A debate is raging in Charleston, South Carolina around how the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council will allocate fish stocks. Biologists determine a sustainable quantity of fish that can be caught, but councils like the FMC allocate how that number of fish will be divided between commercial and recreational groups.

Commercial fishermen claim they expand local economies, so they should get a larger slice of the pie. But local charter fishermen and advocates like the Coastal Conservation Association argue that their own contribution is much more profound. Recreational fishermen contribute millions of dollars per year to communities, but they also preserve the unique fishing lifestyle that make those towns appealing and creates strong communities for locals.

One village fisherman in Hatteras, NC, Ernie Foster says that personable fishing communities are immeasurable in economic terms, but need to be considered -- which is exactly what some ecological economists are doing. Developing ways to calculate environmental and social benefits, and using units of energy rather than dollars to calculate production costs, could flesh out the total economic picture.

And, really, it just makes sense to consider whether an allocation system is sustainable and preserves the values of a society, over whether it makes big bucks or not.

Source: Outer Banks Sentinel

Picture: Four Girls Fishing Boat, by Tammy Watson

Maybe Seattle banned city purchases of bottled water last week so people would drink more homemade liquor.

Tomorrow, craft distillers in Washington will be tipping their mason jars to the governor, who is expected to sign a bill allowing them to sell up to 2 liters of their goods per customer and serve 2 ounce tastings – the same rights as craft brew or winemakers. Craft distillers will be relieved of much of their licensing fees, too – down from $2000 to $100 a year.

And hey, we envirovores can cheer for more local liquor, because local liquor brings increased local agriculture opportunities for fruit and grain growers.

So if you have dreamed of having your own moonshine (or plum liquor or blackberry brandy) operation, maybe it’s time to move to move to Washington. Just don’t bring your bottled water with you.

New Yorkers will be the first in the nation with the option to buy camel cheese. (No, really.)

This week, select stores in the Big Apple will begin carrying Caravane, a brie-like cheese made from camel milk, for $30 a pound. Camel milk is known to be quite nutritious, actually, rich in iron and vitamins C and B. It even has more protein than cow milk.

The spreadable treat didn't pass muster in other countries, including the EU, but one U.S. importer has established a relationship with a camel dairy in Mauritania (a country in northwest Africa) where Nomads have been taking their camel herds for milking, pasteurizing, and bottling since 1989.

Though camel milk has long been a staple in desert nomad populations, camel cheese is fairly new. This is because milk from camels doesn't curdle like other milks, such as cow and goat, and it took a discovery by a French "camel expert" of an enzyme that fosters curdling to make it happen.

Although camel cheese headed to the U.S. sports a hefty carbon footprint, the Mauritanian company, called Tiviski, has helped camel herders earn a profit by making their camel milk and other products more available to local Mauritanian markets.

And it provides a unique palette experience – described as having "pleasant barnyard undertones" – as well as an educational opportunity for all who venture into the camel cheese aisle.

Source: The New York Times

Calling all potato photographers. (Potagraphers?)

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has launched a worldwide photography contest in conjunction with its International Year of the Potato. Have some stellar photos of the tasty nightshade? Send them in – or start pointing and shooting – and you may find yourself winning thousands of dollars and professional Nikon camera equipment.

Through the contest, the FAO seeks to raise awareness about the importance of potatoes in agriculture, the economy and world food security. Categories for photos include: biodiversity; cultivation; post-harvest and processing; trade; marketing; and consumption and utilization.

For rules, click here. The closing date is September 1, 2008, so start snapping those spud shots.

Source: Amateur Photographer

Sure, we figured the FDA could do a better job of protecting the food supply, especially after findings of E. coli contamination in packaged spinach, pet food recalls, and tainted drugs.

Now, a new House Oversight and Government Reform committee report explains just how inadequate FDA's enforcement and oversight has been, using the case of fresh spinach.

To sum it up, the report found that FDA isn't inspecting facilities frequently enough and, when it does find safety problems, doesn't require corrections. Instead, it relies on voluntary compliance.

Federal guidelines require FDA to inspect spinach facilities at least once a year, but the report shows that facilities were inspected every 2.4 years. The investigation also found that even though nearly half of the inspections revealed sanitary problems in the last 7 years (such as inadequate restroom sanitation, poor worker hygiene, and litter piles), FDA didn't report the facilities to its enforcement authorities -- it didn't force companies to make corrections, including the Natural Selection Foods facility later tied to the 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach.

FDA, what gives?

Source: The Washington Post

Australian beer company, Fosters, has launched a “green” beer – and just in time for the greenest, drunkest holiday of all. It won't be literally green, but the new beer, Cascade Green, had to go through a carbon assessment to make sure it was authentically sustainable, and that included taking into account energy used to brew it, materials mined to make the bottle and making sure the hops were organic.

Anheuser-Busch released two types of “green” organic beers a few years ago – Wild Hop lager and Stone Mill pale ale. In Anheuser-Busch's 2007 annual report, they also laid claim to these little green facts:

• they created enough renewable fuel to heat 25,000 homes
• reduced solid waste per net sales by 11 percent since 2001
• reduced water use per net sales 3 percent since 2002
• recycled approximately 27 billion cans

It's great to see big beer companies looking at more sustainable processes, and of course they're making a profit by hitting a niche market. Still, probably the greenest beer of all is from your local micro-brewery, just for transportation impacts alone. It'll be interesting to see the effects of wheat and hops prices on these sustainable suds.

Keep an eye on the big guys. Here's the annual sustainable report for An-Busch, SABMiller, and Molson Coors.

Sources: Huffington Post, DailyIllini.com, The Age

People who want to avoid genetically engineered sugar this year should think twice about one of the alternatives. Sucralose, or Splenda, is reportedly pervasive in Norway and Sweden's wastewater, leaving some scientists worried about the sugar-like substance's effect on the environment.

Data shows that Splenda is excreted by humans nearly 100 percent unchanged, and can persist in the environment for years. Some scientists say the substance could change organisms' feeding behaviors and interfere with plant photosynthesis. They report, for example, that it could possibly shut down CO₂ uptake in algae.

Splenda was approved in the 1990s for human consumption in Canada and the US, followed by EU countries. None of these countries thought it necessary to conduct an environmental impact assessment since the chemical wasn't considered toxic in any way.

Now, as questions about the unintended consequences of the chemical's persistence in the environment mount, testing for such impacts may be tricky. As one scientist reported, testing methods for potential impacts of a sugar-like substance on ecosystems don't exist.

Sweden has started discussions with the EU about other food additives on the market that may warrant environmental review, citing the lack of inquiry into potential impacts of these substances on the environment.

Source: Environmental Science & Technology

Maryland is doing impressive work when it comes to preserving agricultural tradition. Kent County, for instance, has about 85% of its land zoned for agriculture. A quarter of those acres are under preservation easements which ban development and encourage sustainable practices. Farmers get paid to give up their development rights, which gives them incentive to do what they do best.

Another county in Maryland, Prince George's, has two bills in the state legislature that would provide funding for agricultural preservation. One bill would provide property tax credit to farmers who participate in preservation easement programs. The other bill would secure funding for preservation programs.

Currently, farmers make money only when they sell their land (“live poor, die rich”) giving virtually no incentive to carry on tradition. Most small- to medium-scale farmers understand the agricultural risks of market and weather. But as we all know, subsidies for commodity crops and other industrial farming incentives don't make it easy (or fair) for the average agrarian-type.

Sources: Baltimore Sun and Maryland's Gazette.net