Maine Conservation & Restorative Seafood #257

Sean Mahoney:

You know, I came from I grew up outside of Boston and neither of my parents were what you'd call outdoors people. I think the biggest camping trip was in the backyard in an old army tent.

Barton Seaver:

And it's not just restoring the health of ecosystems. I don't approach environmentalism in the traditional way. The tragedy of the commons. Bad, human bad. You're in Eden and it's your Fault.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Bellio and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 257, Maine Conservation and Restorative Seafood, airing for the first time on Sunday, August 21, 2016. The importance of conserving our land and resources is less controversial than it once was. What remains a conundrum is how we go about doing so. Today we discuss possible solutions with Sean Mahoney of the Conservation Law foundation here in Maine and chef Barton Seaver, an advocate for restorative seafood practices. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As longtime listeners of Love Maine Radio know, I am pretty impressed by people who do work for environmental causes. And one individual that has been doing this for quite a while is Sean Mahoney. Sean serves as the executive Vice president, Director of programs and director of the Cons Law Foundation's main advocacy center. Prior to joining the Conservation law Foundation in 2007, Shawn practiced environmental law in San Francisco and Portland for 15 years where he represented a variety of commercial and non governmental entities in all aspects of state and federal environmental litigation and permitting. At the Conservation Law Foundation, Sean focuses on marine conservation and sustainability, climate change, transportation and energy infrastructure, and restoring and protecting Maine's rivers and coastal watersheds. Thanks for coming in today.

Sean Mahoney:

Sure. It's great to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So we were talking before we came on about our Bowdoin connection. And you live in Falmouth now, so you've had a long standing connection to the state of Maine.

Sean Mahoney:

We really have. I came up, actually, the first time I ever took a plane was to Presque Isle where we had a family friend who was a parish priest there. And my parents thought it would be a good idea for us to see Presque Isle and to join in the potato harvest. So in 10th grade we spent the last two weeks of August and the first week 10 days in September in Presque Isle.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's a very interesting introduction to the

Sean Mahoney:

state of Maine and aeronautics as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, that's true. That could not have been a very big plane.

Sean Mahoney:

It was not a big plane. And it was about a half mile walk from the plane to the hangar in Presque Isle.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm glad that you were so impressed with our state and you decided to come back here and I guess go to school here.

Sean Mahoney:

Right. It was a great place to go to school. Lived in Brunswick for four years, had the opportunity to live out on the coast my last year of school, which was just wonderful, and fell in love with the state. And we were really lucky to be able to come back to Maine about a decade later to raise our family and do the type of work I love to.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you and your wife Jen, who also went to Bowdoin, you have three children and as I said, you live in Falmouth. They've all been through the Falmouth school system.

Sean Mahoney:

They have. Well, we've got one who made it through and two more who are on their way. And we consider ourselves very lucky to live in a community like Falmouth that's got great schools and great open space. And it's just been a nice, nice community and a nice area, the Portland area as a whole, to raise a family and to work in and to recreate in.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been fascinated by the Conservation Law foundation for quite a while. And I think part of it, I was interested in conservation before I even went to school. But Bowdoin has a very strong environmental program and it really, it kind of normalized something for me, you know, whereas when you're growing up, you know, sometimes some people are about the environment, sometimes some people aren't. But Bowdoin was very strong in that area. Did you have that same sense?

Sean Mahoney:

I did. And it's, you know, I came from. I grew up outside of Boston and neither of my parents were what you'd call outdoors people. I think the biggest camping trip was in the backyard in an old army tent. And so coming to Maine was really eye opening. And particularly one winter camping trip to Baxter State park, which was really just an incredible experience and one that I think put me on the path to really wanting to spend as much time outdoors as possible and try and find a career that was consistent with that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how do you make that next step from wanting to be outside and wanting to protect the outdoors? And then also you went to the University of Virginia and you have a law degree from there and you also, you are a law clerk and you were a Peace Corps volunteer in Sri Lanka. So how do you kind of bring all of those experiences together?

