Capt. PHILIP G. RENAUD, USN (Ret.)Executive Director
Living Oceans Foundation
This is part 3 of an exclusive five-part 13.7 Billion Years interview.
Read part 1 | Read part 2 | Read part 4 | Read part 5
In the third part of our interview, Capt. Renaud shares some thoughts about the Roman Colosseum, lionfish and President Obama.
[above photo: Capt. Renaud and HRH Prince Khaled]
PART 3
13.7: What can the average person do to help with marine conservation? Can consumer choices -- how and where we travel, what we eat, what we throw away -- significantly reduce the impact?
Renaud: Just think a little bit whenever you go to a restaurant as you’re reviewing the menu. There are many seafood consumer guides out there now that explain which fish on the menu are endangered. Be a responsible consumer. For example, one of the most spectacular animals on Earth is the bluefin tuna – don’t eat them into extinction. Think about this: You can live without eating bluefin tuna -- but they can’t. Don’t even think about eating shark-fin soup -- have we lost our minds? These sharks have been around for 400 million years or so and we’re killing them off in a matter of a decade. Have you ever seen a video of fishermen hacking off shark fins from alive shark then tossing the live shark overboard to die an agonizing death?
13.7: Sounds like an act of pure evil.
Renaud: Sometimes I feel like we’re living in the Dark Ages. If you want to relive the days of the Roman Colosseum, go to a football game. But we don’t need to hack off shark fins for a bowl of soup -- I’ve been told that it doesn’t even taste good.
13.7: And whales have been around for 50 million years and humans are still aggressively killing them for no real good reason.
Renaud: Hard to believe, isn’t it? Did you know that the older generation Japanese are spending millions of dollars on a publicity campaign to promote eating whale meat? The younger generations don’t even like the taste of whale meat. I’m all for protecting cultural heritage but some things simply must change.
13.7: So ultimately, it’s about making personal choices.
Renaud: We’ve all got to change our individual behaviors. Every little bit does help. Just use the three simple R’s to start – Recycle, Reduce, Reuse. We live in such a throw-away society but it’s beginning to change. My younger daughter is a fanatical recycler and that gives me hope for the future. Consumer behavior drives the whole mess because it’s all based on economics. If the consumer demand isn’t there, the suppliers won’t have an incentive to exploit resources unsustainably. Don’t underestimate consumer power to change the world – consumer choice is very powerful.
13.7: Speaking of the Dark Ages, the famous oceanographer Jacques Cousteau once said, “Mankind has probably done more damage to the Earth in the 20th century than in all of previous human history.” Do you agree?
Renaud: This question is broaching controversial philosophical ground. Humans are the most intelligent species to roam our planet but we also have the dubious distinction that we’re the first species of life to exert a geo-physical force on the earth. We’ve built huge dams, we’ve cut canals from sea to sea and we’re artificially modifying our climate.
13.7: Do you believe that we can change course?
Renaud: If we can put a man on the moon, we can most certainly change our behaviors and engineer solutions for greener energy and sustainable industries. We can also learn from our past mistakes and live a good quality life while we simultaneously sustain natural resources to provide for future generations. I believe that we’re morally obligated to sustain our resources. It’s called inter-generational equity – ensuring that our offspring enjoy the same or better quality of life than we have.
Found around coral reefs in the tropical Indo-West Pacific Ocean, the bluespotted ribbontail ray or blue dot ray, Taeniura lymma, is a stingray of the family Dasyatidae known for its large, bright blue dots. Its razor-sharp stinger contains a venom that can cause muscle contractions and kill blood cells, though this defense is usually ineffective against its main predator -- hammerhead sharks. They can grow up to six feet in diameter and up to 14 feet in length. [image credit: this photo of a bluespotted ribbontail ray was taken on May 7, 2006, at the Farasan Islands by Annelise Hagan]13.7: The oceans have lived through millennia -- is it possible that they won’t survive the human race?
Renaud: Everything in nature works in cycles. If we destroy our life system – the oceans – the earth will have a diminished capacity to sustain human life and the human population will shrink dramatically. When the human population shrinks and there is less demand on Earth’s resources, the ocean will recover after millennia pass. Then, the human population will grow again – and hopefully will be smarter on the next cycle. Let’s hope we’re intelligent enough to avoid entering that cycle. We’re already changing some of our destructive behaviors but we’re in a race against time.
