[chapter-communicator] FW: As of Interest...
- From: "BIANCHI, John" <JBIANCHI@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: #Audubon Board of Directors <IMCEAEX-_O=AUDUBON_OU=NATIONAL_CN=RECIPIENTS_CN=BoardOfDirectors@xxxxxxxxxxx>,#Audubon Staff <audstaff@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 15:40:22 -0500
April 3, 3003
MEMORANDUM
TO: Audubon Family
FROM: Donal C. O'Brien, Jr.
RE: As of Interest...
I draw your attention to the following pieces from the April 3, 2002 issue
of The New York Times:
- An excellent editorial, "A More Balanced Farm Bill".
- Front page article, "National and State Politics Help Protect a Swamp",
with a quote from Stuart Strahl. This article describes the influence of
"politics" on the Bush Administration's environmental decisions.
- Front page article in Dining Out, "How to Grow a Giant Tuna". This is a
fascinating article on how far it is possible to go with fish farming. It
will be interesting to hear Carl Safina's views on this practice involving
his favorite fish.
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April 3, 2002
A More Balanced Farm Bill
<http://graphics4.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/s.gif> mall farmers and
residents of rural communities have been watching the deliberations over the
$171 billion farm bill with the attention they usually reserve for the
coming of spring rains. It has not been a promising spectacle.
The House version, passed last fall, was an outright capitulation to the
biggest commodity growers. The Senate passed a fairer bill, containing $21.3
billion in new money for conservation programs that would benefit a much
wider universe of farmers. But when the two competing versions reached a
conference committee, the Senate negotiators caved in, agreeing to generous
subsidies for the big growers at the expense of the environmental programs
and smaller farmers.
A balanced bill is still within reach if the Democrats, in particular the
majority leader, Tom Daschle, can summon even a modest amount of courage
when negotiations resume next week. First, the Senate should suggest
front-loading conservation spending in the first five years of the bill's
10-year life, much as commodity payments are front-loaded. This would insure
generous funding for larger programs of demonstrable value â?? the wetland
reserves program, for example, or the farmland protection program that helps
resist suburban sprawl. Second, the Senate must insist on the survival of
smaller, experimental programs for which the House has shown little
enthusiasm.
Several of these deserve special protection. One is an innovative
$100-million-a-year water conservation program sponsored by Senator Harry
Reid of Nevada that would pay farmers to provide water otherwise used for
irrigation to help threatened fish species. A second water-related program
would increase incentives for farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to
reduce toxic runoff from their fields.
Also at risk are small but enormously successful Farmer's Market Nutrition
Programs, which provide coupons to the elderly and low-income families that
can be spent only at farmers' markets. This gives poorer consumers access to
fresh foods and puts cash in the hands of small fruit and vegetable farmers.
It also strengthens the ties between country and city and helps keep
inner-city farmers' markets thriving. Compared with the billions allocated
for commodity price supports, the $25 million needed for each of these
programs is microscopic.
The $10 million rural microenterprise program deserves protection as well.
This money would help low- and moderate-income people start small businesses
in rural areas. In Nebraska, for instance, 70 percent of new rural
businesses fall into the microenterprise category, which includes people who
do not have access to commercial loans. If these communities were as vibrant
as they used to be when they were surrounded by farms, there would be little
need for a program like this. But the effect of modern agriculture has been
to depopulate the countryside and gut the small towns. This provision offers
a measure of redemption.
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April 3, 2002
National and State Politics Help Safeguard a Swamp
By BLAINE HARDEN <http://graphics4.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/b.gif> IG
CYPRESS NATIONAL PRESERVE, Fla., March 29 â?? In this fragile swath of the
Everglades, the Bush administration delighted Florida environmentalists two
weeks ago by backing a National Park Service plan to restrict access for
swamp buggies and other off-road vehicles.
In Yellowstone National Park, by contrast, the administration has infuriated
environmentalists and many park rangers by abandoning a Park Service plan to
ban snowmobiles.
Here in Big Cypress, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton promised in January
to try to stop oil exploration by buying out drilling rights or acquiring
them in a land swap. In the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and on
some national monument land in the West, however, President Bush continues
to push oil exploration as an important part of his energy plan.