Sean Mahoney:

I think part of the, the first bit I would say was going to the Peace Corps, which was also a very formative experience. I grew up with in a family that really valued giving back to community and being. Having the opportunity to be in the Peace Corps for a number of years allowed me to see different parts of the world, to experience what it's like to be a minority. I was the only white guy for about a 50 mile radius. And it's a very different experience when everybody is looking at you and assuming that you have certain character traits and personality and opinions just because of what you look like. That was really a tremendous experience. And then finishing that, I was a teacher in the Peace Corps, training people to be teachers. But I wanted to be able to do something a little bit more. And law school was a path that I thought provided one with tools to make some changes. And at the time, environmental law was really still developing. This is back in the late 80s. And so it was a great time to be in law school for that. And from There I was lucky enough to work for two law firms that had not just wonderful colleagues and people to work with, but a real commitment to pro bono legal services. And so I had a number of cases that I was able to bring on behalf of other environmental organizations, both in California and Maine, in addition to other clients. And so that was really a great opportunity to look at the various problems that our environment was facing and to see the path that I wanted to go down.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We had the new Casco Bay Keeper on the radio show not too long ago, and she also is an attorney

Sean Mahoney:

and she used to work at Conservation Law Foundation.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Oh, that's right. Actually, I remember her saying that. So it's interesting to me that sometimes the legal profession has maybe been thought of as more interested in its own making of money. Yeah, I'm trying to say this in the nicest way possible, but both of you are doing things that really is more externally focused and not so much about the making of money. And I want to be really careful because I know a lot of attorneys. That's not why they do it. It's not because they just want to make money. In fact, two of my brothers are attorneys. But you know what I'm saying?

Sean Mahoney:

I do. I think that I do. There's a lot of people in the legal profession who are wonderful at what they do and make positive impact in so many different ways, including pro bono services or allowing their partners or associates to spend a lot of time on pro bono services. And I think Portland is Portland. And Maine, as a general matter, is really lucky to have a legal profession that's so committed to the public good. But there are others who kind of say, well, I'm going to step away a little bit. And instead of problem solving for clients that problems a lot of times revolve around financial issues. How much of a penalty is somebody going to pay for having to clean up some pollution or a commercial dispute between two parties? Who's right about that? I'm lucky to be able to focus on larger issues. What is the best way to ensure that we have a sustainable fishery in the Gulf of Maine? How are we going to get our arms around climate change? How are we going to help our municipalities adjust to climate change, to the adaptation resiliency issues? How do we want to make sure that our state and federal government are holding up their end of the bargain and enforcing the laws that are on the books? So, you know, it's a privilege to be able to do that. And it's made possible in part as a nonprofit through generosity of our supporters. So it's something that I'm thankful for on a regular basis.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have spent a lot of time working on issues surrounding water. And this is something that is, of course, very important because we live. Well, you and I both live right here on Casco Bay. And a lot of us, if we don't live right on the water, we live near a river, we live near an ocean. I mean, we live near a lake or a pond. Water is a pretty big deal. And Maine hasn't always had very clean water.

Sean Mahoney:

No, it hasn't. Although Maine has been a leader in cleaning water. You know, Senator Muskie was the father of the Clean Water act as well as the Clean Air Act. And, you know, when one thinks back to 40 or 50 years ago, many of our rivers and bays were open sewers in Falmouth. I live on the Prosumscott river, and nobody wanted to live on the river because the smell and the fumes were so bad coming down from the paper mills in Westbrook that it would peel the paint off houses. You know, we've made a tremendous difference in the last three or four decades. So our rivers aren't open sewers. You don't have chicken factories like you used to have in Belfast that are just dumping in innards and feathers and carcasses into Penobscot Bay. So to that degree, to that extent, we're in a much better place than we were. It's harder, though now to make the final step with respect to how do you ensure that you have clean water, swimmable water, how do you make sure East End beach is not closed because of high fecal coliform counts? How do you make sure that the inshore fishery in Maine, which is basically non extent now comes back? And so trying to address things like stormwater runoff, which is basically just everything that runs off roofs and pavements and gathers all the junk that's on roofs and pavements and goes into the bay, Casco Bay, for example, or we have more severe storms, so it overwhelms our wastewater treatment facilities. And so they have to. It's called a combined sewer overflow, which basically means you can't treat what's coming out of our bathrooms and sinks and drains and the like. And so that's not a good thing, obviously. How do you get. Now that the waters are clean, how do you get fish back up? How do you ensure that the river herring and alewives that are crucial cornerstone species for larger fish in the Gulf of Maine, how do you ensure that they can Come back up their ancestral rivers spawn and go back out into the bay and serve as a food source. So those challenges are different but just as important to try and address on a day to day basis.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is it harder because the problem is not as evident as it once was? Because we don't see open, we don't see sewage floating down the river or the waters look clean, so they must be clean.

