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So I come from the tallest
people on the planet --
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the Dutch.
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(Laughter)
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It hasn't always been this way.
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In fact,
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all across the globe, people
have been gaining height.
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In the last 150 years,
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in developed countries,
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on average, we have gotten
10 centimeters taller.
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Scientists have a lot of theories
about why this is,
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but almost all of them involve nutrition
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and in the increase of dairy and meat.
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In the last 50 years,
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global meat consumption
has more than quadrupled,
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from 71 million tons to 310 million tons.
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Something similar has been
going on with milk and eggs.
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In every society where income has risen,
so has protein consumption.
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And we know that globally,
we are getting richer.
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And as the middle class is on the rise,
so is our global population,
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from 7 billion of us today
to 9.7 billion by 2050,
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which means that by 2050,
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we are going to need at least
70 percent more protein
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than what is available to humankind today.
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And the latest prediction by the UN
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puts that population number by the end
of this century at 11 billion,
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which means that we
are going to need a lot more protein.
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This challenge is staggering --
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so much so that recently,
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a team at Anglia Ruskin
Global Sustainability Institute
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suggested that if we don't
change our global policies
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on food production systems,
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our societies might actually collapse
in the next 30 years.
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Currently, our ocean serves
as the main source of animal protein.
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Over 2.6 billion people
depend on it every single day.
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At the same time,
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our global fisheries are
two-and-a-half-times larger
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than what our oceans
can sustainably support.
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Meaning that humans take
far more fish from the ocean
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than the oceans can naturally replace.
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WWF recently published a report
showing that just in the last 40 years,
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our global marine life
has been slashed in half.
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And another recent report suggests
that of our largest predatory species,
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such as swordfish and bluefin tuna,
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over 90 percent has
disappeared since the 1950s.
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And there are a lot of great, sustainable
fishing initiatives across the planet,
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working towards better practices
and better-managed fisheries.
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But ultimately,
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all of these initiatives are working
towards keeping current catch constant.
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It's unlikely,
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even with the best-managed fisheries,
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that we are going to be able
to take much more from the ocean
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than we do today.
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We have to stop plundering
our oceans the way we have.
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We need to alleviate the pressure on it.
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And we are at point
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where if we push much harder
for more produce,
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we might face total collapse.
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Our current systems are not going to feed
a growing global population.
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So how do we fix this?
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What's the world going to look like
in just 35 short years
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when there's 2.7 billion more of us
sharing the same resources?
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We could all become vegan.
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Sounds like a great idea,
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but it's not realistic
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and impossibly hard to mandate globally.
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People are eating animal protein
whether we like it or not.
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And suppose we fail to change our ways
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and continue on the current paths,
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failing to meet demands.
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The World Health Organization
recently reported
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that 800 million people are suffering
from malnutrition and food shortage,
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which is due to that same
growing, global population
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and the declining access to resources
like water, energy and land.
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It takes very little imagination
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to picture a world of global unrest,
[ ? ] and further, malnutrition.
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People are hungry,
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and we are running dangerously low
on natural resources.
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For so, so many reasons,
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we need to change our global
food production systems.
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We must do better
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and there is a solution.
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And that solution lies in aquaculture --
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the farming of fish, plants like seaweed,
shellfish and crustaceans.
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As the great ocean hero
Jacques Cousteau once said,
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"We must start using the sea
as farmers instead of hunters.
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That is what civilization is all about --
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farming replacing hunting."
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Fish is the last food that we hunt.
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And why is it that we keep
hearing phrases like,
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"Life's too short for farmed fish,"
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or, "wild-caught, of course,"
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over fish that we know
virtually nothing about.
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We don't know [what they do]
in its lifetime,
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and we don't know what
pollution it encounters.
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[And if it was] a large predatory species,
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it might have gone through
the coast of Fukushima yesterday,
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we don't know.
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Very few people realize
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the traceability in fisheries
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never goes beyond the hunter
that caught the wild animal.
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But let's back up for a second
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and talk about why
fish is the best food choice.
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It's healthy,
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it prevents heart disease,
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it provides key amino acids
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and key fatty acids like Omega-3s,
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which is very different from almost
any other type of meat,
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and aside from being healthy,
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it's also a lot more exciting and diverse.
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Think about it.
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Most animal farming is pretty monotonous.
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Cow is cow,
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sheep is sheep,
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pig's pig,
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and poultry --
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turkey, duck, chicken --
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pretty much sums it up.
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And then there's 500 species of fish
being found currently.
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Not that [restaurants] and supermarkets
reflect that on their shelves,
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but that's beside that point.