What explains the seemingly anomalous attention being paid to this vast
swamp? Political analysts in Florida and national environmental groups say
the explanation boils down to two words: green votes. Enough green votes,
perhaps, to allow Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, to win re-election
this year. Enough, possibly, to allow President Bush, whose first term was
won in Florida, to win a second term.
The all-but-even Florida presidential vote in 2000 pointed to a precarious
balance in this state between Republicans and Democrats, a balance that has
in recent years produced some exceptionally tight statewide elections.
Polls here have consistently found that environmental issues greatly
influence voters, especially swing ones.
"Big Cypress is one of those Florida issues that a politician cannot allow
himself to be perceived as being on the wrong side of and still win a
statewide election," Dr. Lance deHaven-Smith, a professor of public
administration at Florida State University in Tallahassee, said. "Elections
here are almost always so close that if you alienate voters who care about
the environment, you will probably lose."
A spokesman for the Interior Department said federal decisions regarding Big
Cypress were not motivated by politics.
"Good policy is what we are seeking," said the spokesman, Eric Ruff, noting
that Congress had ordered the protection of the Everglades. "It has been a
priority for Secretary Norton and the president since the first day we came
into office."
But in explaining the difference between administration rulings for Big
Cypress and Yellowstone, Mr. Ruff acknowledged that the vocal demands of
local interests did play a role.
"The policy is a reflection of what the local communities want," he said.
"Those gateway communities at Yellowstone are seeking the use of
snowmobiles. But at Big Cypress, the locals have made it very clear what
their opinions are."
In Yellowstone, where snowmobile manufacturers and users sued over a park
ban on the vehicles proposed under President Bill Clinton, the Bush
administration settled the suit, scuttled the ban and announced alternatives
that included keeping snowmobiles. The Interior Department also ordered
additional study of the issue. Four previous reviews found that snowmobiles
harmed wildlife and air quality in the park.
In Big Cypress, the Bush administration has been far less sympathetic toward
owners of off-road vehicles who demand access to public land. The Justice
Department filed a brief on March 15 in Federal District Court in Fort Myers
that rejects as "unpersuasive" the access arguments of the users of swamp
buggies. The users had sued over the Park Service plan to keep off-road
vehicles out of most of the swamp.
"Snowmobiles in Yellowstone arouse the interest of a national environmental
audience, but they are not a defining political issue in states or regions
near the park," said Ron Tipton, senior vice president of the National Parks
Conservation Association, a group chartered by Congress to advocate park
preservation. "Florida and the Everglades are different. It has taken the
administration nearly a year, but they seem to have figured out the politics
of environmentalism in South Florida."
What makes the administration's actions at Big Cypress especially noteworthy
is the swamp's relatively unprotected status under federal law. It is not a
national park, like Yellowstone, a designation that affords the greatest
possible protection. Rather, Big Cypress is a national preserve, a
designation that permits multiple uses like fishing, hunting and, under
certain conditions, mineral exploration.
A demonstration of the administration's regard for Big Cypress occurred in
January, after Ms. Norton was confronted by sign-waving protesters while
touring the Everglades.
Two days before she arrived, the Park Service office in Big Cypress
disclosed that the Interior Department was considering plans for new oil and
gas exploration in the 729,000-acre preserve. A family owned company,
Collier Resources, which owns mineral rights in the preserve, wanted to use
seismic explosions and build roads as part of its exploratory plan.
The announcement apparently caught Ms. Norton off guard, as did the protests
and headlines in southern Florida newspapers. Forty percent of the water
that flows to the sea through the Everglades drains through Big Cypress.
Later in her visit, Ms. Norton unexpectedly announced that her department
was trying to acquire mineral rights in the preserve. Her spokesman
explained later that the department had been negotiating privately for about
a year to buy or swap for the rights and that it wanted to stop all
exploration.
The rights are generally estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of
dollars. Nine wells are already in operation.
Although some Florida politicians and environmentalists said they were
skeptical of Ms. Norton's ability and willingness to follow up on her
promise, others greeted her announcement with enthusiasm.
"The Bush people are clearly moving in the right direction," said Dr. Stuart
D. Strahl, Florida director of the National Audubon Society.
The Bush administration's involvement in Florida environmental politics
began in earnest last summer. In an exception to its national energy
strategy, Washington sharply reduced its plan to drill for oil and gas off
the western Florida coast.