Sean Mahoney:

I think that's exactly it. Right. Most of the pollution, water pollution that we've had in the past would come from what are called point sources, pipes. So you could go and you could watch the pipe in by the paper mill in Westbrook and you would see the junk falling out or you would see, you know, as you said, stuff floating in the water. You don't see that as much now. And so it's harder to grasp, I think as a, as a community, as a state, it's harder to grasp what the threats are. I always think of the, the old commercial with the Native American looking at all the litter and the tear coming down. I mean, that's in your face. You don't see that as much now. Right. But you still have these threats to the environment.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Another tricky thing, I would think is that we still need to have jobs for people. So one of the issues with the mill in Westbrook was that employed by a lot of people. So how do you negotiate that? And it's a small state and we all have to kind of live together and get along.

Sean Mahoney:

Yeah. And the mill in Westbrook still does employ a lot of people and hopefully it will continue to because those are good jobs that are hard to find today. You know, I think that there's. I feel very strongly, having come from the private sector and now in the nonprofit sector, that the supposed conflict between environment and economy doesn't really exist. I think that, you know, industrial facilities like paper mills or the like are, some of them, are our best environmental stewards and have deserve a lot of credit for cleaning up their operations, for using innovative pollution control technology and the like. And I think that there's a huge amount of money to be made in looking at how do we move forward in certain areas, like energy. You know, there are, there is a huge new world of how we're going to generate electricity, how we're going to power our cars. And the innovation that's happening in Maine and across the region is going to lead to a lot of jobs. I know this week is the Innovation in Entrepreneurial Week, or forget the title of it, but it's great because You've got all these people coming in, not just in the energy markets, but all over that are looking at new technologies, new ways of, of using Maine's natural resources, which include not just our traditional natural resources like timber or fish or the like, but also Mainer's and Mainer's own ingenuity as well as our energy natural resources. We have a lot of wind, we have a lot of solar, we have, you know, huge potential to generate economic gains while also making environmental gains. So it is a balance. I think one of the things that I pride myself on with respect to the Conservation Law foundation is we take into account what the costs are associated with environmental compliance and with getting cleaner water, cleaner air, and try and factor that into what we call for in our advocacy, both in the courts as well as in the legislature.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's an important point because I know in medicine we often feel as if there are unfunded mandates that are sent down. So there's something that is a really great idea and ultimately it's going to do good for the public health, but it's expensive to implement and there's often a feeling that there's, it's very punitive in nature.

Sean Mahoney:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I can't imagine that that would go over well if you're trying to help people understand the importance of conservation, sustainability, renewable resources, to go in there with that type of approach.

Sean Mahoney:

Right. It's. Yeah. And you have to understand that people are running a business and they want to keep the business open and that kind of business is critical to a community. And so there is, I think there is a path that allows for businesses and communities to thrive while also doing the right thing when it comes to addressing what the impacts are on the community, on the community's health and well being as well as on the natural resources.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are some of the big issues that you've been working on recently with the Conservation Law Foundation?

