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A Bold Plan For the North Atlantic

By josh donlan on September 19, 2008.

Secretary Paulson's plan revealed today is bold indeed, and sounds like socialism to me (banning short selling on some stocks and giving government backing to select others). Well, here is another bold plan for the North Atlantic Ocean. John Briggs of Oregon State University makes an argument that due to ecological history and overfishing, we should take a proactive strategy and start introducing fish species to the North Atlantic to increase biodiversity and production. This is certainly a risky and bold proposal, and likely a one-way street (unlike lions, reversing a fish introduction would likely be impossible). The paper was recently published in the magazine Fisheries, and I hope it gets some discussion. Pleistocene Rewilding arrives to the Atlantic...

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Fantastic news. Few places have suffered as much as the North Atlantic under the economic resource delusion of being "inexhuastable". Since first readinig Farley Mowatt's "Sea of Slaughter" many years ago, I have been firmly convinced that our understanding of what the sea's true diversity and abundance was, and could be again, has been ignored if thought about much at all. Thanks for that news. Let's hope we see some action.