The plan for widespread offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico had
upset environmentalists, caused splits in the Florida Republican Party and
put Mr. Bush's brother in a difficult position.
"Jeb Bush was shocked by the political damage caused by the president's
plans for offshore drilling," Dr. deHaven-Smith of Florida State said. "In
this state, offshore drilling is a no-compromise political issue."
Administration officials acknowledged last year that the decision to back
off in Florida reflected the president's effort to get out of a political
quandary.
Outside Florida, environmentalists have rarely been pleased with
administration policies on public lands, either for oil exploration or for
off-road vehicles.
Interior officials have said they want to allow limited access for dune
buggies and other off-road vehicles in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation
Area in the far southeastern corner of California, for example, in defiance
of a ban from the Clinton era. California has many green votes, but it is
not a state, political analysts say, that Republicans are likely to win in
the next presidential election.
In southern Utah this year, over the objections of some park rangers and
government scientists, petroleum companies have been allowed to search for
oil on federal land between Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
Here at Big Cypress, however, the chief Park Service official said he could
not be happier with the support from Washington.
"We have had an honest hearing from the administration, and so far, they
have sided with us on the big issues," said John Donahue, the superintendent
of the preserve.
Mr. Donahue's continued presence as superintendent, in fact, is seen by some
environmental groups as testimony to the administration's reluctance to risk
angering Floridians. As he acknowledges, Mr. Donahue annoyed Ms. Norton in
January, when his office announced the possibility of expanded oil
exploration two days before her visit.
At the time, the press here reported that Mr. Donahue might be transferred
or fired. Ms. Norton's spokesman said those reports were "patently untrue."
Referring to the gouged tracks that swamp buggies have made in Big Cypress â??
marks that he said are visible from space â?? Mr. Donahue said Washington was
showing good sense in curbing the machines.
"The damage that these off-road vehicles do in Big Cypress is not deniable
by anybody," he said, "regardless of what your political philosophy is."
Great Lakes Cleanup Planned
MUSKEGON, Mich., April 2 (AP) â?? Christie Whitman, the Environmental
Protection Agency administrator, visited this city on Lake Michigan today to
announce a plan to clean up and restore the Great Lakes. She said the plan
addressed the most serious problems facing the lakes like sediment
contamination, the proliferation of non-native species, the loss of habitat
and the production of fish unsafe for eating.
The plan sets specific cleanup goals and calls on the federal government to
work more closely with state and local governments. It includes monitoring
contaminants in fish, requiring factories that discharge into the lakes to
limit contaminants, enlisting cooperation from corporations and tracking
cleanup efforts by state and local agencies.
No additional government financing has been set aside for the plan, which
was created by the Great Lakes U.S. Policy Committee, a partnership among
federal, state and tribal agencies.
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April 3, 2002
How to Grow a Giant Tuna
By R. W. APPLE Jr. <http://graphics4.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/e.gif>
NSENADA, Mexico â?? TOOLING his black BMW south along Interstate 5, Philippe
Charat banters with his passengers and chats on his cellphone in English,
Spanish and French. No matter what the language, the subject remains the
same: fish.We're headed from San Diego to this booming city of 400,000 in
Baja California, 75 miles from the international border, and from there by
launch out into the ocean, around a headland called Punta Banda and into
Puerto Escondido Bay. There, Mr. Charat runs an unusual aquaculture business
â?? an underwater feedlot for the creatures that he calls "the kings of the
sea": Thunnus thynnus orientalis, or Pacific bluefin tuna.This is the fish
prized above all others by connoisseurs of sushi and sashimi, the one whose
belly meat, called toro, commands the highest prices on Japanese restaurant
menus (with the exception of the potentially poisonous fugu, or blowfish,
which is not nearly as widely sold). At its best, when the fat content is
high, when the fish has been meticulously handled, the flesh is fabulously
tender and buttery, ranging in color from a soft pink to a deep, winy red.
