, retailers, supermarkets and restaurants to develop and adopt purchasing/procurement guidelines that result in their increased purchasing of sustainably certified fish and marine products.
b) Encouraging the completion and adoption of standards for organic certification of fish products so that companies who meet very high standards can receive proper economic benefits from their good performance in the marketplace.
c) Encouraging state-level aquaculture associations to adopt rigorous ethical, environmental and social standards as a basis for membership.
3. Consumer Pressure
a) Expanding our public education campaign aimed at informing consumers and the general public about the environmental dangers of industrial fish farming.
b) Organizing local committees dedicated to talking with grocers, fish market owners and chefs to encourage them to choose wild over farmed fish.
c) Securing the active support and participation by major membership organizations that agree to urge their members to buy sustainably harvested wild fish instead of farmed fish. Our goal is to have endorsements from membership groups representing 10 million members and to have 10,000 of their members actively engaged.
d) Increasing national media outreach to raise the level of newspaper, radio and television coverage of this issue and to educate reporters about the important environmental and health issues at stake.
4. Assisting Rural Communities
In the United States, industrial aquaculture is often presented to rural communities as a top-down way to create employment and to expand the local tax base. Unfortunately, the promises of new jobs, enhanced community income and a better quality of life fail to materialize. In addition, the siting of large industrial aquaculture facilities can lead to significant environment, social and health concerns including the escape of exotic species, water pollution and unsafe chemical use. Another problem is absentee ownership, which can both drain money from the community and lead to the abandonment of facilities without concern for the community impacts or for the mess that is left behind. Like similar "smokestack chasing" development schemes, industrial aquaculture is not a viable way to enhance local community development.
5. Resources
We maintain an extensive online library which includes many articles that make essential reading for anyone with an interest in salmon and fish farming issues. We also have a large number of links to websites belonging to similar organizations, and many web links to documents. The library and links are being constantly updated to provide the best information possible, and include many of IATP's own publications, along with materials not available elsewhere. These resources are there to help interested members of the public, groups and individuals from other organizations, share in this knowledge and aid in the research aquaculture and fisheries issues.
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