“Ocean farming isn’t just about food. It’s about transforming an entire workforce, transforming fishers into restorative ocean farmers. My job has never been to save the seas; it’s to figure out how the seas can save us.” – Bren Smith, owner, Thimble Island Ocean Farm and executive director of GreenWave 

Bren Smith isn’t your typical environmentalist. He grew up shooting moose out of his kitchen window. He didn’t view climate change as having anything to do with his own life. He dropped out of high school to become a traditional fisherman.

But in the early 1990s, when the cod stocks crashed, throwing thousands of fishermen out of work and shuttering canneries, and as Smith found himself using “ever more efficient technologies to chase fewer and fewer fish, he reinvented himself.

Today, Smith pioneers the art of 3D ocean farming, growing a mix of seaweeds and shellfish for food, fuel, fertilizer and feed—using methods that heal, not harm, the seas.

Our oceans are in big trouble. According to One World One Ocean: 

• 90 percent of the big fish are gone. Tuna, swordfish, halibut, cod, and flounder populations have been devastated by overfishing.
• The average size of the remaining big fish has been cut in half or less in the last 50 years. The average weight of a swordfish caught today is 90 lbs., down from 266 lbs. in 1960.
• Discarded plastics have formed a toxic “plastic soup” that is gathering in 5 massive ocean gyres around the world. As the plastic breaks down, it is eaten by sea animals, causing illness and death. It eventually enters our diets, too.
• There are a reported 405 ocean “dead zones”—areas where there is little to no oxygen due to fertilizer run-off and nitrogen pollution. Dead zones are doubling every ten years.
• Our oceans account for 71 percent of the planet, but less than 2 percent of our oceans are protected. 

Yesterday, June 8, was World Oceans Day. Could farmers like Bren Smith restore healthy seas—while growing healthy food?

Watch the video 

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