Obviously too luscious to cook. Begging to be eaten raw.Unlike salmon, tuna
has not yet been successfully farmed â?? that is, raised in captivity from egg
to maturity â?? though Mr. Charat predicts it will happen one day. For now,
all bluefin must be caught in the wild, not only the Pacific species but
also its giant, biologically similar Atlantic cousin, which is perhaps
slightly less desirable from a gastronomic viewpoint.What Mr. Charat has
done here, building on the experience of an operation that he studied in
Australia, is to ensure that all the bluefin he catches, not just a few,
become prime specimens. His boats net the fish, tons at a time, as they
cruise along the coast, 20 to 30 miles offshore.Then, the tuna are towed at
less than two miles an hour, still in the water in specially designed
enclosures, to Puerto Escondido Bay. There they live the life of Riley,
splashing happily about in 16 huge circular pens, gaining weight and
building their fat content on a sardine diet â?? all the fish they can eat,
three times every day, six days a week, for four to eight months."You take a
run-of-the-mill fish, a so-so fish, and turn it into a superstar," Mr.
Charat said.The tuna are caught between June and August, as they swim
between Magdalena Bay, near the southern tip of Baja California, and
Monterey Bay, south of San Francisco. They are sold between October and
March, by which time they weigh up to 190 pounds.When Mr. Charat's company,
Maricultura del Norte, gets an order, an appropriate number of fattened tuna
are harvested. That gives him an edge over conventional suppliers: they have
to sell as soon as their boats dock, whether the demand is high or not. He
sells, as he said, "when I want to."ONE day in January, my wife, Betsey, and
I visited the feedlot with Mr. Charat and our mutual friend, Sam Popkin, a
tuna-crazed professor of political science at the University of California
at San Diego. It was harvest day, with the sky blue and the sun hot at
midmorning. Maricultura's agent at Tokyo's fish market, Tsukiji, had ordered
100 large and 300 small bluefin.At Christmastime, when the demand peaks,
Maricultura sometimes harvests as many as 900 tuna in a single day, working
from sunrise to sunset.Tsukiji pays the highest prices in the world, but its
buyers insist on quality â?? tuna without bruises or blemishes, with vividly
colored flesh, with maximum oil and fat content. The current price for a
gutted bluefin, with head and tail on, runs about $9.50 a pound for small
fish, $12.75 a pound for medium fish and even more for larger fish. A
410-pound tuna was sold at Tsukiji for a record $160,000 last year.The meat
sells at retail for as much as $45 a pound, despite the lasting slump in the
Japanese economy.Mr. Charat takes extraordinary steps to meet Tsukiji
standards â?? some during the harvest, others before it starts. The fish are
towed here very slowly to minimize enzyme stress, which can adversely affect
flavor. Those to be harvested at a particular time are isolated from those
which are not, lest they thrash about and damage one another. The sardines
they are fed, caught locally by Maricultura's own trawler, the Noble
Provider, are so good that Mr. Charat distributes a few from time to time to
friends in the food business, who consider them vastly superior to those on
sale in fish markets.To avoid damage to their livers from overeating, the
tuna are fed only six days a week; it would never do to have a bay full of
fish with crises de foie. And on those six days, the sardines are broadcast
across the surface of the water to force the big fish to compete
aggressively for food. Some farmed salmon are criticized because, having no
need to work for nourishment, they develop a flabby texture."It takes a
tough man to make a tender tuna," Professor Popkin observed as each of the
various procedures and safeguards was explained to us.The harvest was a
gaudy, melodramatic spectacle in primary colors, like a picture fashioned
with a child's poster paints. The workmen wore green or yellow rubberized
trousers with orange bibs; a blue tarpaulin on the work barge was stained a
vivid red by streams of fish blood as the day wore on. Yet everything was
done so efficiently and so quickly, with so little apparent suffering by the
fish, that it scarcely seemed as primal as it clearly was.Divers in black
wet suits and yellow flippers started by raising a barrier inside one of the
pens, separating a dozen or so tuna from the rest. Next they grabbed the
fish, one by one, one hand on the tail and the other in the gills, and
hoisted them onto the barge, where another crew of workers held them in
place. Instantly that team spiked each tuna in the head, killing it, cut a
main artery behind the gills to bleed it, and ran a fine steel wire down the
fish's spinal column, paralyzing it immediately.Another team, astonishingly
deft like the first, then took over, cutting out the gills and guts in one
swift motion and tossing the bluefin into a 32-degree saline water solution.
The whole process took only about 50 seconds â?? a short enough period, Mr.