Sean Mahoney:

Well, we spend a lot of time on climate change from our, it's a little bit like nine degrees of separation. Everything we think, everything relates to climate change as we go forward, it is going to have such a dramatic impact on not just our lives, but on our children's lives and their kids lives. You know, we are, we already know that we're going to have a climate or temperature rise of, you know, 2 to 4 or 5 degrees Celsius on average. We already have much more severe storms. Phoenix, Arizona has got 117 degrees today. I mean, the way the weather and climate shapes our lives is going to change dramatically. So what do we do about that? I mean, part of it is we need to address the root cause of. And the root cause of that largely comes from our use of carbon. You know, we basically as a society have been burning different forms of dirt for energy for the last century, oil and coal primarily. And that has had a profound effect on our environment. We're moving away from that slowly but surely. And to get there, we are really focusing on what is the path that allows us to do it in a way that is practical, but also that will meet the goals that we've set as a state, as a country and as a, as a world to reduce our emissions by 2050. So we work in a number of different ways. We love to say yes to things. Many times lawyers and environmentalists get blamed for just saying no to things. I don't want this, I don't want that. We like to say yes as often as we can. So we want to support new forms of energy, whether it's solar or land based, wind or offshore wind. And there are always going to be some issues with that. Where do you put them, what impacts are they having on people and the like. But as long as they're properly cited, we think that those are things that we want to support. There are also a huge potential for economic improvement. We were really disappointed that, for example, this last session we worked hard on trying to get some changes made to how we, how we pay for solar energy. And unfortunately the governor vetoed the bill and enough of the Republicans in the House supported the veto so that we weren't able to make a change. We think that change would have been good for the solar industry, for consumers. We had a great coalition. We had the utilities, we had the office of the Public Advocate, we had businesses, we had farmers, environmentalists. You never see all these people in the same room. And the governor still brought out the veto pen. That was disappointing. But we're going to work, we're going to continue to work for those things. We do say no to things sometimes. The state, the governor wanted to invest $75 million a year of electric customers money in a natural gas pipeline. And we just didn't think that, that investing in natural gas was the way to go. It wasn't a good deal for Mainers, it wasn't a good deal for the environment. So we do. You know, that's some of the climate change work that we're doing. That was a long answer. Sorry.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

No, it's interesting and it makes me think of my last question for you and that is you and I both have children who are college age and high school age. And this is essentially what we're working for now is something that's really is going to manifest itself in their actual world as they continue to become adults. What is it that you hope to see for your children and what is it that you're working for personally and professionally to have happen?

Sean Mahoney:

It's a great question which is always the best stall answer, isn't it? I think that the piece that I want my kids to have is a sense that they've got some control, they can have some impact on their environment, on the issues that they care about. Right now, Washington D.C. is so broken that trying to get new policy out of Washington D.C. even old policy that was agreed to 10 or 15 years ago can't get agreed to today. You know, Senator King was just saying, you know, it's like it's an echo chamber down there and it's broken. I think that there is real opportunity to have impact in your local community and even in the state of Maine because of its size, that they can really get involved and follow their passion. My daughter is very passionate about the farm and food connection to the environment, which is we have a program at the Conservation Law foundation on farm and food and provide legal services to farmers and food entrepreneurs using a lot of the Maine legal community. It's really a great program that we started here in Maine and, and that is replicable elsewhere. And it's something that you can have a real impact on and it connects to the bigger issue where you get your food, how far that food travels in a truck or a plane, how much we continue to make use of our land to grow food instead of houses is really important. I know that you said you kind of, you've got farming and your family and I think you can appreciate that. So to the extent that they don't feel overwhelmed, and I think that happens with a lot of people. You know, climate change is this big thing and on a beautiful Maine day like today, it's hard to imagine that, you know, we've got this real issue with climate change. I mean, who's going to complain about a 75 degree June day, especially when you're sitting in February and living with, you know, six hours of light a day. So to have some sense of control and that, you know, innovation on a local level can really have an impact on a larger level. And you know, at clf, that's what we think. We think that, you know, we've got a footprint in each of the New England states, and we focus on the issues that are important each of the states. But we also like to think that what we do in the state is replicable in other states and in the rest of the country and it can set an example. You know Maine's motto is dirigo, right? I lead. You know, Maine can be a leader again on the environmental front. That's what we hope.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been speaking with Sean Mahoney, who serves as the Executive Vice President, Director of Program and Director of the Conservation Law Foundation's Advocacy Center. It's really been a pleasure to have this conversation with you and I really appreciate the work that you do and the time that you've taken to come in and talk with me today.

