From the Vancouver Sun – Feb 8, 2011

by Ken Peterson

Re: The American attempt to kill B.C.’s salmon farms, Opinion, Feb. 1

The
Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program has received $7 million
-not $407 million -from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation since
the program’s inception in 1999.

That money supports our efforts
to help consumers and businesses choose wild-caught and farmed seafood
from sources that preserve the health of the ocean -and the economic
health and vitality of communities whose people suffer when ocean
ecosystems collapse.

More than 700 industry leaders gathered in
Vancouver last week for the annual Seafood Summit, in support of just
that vision. They represent major seafood buyers and producers, as well
as non-profit organizations like the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Part
of their shared vision is a commitment to work together so that
unsustainable fishing methods and aquaculture practices improve over
time, in ways that are broadly embraced and independently verified.

As
that vision becomes reality, the result will be thriving oceans,
increased consumer access to an important source of healthy protein, and
protection for fishing communities from the kind of devastation that
followed the collapse of cod in the Maritime provinces, or the slow
downward spiral of wild salmon that so defines the culture of the
Pacific Coast.

Ken Peterson Communications director, Monterey Bay Aquarium Monterey, California