13.7: You mentioned the idea of political will. President Obama said that “rigid ideology has overruled sound science,” and he wants to change government to make decisions based on science, a belief that has been borne out by some of his appointees who have strong science backgrounds. What is it going to take to see some serious policy changes?
Renaud: The buck stops here, doesn’t it? If President Obama is serious about relying on science to make sound decisions, he must convince Congress to enlarge the science budget – it’s the only way to get the job done. I am happy to see that the stimulus package includes more funding for science. Jobs will be created and the outputs from advanced science will benefit civilization. When science funding is low, advances in our civilization are slow.
13.7: President Obama’s first nominee for Commerce Secretary, Senator Judd Gregg, who later withdrew, is a staunch supporter of open ocean aquaculture, which many conservationists say is very damaging to marine ecosystems due to the release of excessive fish waste in the waters and the possible spread of new diseases from escapee fish. Are the conservationists right to worry about this form of fish farming?
Renaud: This is a complex topic. It’s all about unintended consequences – a well-intended idea gone wrong. I was stationed in Hawaii and there was an old wives tale about when man introduced mongoose on the islands to control the rat population there. Funny thing was that the rats are nocturnal and the mongoose is diurnal. So, rats are up and about at night while the mongooses are asleep. Rats are asleep while mongooses are awake and vice versa. They live in perfect harmony and now there are two pests on the islands.
13.7: Sounds like it could actually be true. Is there a similar story regarding marine ecosystems?
Renaud: Well, the most current coral reef story is about invasive lionfish. We really don’t know with certainty how the lionfish invaded the Caribbean but we think they were released by aquarists who didn’t want to kill them. You see, people put lionfish in their aquariums and they eat all the other tropical fish in the tank. Aquarists get tired of that situation quickly. Lionfish have no natural predators in the Caribbean and they are taking over like rats did in the Hawaiian Islands. The other big issue is that wild animals are genetically programmed and adapted to live in the wild. When you start raising fish in aquaculture, they lose their genetic programming in captivity. If you release them into the wild, they’ll mate with wild stock and cause problems with the genetic diversity.
13.7: But isn’t aquaculture better than the destructive practice of bottom trawling?
Renaud: Bottom trawling is wantonly destroying habitat – it’s bad – we should change that bad behavior now. Some aquaculture operations also destroy habitat – some of the shrimp operations have destroyed vast areas of mangroves, for example. We must use good principles of ecological aquaculture and use intelligent design, backed by sound science as we develop aquaculture industries. Cutting corners and being hasty with aquaculture design will have serious unintended consequences.
13.7: If you could request one new policy from the Obama administration regarding the oceans, what would it be?
Renaud: I’d say that the Obama administration really needs to reform our wild caught fisheries practices. We don’t need to stop commercial fishing, just reform it so that it is sustainable. In 2006, a major study on global fisheries concluded that 29% of the world’s fisheries stocks have already collapsed and that if we continue to plod along with current fisheries practices, nearly all commercial fish stocks will collapse by 2048. This is clearly not in our best interest.
13.7: So how is this problem best solved?
Renaud: Policy makers, conservationists and scientists already have a good idea how to establish catch shares fairly to control massive fisheries collapse. All we need is the political will to change our behaviors. I just finished a book today called Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World. Maybe I should send a copy of this to President Obama? It’s a quick read – he’d finish it on his next flight overseas.
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Tomorrow, in the fourth part of our exclusive five-part interview, Capt. Renaud talks about the Navy, market-based conservation initiatives and the Global Reef Expedition.
In Part 1, Capt. Renaud discusses the Foundation, His Royal Highness Prince Khaled and the connection of coral reefs to human health.
In Part 2, Capt. Renaud discusses living underwater, the effects of artificial fertilizer on the human population and the biggest misconception people have about the ocean
In Part 4, Capt. Renaud talks about the Navy, market-based conservation initiatives and the Global Reef Expedition.
In Part 5, Capt. Renaud recalls his fondest memory of the sea, recommends an excellent cookbook and talks about the future.
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