Sean Mahoney:

Great. Thanks very much. I've really enjoyed it as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

an individual who I think serves to remind me that the world is actually pretty small. Someone that I was connected to through the Harvard Extension School, actually by an individual that teaches there, a physician who does public health work. This is Barton Siever, who is on a mission to restore our relationship with the ocean, the land, and with each other through dinner. Barton is a firm believer that human health depends upon the health of the ocean and that the best way to connect the two is at the dinner table. Highlights of his culinary career include Three Rising Culinary Star Awards, twice earning Best New Restaurant awards, and being honored in 2009 by Esquire magazine as Chef of the Year. Since leaving the restaurant world, Barton has become involved with a number of local and international initiatives. In 2012, he was named by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the United States Culinary Ambassador Corps. He uses this designation to curate international conversations on sustainability and the role of food in resource management and public health. He is the Director of the Sustainable Seafood and Health Initiative at the center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. chan School of Public Health. An internationally recognized speaker, Barton has delivered lectures, seminars and demos to a multitude of audiences. His 2010 Mission Blue Voyage Ted talk entitled Sustainable Seafood Let's Get Smart garnered over 400,000 views. Barton currently resides in coastal Maine, a stone's throw away from a working waterfront, with his wife and their 10 heritage chickens. Impressive. And thanks for coming.

Barton Seaver:

Well, thanks A real pleasure to have Real pleasure to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I don't know what a heritage chicken is. Is that just a chicken that just has deep roots in the community or is this like a special sort of.

Barton Seaver:

Our chickens all look like punk dinosaurs. Yeah, they just have feathers coming out of the top of their head or they look like they're wearing disco pants or just of such beautiful coloration, which makes them fun to be around and fun to look at, but inefficient as egg layers. And so they are a. They are a lifestyle addition rather than really a part of our farm.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I see. So they're not really contributing significantly to the food economy per se.

Sean Mahoney:

No.

Barton Seaver:

Well, we actually don't like eggs very much. Oh, good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Good for them anyway.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Right.

Barton Seaver:

But my garden does like what chickens produce, so in addition to eggs. Very much. So that is really why we have them. There is for constant compost.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I like that. Compost is a favorite theme of mine. So I feel like I'd get along really well with your disco heritage chickens. Maybe someday I'll like have to visit and see what these. These punk rock hairdos and pants and. And things are all about.

Barton Seaver:

Yeah, they're pretty cool looking things.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's excellent. So I'm interested in how you ended up in Maine. You've got so much going on in so many different places nationally, internationally. Why South Freeport?

Barton Seaver:

Well, my wife is originally from Bangor and her father before her from the county. And this was a long intended move to get her back to her home state. And it also is something that I've long been working towards in my own career, starting in restaurants. I think we well understand as chefs that it's our responsibility to sustain and support the people who walk through our front door, who pay our salaries. But we also, I realized, having a responsibility to sustain and support the people that walk through our back door, the producers. And my culinary career, and thus everything after my entire career trajectory has been around sustaining communities of producers and specifically of marine producers. And the opportunity to come here to Maine, to live on a working waterfront within the very community that I've long dedicated myself to helping sustain, is a real honor. It's a pleasure. It's. To me, sustainability, the ultimate act of sustainability can be described simply as being a good neighbor. And to do so, one must embed in the community. And this is just. It's a nice. It's a nice sort of departure and opportunity for me to focus, as I have so many things happening in so many countries, in so many places, and it may seem very scattered and sort of spur of the moment, but everything I do is very strategic. And having a core, having a center place to call home in a community where I really feel I belong, is the strength and foundation from which I'm able to do all these things.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Where did you grow up?

Barton Seaver:

I grew up in the opposite of Maine, which was downtown Washington, D.C. during the height of the crack epidemic in Marionberry's era with when we were back when we were, unfortunately, the murder capital of the world. It was. I have wonderful memories of my childhood in a very unpleasant place and that, you know, I've lived all over the world and from Marrakech to Barcelona to Chicago, New York, France, Italy. Just. I've traveled the world enough with National Geographic when I was an explorer to know that all of those experiences have led me to be quite sure of where I want to be now and why.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Food. With all of this other stuff you have going on as an explorer, why is it that food became your focus?

