West Coast Publishing Ocean 2014 affirmative page

Aquacultural Aff Extensions

Environment-Regulations I/L

Current regulatory framework leads to massive environmental harms-Only the plan and giving NOAA authority resolves the advantage

Johns, J.D., University of Southern California Law School, 2013, “Farm Fishing Holes: Gaps in Federal Regulation of Offshore Aquaculture,” 86 S. Cal. L. Rev. 681
While the application of overlapping jurisdictions to offshore aquaculture can lead to overregulation of certain environmental risks, it can also lead to underregulation of other risks. The impact of escaped nonnative and transgenic fish on native species is especially likely to avoid regulation. Although the FDA has stated it intends to regulate the use of transgenic fish in aquaculture facilities, it has yet to promulgate any rules and has little expertise in dealing with impacts other than those on human health. The EPA may have authority to regulate escaped fish under the Clean Water Act, but only if the farms are considered "point sources" and only if the escaped fish are considered "pollutants." The Endangered Species Act may give authority to NMFS or EPA to consider the impacts of escaped fish on certain native species, but only if those species are listed as "threatened or endangered" by the federal government, which only a few of the species involved in aquaculture are.¶

Environment-Fisheries I/L

Aquaculture solves ocean depletion-Takes pressure off ocean environment

Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, 2007,“The Promise of the Blue Revolution: Aquaculture can maintain living standards while averting the ruin of the oceans,” Sustainable Developments, http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/education/documents/SUSTAINABLEDEVELOPMENTSAquaculture_Blue_Revolution.pdf [accessed 5/4/2014]

Environmental sustainability is already very difficult to achieve with today’s 6.6 billion ¶ people and average economic output of $8,000 per person. By 2050 the earth could be ¶ home to more than nine billion people with an average output of $20,000 or more, putting ¶ vastly greater pressures on the Earth’s ecosystems if technologies of production and ¶ consumption remain largely unchanged. Many environmentalists take it for granted that ¶ richer countries will have to cut their consumption sharply to stave off ecological ¶ disaster. ¶ There is another approach. Global public policies and market institutions can promote ¶ new technologies that raise living standards yet reduce human impact on the ¶ environment. A crucial group of such technologies is aquaculture, the farming of marine ¶ animals, which can support growing human consumption of fish and other aquatic ¶ species while relieving intense pressures on ocean ecosystems. The rapid development of aquaculture in recent years has been likened to a “Blue Revolution” that matches the ¶ Green Revolution of higher grain yields from the 1950s onward.

Aquaculture solves demand for fish while preventing harm to the ocean environment

Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, 2007,“The Promise of the Blue Revolution: Aquaculture can maintain living standards while averting the ruin of the oceans,” Sustainable Developments, http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/education/documents/SUSTAINABLEDEVELOPMENTSAquaculture_Blue_Revolution.pdf [accessed 5/4/2014]

Between 1950 and today the total landed catch from open­ and inland­sea fishing almost ¶ quintupled, from around 20 million to about 95 million metric tons. Both higher demand ¶ from rising world incomes and higher supply from more powerful fishing vessels contributed to the surge in the catch and consumption of fish. So, too, did large and ¶ misguided subsidies to fishing fleets, reflecting the political power of geographically ¶ concentrated fishing communities and industries. The world put itself on a course to gut ¶ ocean ecosystems, with devastating consequences. ¶ Into the breach has arrived the Blue Revolution, first in China, and now in many other ¶ parts of the world. Aquaculture yields have increased from around two million metric ¶ tons in 1950 to almost 50 million metric tons today. Thus, even though the global fish ¶ catch peaked in the late 1980s, aquaculture has enabled a continuing rise in human ¶ consumption of fish. China now accounts for around two thirds of total aquaculture ¶ production worldwide by weight and roughly half by market value.

Environment-Open-Ocean Solves

Open-ocean aquaculture corrects ocean ecosystems

Ocean Conservancy, 2011 “Right From the Start: Open-Ocean Aquaculture in the United States,” http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/education/documents/Open_Ocean_Aquculture_Right_from_the_Start_bytheOceanConservancyorganization.pdf (accessed 5/1/2014)
¶ Habitat Effects of Open-Ocean ¶ ¶ Aquaculture¶ ¶ Open-ocean aquaculture operations can ¶ ¶ have some positive effects. For one, they can serve as artificial habitat for other marine life. Like any artificial surface put ¶ ¶ into the sea, net pens become “fouled” by a range of algae and invertebrates. Net-pens ¶ ¶ provide a hard surface on which these species settle, and they provide shelter ¶ ¶ from predators for wild fish and other animals attracted to the structure. They ¶ ¶ also attract other species because of the ¶excess food from the feeding operations. ¶ ¶ Rensel and Forster (2007) found that a typical net-pen in Puget Sound can be ¶ ¶ populated by over 100 species of seaweeds ¶or invertebrates, which they argue “provide ¶ ¶ a locally important component of the food ¶ web, providing enrichment for a variety of ¶ marine food web life including marine bird species” and thus these authors consider ¶ this a ‘beneficial” effect of fish farming. ¶ These pens also serve as artificial reefs, ¶ attracting ducks and other fish and creating ¶ a novel ecosystem. Whether fish farms ¶ actually boost local production or simply ¶ act as fish aggregating devices, however, ¶ remains an open question.