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And you can farm fish
in a very healthy manner
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that's good for us, good for the planet
and good for the fish.
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I know I sound fish-obsessed.
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(Laughter)
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Let me explain.
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My brilliant partner and wife --
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Amy Novograntz and I got involved
in aquaculture a couple of years ago.
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We were inspired by Sylvia Earle,
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who won the TED prize in 2009.
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We actually met on Mission Blue I
in the Galapagos,
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and Amy was there
as the TED Prize Director
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me, an entrepreneur from the Netherlands,
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concerned citizen, love to dive,
passion for the oceans --
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Mission Blue truly changed our lives.
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We fell in love,
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got married,
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and we came away really inspired,
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thinking we really want to do something
about ocean conservation --
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something that was meant to last,
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that could make a real difference,
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and something that we could do togehter.
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Little did we expect that that would
lead us to fish farming.
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But a few months after
we got off the boat,
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we got to a meeting
at Conservation International
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where the Director General of world fish
was talking about aquaculture,
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asking a room full of environmentalists
to stop turning from it,
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realize what was going on,
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and to really get involved.
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Because aquaculture has the potential
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to be just what our oceans
and our populations need.
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We were stunned when we heard the stats
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that we didn't know more
about this industry already,
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and excited about the chance
to help get it right.
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And to talk about stats --
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right now, the amount of fish
consumed globally,
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wild-catch and farmed combined,
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is twice the tonnage
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of the total amount of beef
produced on planet Earth last year.
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Every single fishing vessel combined,
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small and large,
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across the globe,
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together produce about
65 million tons of wild-caught seafood
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for human consumption.
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Aquaculture this year,
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for the first time in history,
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actually produces more than what
we catch from the wild.
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But now this.
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Demand is going to go up.
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In the next 35 years
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we are going to need an additional
85 million tons to meet demand,
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which is one-and-a-half times as much --
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almost --
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as what we catch globally out our oceans.
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An enormous number.
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It's safe to assume that that's not
going to come from the ocean.
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It needs to come from farming.
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And talk about farming --
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and for farming you need resources.
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As a human needs to eat
to grow and stay alive,
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so does an animal.
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A cow needs to eat 8-to-9 pounds of feed
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and drink almost 8,000 liters of water
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to create just one pound of meat.
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Experts agree that it's impossible
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to farm cows for every
inhabitant on this planet.
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We just don't have enough feed or water.
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And we can't keep cutting down
rainforests for it.
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And fresh water --
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planet Earth has a very limited supply.
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We need something more efficient
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to keep humankind alive on this planet.
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And now let's compare
that with fish farming.
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You can farm one pound of fish
with just one pound of feed.
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And depending on species, even less.
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And why is that?
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Well that's because
fish first of all, floats.
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It doesn't need to stand around all day
resisting gravity like we do.
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And most fish are cold-blooded -
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they don't need to heat themselves --
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the fish chills.
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(Laughter)
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And it needs very little water,
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which is counterintuitive,
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but as we say,
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it swims in it but it hardly drinks it.
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Fish is the most resource-efficient
animal protein available to humankind
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aside from insects.
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How much we've learned since.
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For example,
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that on top of that 65 million tons
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that's annually caught
for human consumption,
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there's an additional 30 million tons
caught for animal feed.
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Mostly sardines and anchovies
for the aquaculture industry
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that's turned into fishmeal and fish oil.
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This is madness.
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65 percent of these fisheries,
globally are badly managed.
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Some of the worst issues
of our time are connected to it.
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It's destroying our oceans.
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The worst slavery issues
imaginable are connected to it.
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Recently, an article came out of Stamford
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saying that if 50 percent
of the world's aquaculture industry
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would stop using fishmeal,
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our oceans would be saved.
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Now think about that for a minute.
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Now we know that the oceans
have far more problems ...
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they have pollution,
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there's acidification,
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coral reef destruction and so on ...
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but it underlines the impact
of our fisheries,
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and it underlines how
interconnected everything is.
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Fisheries, aquaculture, deforestation,
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climate change, food security and so on.
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In the search of solutions,
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the industry,
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at a massive scale,
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has reverted to plant-based alternatives
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like soy, industrial chicken waste,
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blood meal from slaughter houses,
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and so on ...
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And we understand where
these choices come from
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but this is not the right approach.
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It's not sustainably,
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it's not healthy.
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Have you ever seen a chicken
at the bottom of the ocean?
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Of course not.
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If you feed salmon soy with nothing else,
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it literally explodes.
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Salmon is a carnivore,
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it has no way to digest soy.
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Now fish farming is by far
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the best animal farming
available to humankind.
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But it's had a really bad reputation.