Barton Seaver:

People are, I think, very hesitant and cautious about really listening to other people. I think we're very closed in our lives. We don't often know or practice how to find wisdom in the world, how to find relationships in the world and really draw from them. Inspiration, knowledge, wisdom, and how to give back. But food is a fluency that everyone has. You never know someone as well as you do until you break bread with them. And coming from the chef world, quickly understood the power of food for convening and for sort of disarming people. And that is specifically the sort of. The nadir of my work now is even though I'm working On global greenhouse gas emissions, though I'm working in public health impacts, though I'm working in marine economies and the preservation of cultural heritage. All of this, all of these very disparate seeming conversations are all linked together. And food is oftentimes the most common avenue.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I watched your TED talk and I was interested in this idea of restorative versus just simply sustainable seafood.

Barton Seaver:

Yes, talk to me about that. You know, sustainable. God, what an unsexy idea. Just maintain the status quo and sure, that's a great place to be. Don't get me wrong, I'll take sustainable because oftentimes we're heading the wrong direction. But, you know, when it comes to sustainable seafood or sustainable agriculture, sustainable energy, whatever the conversation is, there's a big ask inherent in that. I'm asking you to change your behaviors, change your lifestyle, make sacrifices, oftentimes spend more money, move outside of your comfort zone. And what's the reward for doing all that? Don't worry, everything will stay the same. Well, that's not really inspiring. You think back to the days of Bell Laboratories or the space race, when every last little invention was this major step forward and there was this reward of pride and nationalism. How come we can't encourage people with this great carrot of restoration and it's not just restoring the health of ecosystems. You know, I don't approach environmentalism in the traditional way. The tragedy of the commons, you know, bad human, bad, you're in Eden and it's your fault. I look at it as very positive, you know, if, hey, if we have the power to destroy ecosystems and make ourselves sick through the food systems we create, fabulous, that's great news. Because that means equally that we have the power to heal and to restore. And so restorative to me means creating resilient economic systems in which a daughter can follow in her daddy's bootstraps onto the lobster boat. It means an economic system in which neighbors are thriving. It means public health outcomes that are consistently improving. And all of this is the measure of an enduring, thriving human community, which is wholly predicated on a resilient and healthy ecosystem. So it's, it's really looking at the. Taking this, this idea of reward, taking this idea of growth and of betterment, and applying it to ourselves so that the environment might gain as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the things that you brought up as a possibility. Possibility is that we maybe eat less. That if we're going to have a lovely piece of fish, that maybe we parcel it out a little bit, we eat a little bit less of that we don't need as much protein as everybody says that we need. Let's have some more fruits and vegetables. And that's fascinating, that idea that maybe just being mindful about our over consumption of lots of different things, including protein, maybe that is contributing in some ways to the overfishing of certain populations.

Barton Seaver:

Well, I think in a lot, and I think this applies to a lot of different scenarios, that too often we place the full burden of sustainability on the producer that you, the farmer, you, the fisherman. It is your responsibility and yours alone to make available to me sustainable products. But that shirks and completely abdicates our own responsibility as consumers, which I think we have equal burden to bear. Not only must we produce sustainably and hold accountable producers, but when they produce sustainably, we must reward them and support them. But then we have a responsibility to use those products sustainably. We can sustainably farm shrimp. I talk about this in that TED talk. We can sustainably farm shrimp, but in all you can eat shrimp buffet is inherently and never will be sustainable. It's simply just more than we need. But I think it also goes beyond this just in terms of eating less, but also diversifying for too long. Just a couple of facts and figures. In America, we eat 14.6 pounds of seafood per person per year. 95% of that is only 10 species, 65% is only three species, shrimp, tuna and salmon. So if our relationship with the ocean and thereby with fishermen and their economy is predicated on the notion of, let me tell you what I'm willing to eat for dinner, rather than asking of the oceans and fishermen what they're able and willing to supply, we've created this very irrational economy in which we only eat what we want and we discard the rest. And even though everything that comes from the ocean is equally profitable to the body for the purpose of sustaining ourselves, but we're not transferring that value back to the fishermen and allowing them to thrive. And so I a lot of times focus on the opportunities we have as consumers to make very simple choices that have positive outcomes with our own health, with our budgets, and honestly, with our enjoyment too. A diverse meal full of fruits, greens, grains, nuts, vegetables, and small amount of protein, whatever it may be, is far more interesting through its diversity. So these are all wins. It's just piecing them together in a narrative that whoever I'm talking to gets it. Because it's not about me telling you what to do. It's about providing a context for your own passions to be ignited, your own interests to find opportunity to act upon.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the issues that I think sometimes people run across is that the types of species that you are discussing, that's what's there. So if you go to a restaurant, they will have shrimp, they will have salmon, or if you go to the grocery store, your recognizable species are those things. So how do we get more of the, what I've been told are under loved and sometimes the ugly fish? How do you get those types of things into the restaurants or into the supermarkets or into the fish markets where people can buy them?