Charat told us, to preserve the tuna's quality in two ways: by avoiding the
formation of excessive lactic acid and by preventing the fish's blood
temperature from rising after it has left the sea.When the workers took a
break, they presented their visitors with a late breakfast, a pailful of sea
urchins fresh out of the ocean. A whack with the back of a knife and the
rich, creamy roes were laid bare. The taste of the first startled us. It was
overwhelmingly salty, but the rest, rinsed in fresh water, were blissfully
sweet and custard-like, with no hint of the metallic flavor that mars the
elderly uni served at second-rate sushi bars.They sure beat doughnuts.A
TWISTING trail brought Mr. Charat, who is 62, to Ensenada. The son of a
French mother and a Russian father, he left Paris with his family as an
infant. They lived in Cuba and in Texas, but by 1957 the elder Charat was in
the fishing business in Mexico. The son showed an entrepreneurial flair at
Harvard, helping two friends start the Harvard Student Agencies, which have
gone from strength to strength, publishing, for example, the widely read
"Let's Go" guides. He went on to the Harvard Business School.In 1973, Mr.
Charat entered the shrimp fishing business in the Gulf of Mexico. But in
1981 his company was nationalized. In 1983, he bought three tuna purse
seiners, selling his catch in Mexico and in Samoa.Thirteen years later, he
started his present business, following a visit, as part of a Mexican
delegation, to a tuna-fattening operation at Port Lincoln in South
Australia, west of Adelaide. The Australians utilized frozen sardines; he
could do a lot better, Mr. Charat reasoned, with the fresh sardines in ample
supply in this corner of the world.And so he has. A Mexican citizen, he
holds a 50-year concession from the Mexican government. Maricultura fattened
30 tons of tuna the first year, 60 the second, 100 the third, 300 the
fourth. Another big increase is expected this year. Before too long Mr.
Charat hopes to begin fattening yellowfin tuna and yellowtail, a kind of
amberjack that the Japanese call hamachi, at a new installation in Magdalena
Bay, which is 600 miles south of here.He already has one competitor in this
region, and five more have been authorized by the government. The business
is well established in Australia. And according to Chris Purcell of Ocean
View Fisheries, a fish wholesaler in Halifax, Nova Scotia, about a dozen
fishermen in nearby St. Margaret's Bay fatten Atlantic bluefin on a small
scale, maybe 40 to 50 fish each.The world's, and especially Japan's,
appetite for tuna seems insatiable. The question is whether stocks of
bluefin can withstand the pressure. Already, the giant Atlantic bluefin,
which can reach up to 1,500 pounds, is listed as endangered by the Monterey
Aquarium, which monitors such matters. The southern Pacific bluefin, which
is caught off Australia, has also been overfished, but so far the northern
Pacific bluefin, caught here, appears to be in better shape. About 95
percent of Maricultura's output goes to Japan, with about half of that
ending up at Tsukiji, where it is labeled "LA" after the airport from which
it is shipped â?? a mark that guarantees it a premium price. The other 5
percent is sold in San Diego and Los Angeles, mostly to top
restaurants.Chilly from their cold-water bath, the fish are cleaned,
weighed, tagged and measured before being placed with cold gel packs in
plastic-lined boxes to keep them fresh. If they are harvested on Thursday,
for example, they are packed on Friday morning and trucked to Los Angeles
International Airport on Friday afternoon. They arrive in Tokyo on Sunday,
local time, and go on sale at 5 a.m. Monday. Most of them will be consumed
by Wednesday at the latest.That may sound like a very long time. But in fact
it is almost ideal; like a number of other fish, such as Dover sole, bluefin
only reaches peak flavor and texture four to six days after it has emerged
from the water.Mr. Charat demonstrated that the night before we visited
Ensenada. At George's at the Cove, one of San Diego's leading restaurants,
the chef, Trey Foshee, prepared a loin of two-day-old Maricultura tuna in
several ways. A grilled rib steak was superb, but a slice of the same fish,
served raw, was not quite as rich-tasting, and not at all as tender, as we
had expected."Wait two or three days," Mr. Charat said. "It's not
ready."Professor Popkin took a piece of the bluefin loin home, kept it in
his refrigerator for 48 hours and then served it as sashimi to his family.
It was perfect, he reported, the melt-in-the-mouth stuff you dream about.
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