Barton Seaver:

You simply just have to ask for them. Business is not going to bring in a highly perishable item on the hopes that it might sell. You have to ask for it. You have to create this, the specter of demand by which a company sees opportunity, by which they feel somewhat of that, you know, that their risk is somewhat mitigated. But then there are also just incredible programs. And what Gen Levin is doing down at Gulf Maine Research Institute, you know, what Don Perkins is doing down there with their, you know, Gulf of Maine species that Hannafords and restaurants all over the under loved species such as dogfish and scup and whiting and mackerel, these are available to us. And I think now we're still in a phase where we need to seek them out a little bit. But if you see it at Hannafords, I think all we have to do is seek out just a little bit of an information. And they've also done such a great job of educating around that so that there is a dialogue. It's not just sitting there waiting for you to come to it. You know, if you put, if you look at a menu and it's got swordfish, scallops, shrimp, tuna and salmon on it and brotula, guess what's not selling tonight? You know, well, what's brotula? You have to sell it. You have to sell the story. And that's what GMRI does so well. And that's what I think Mainers also understand so well is they understand the impact. They understand that connectivity in the way that farmers markets have allowed us to understand the connectivity, see the dirt underneath the farmer's fingernails and feel the sort of the passion of the agrarian hero which we so venerate. And it is that sense of connection, it's that storied seafood that really begins to make us interested and comfortable with these new species and begin to ask for them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When you go to the farmer's market, sometimes the things that are more readily available and maybe they're the heritage type Items, sometimes they're not the prettiest. Sometimes you're getting the ugly tomatoes, you're getting the ugly root vegetables. And isn't there also a re education around what something looks like and how one can create a beautiful plate even. Even with an ugly type of item? And also an education around how long you have to use something? Because sometimes I think we're throwing things out before we really need to.

Barton Seaver:

Yeah, we certainly. Food waste is one of the just the easiest ways to tackle our impact on the environment and gain so much in return in terms of money back. I mean, the facts and the figures are just astounding at how much food we waste. And just our food waste in this country alone is equal to the greenhouse gas emissions of nations, just the amount of food that we throw out. So yeah, I mean, that's just one thing right there. And that I think encourages us to shop more smartly. Is that the best way to say that? But also more often, I think to create a better relationship with food. If food is only something. Yeah, I have to go do the grocery shopping. It's Sunday afternoon. You know, I don't want to do this, but I gotta fill up the fridge for the week. Food is then only a convenience. It's only something that you have to do rather than something you're really relating to. And yes, it is a pain in the butt to go more often. It does take time. But you're also rewarded with foods with meals that are fun or creative, actually spark something in your brain and they bring your family together and actually give you something at the end of the day, palpable, tangible, that you've created and are proud of. There's a lot of value in that. And when it comes to ugly fruits or ugly vegetables, I mean, I've never had a tomato sauce ever that I've looked at and said, oh, well, that was made out of ugly tomatoes. You know, cut up your parsnips or your turnips or whatever and roast them off and serve them with an anchovy vinaigrette with whole grain mustard and red wine vinegar and slug of olive oil in it. There's far more on this plate to distract me than to entice me, than the notion that this might not have been perfectly cylindrical in a conical form. I'm not sure exactly when we began to believe that perfection was all that we deserved and nothing less in terms of fruits and vegetables. And it gets that same idea of the seafoods, the under loved seafoods, that when did we begin to feel as though we deserve to have salmon all the time and shrimp all the time, even though dogfish might be what we should be eating. And that's, again, this is not bad, human bad. This is not judging, but rather this is really just saying, you know, we all live under this burden of anxiety of whether we live in a world that's managed for abundance or one that's managed for scarcity. And everyone deals with that in their own way and that affects them somehow. And what I try and espouse is that we have great opportunities to take control of that narrative in health. Tasty, delicious, communal ways.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I came to know of you through looking into a Harvard course and there was a, there's a doctor who teaches public health. And I've, I have a background in public health. So I was thinking, oh, maybe I'll take this. I've been doing public health for a while now. I want to kind of get updated. And when you and I were talking, you said, yeah, there's a lot of really great new data that's out there that's supporting the things that we have been talking about for a long time. And that's very exciting because instead of just saying you should do this because it's the right thing to do, now we can say, here are some numbers for you and some scientific backing. How has that been helpful to you as you've been trying to espouse, as you say, a more thoughtful way of living?

Barton Seaver:

Well, we care about what we can measure and I think it does matter that there is some empirical fact based learning behind this. But as we, as we evolve our thinking about the environment, we need to understand what those impacts are and we need to understand that climate change is a threat to our health. And when we have the papers, when we have the knowledge that says, okay, well here are the impacts, then we can make rational choices, and I think then we can really begin a learning process that is both efficient, that we can incorporate easily into our lives, because we're not seeking out some sort of mystical answer. You know, just public health being this sort of wild idea that you can't really quite nail down what it is. It's really opened the door for us to have a more consistent dialogue and to really answer the question of what are the problems that we are trying to solve and what are the outcomes of that. And I think all too often in public health, in environmentalism, the program or the idea is so obvious that it sort of begs us to not ask a question of, well, what are we using this campaign to accomplish. A great example of this is recycling. Reduce, reuse, recycle, legislated into municipalities everywhere. I mean, this is the law, and this is hardwired into the brains of millennials. And I mean, this is fabulous. And yet, in the 50 or so years since recycling has really become a social and then legislative movement, the amount of recyclable goods flowing into our marketplace has increased export exponentially to the point where we are now a disposable goods, recyclable goods economy. We prefer them. So we've been so busy reducing, reusing, and recycling that we forgot to refuse. And in this way, I think oftentimes campaigns, messaging, eat your vegetables, whatever it is, can end up being used as a conflict bias that allows us to continue on in the very behaviors that have sort of proliferated the problem. And now with, with the science coming out around the impacts of public health, the impacts on public health of our environment, we are finally able to think about it. In what is really a very simple geometric theorem. Humans can be no healthier than the foods we eat. The foods we eat can be no healthier than the environment they come from. If A equals B and B equals C, we can be no healthier than our environment. And just being able to prove that theorem right there is such a powerful step forward that we didn't have before.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

For people who have been listening to our conversation, what is one thing that you could say, try incorporating this today and it will make an impact.

Barton Seaver:

I think back to the portion size issue. You know, just with our protein, we have such a center of the plate mentality. When we go out to dinner, we order the steak and it's 8 ounces minimum. Their bodies simply don't need that and literally don't have the carrying capacity for it. And we end up, you know, getting rid of most of that.

Sean Mahoney:

And

Barton Seaver:

not only, I think, as I said earlier, do we enjoy greater diversity of textures, tastes, colors, flavors. I mean, all the things that make eating fun. But also our impact on ecosystems drops dramatically. And one step further than that, simply eat more seafood. Eat more seafood. The three S's of public health. It's this simple. Wear your seatbelt, don't smoke, and eat seafood.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We will be providing links to your information so people can learn more about the work that you're doing. I really appreciate your coming in and having this conversation with me today. It's been fun.

Barton Seaver:

Thanks. Appreciate the opportunity.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to Love Maine Radio Show Number 257, Maine Conservation and Restorative Seafood. Our guests have included Sean Mahoney and Barton Seaver. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E Newsletter and like our LoveMain Radio Facebook page, follow me on Twitter as DRLISA and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Maine Conservation and Restorative Seafood Show. Thank you for allowing me to be

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

a part of your day.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

May you have a bountiful life.

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Sean Mahoney:

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