narrator: on this episode of "earth focus," how can we manage, protect, and nourish our natural resources wheting the growing global demand for food? a model of local control along the coast of madagascar provide a blueprint for ocean sustainability and community building, while in san diego, scalability is the goal as researchers work to build the first open-ocean fish farm in the united states. [film advance clicking] :

ma madagascar, we have more than 5,000 kilometers of coast, and a lot of fishermen ermmunities. it's forbidden to fish sea cucuith dive materials to preserve the species. but there are many foreign investors that came here that pay the young malagasy people to fish sea cucumber with a bottle of gas, etc.

the chinese came here and, as usual, they tried to offer infrastructures ke roads, and as a counterpart, they want to be authorized to exploit natural resou. there is a very huge upsurge of these practices now, and it's a big threat to the natural resources, to their sustainability, and the environment in general. [man speaking nativuage] at

day: we believe ish stocks are declining for multiple reasons, one of them being access to international

markets. a lot of people in euro, a lot of people in asi enjoy to eat seafood which exists here. the population is growing in madagascar. there's los of migration pressure well. people from the inland come to the ocean becausehey want access to resources on the coast here. people know that their fisheries are in trouble but they have other option but to fish. there is not enough governance surrounding the fisheries, so, all thoserl factors inteink, result in a decline in the resource. [man speaking native langge]

[man speaking native language]

[badouraly speaking native language] mb [ratafy speaking native language]

[badouraly speakingng native lauage] [applause]

day: lmma's now in magascar. we have over 100. so, this isbe g really thought of as a low-cost and efficient solution to managinne resources because all over the world, the oceans are overfished. l-scale fishers have very, very few rights. they have the same problems. [ratsimbazafy speaking native language]

[badouraly speaking native language] >> [shouts in native language] [rasolonaina shouts in native language] [indistinct cation]

day: so, the sea cucumber project, we're working in partnership with a local collector that also produces juveniles. so, they sell juvenile sea cucumbers to farmers. they look after them and then sell them back. day: they lease a pen and ey have a series of different rights and obligations. [siren] [rasolonaina speaking native language] day: fm exists in the pens and once the juveniles

come to an adult size, they get taken away tbe sold, mostly for the asian market. [rasolonaina speakinge natnguage] nc [film adclicks] day: this is probably one of the most transformative activities for communities. so, just give you an idea, many people here will make about 120,000 ariari per month, and they will be making up to 400,000 now farming sea cucumber. [siren] [rasolonaina speaking native language]

[indistinct conversation] razakamanar hope this country will have the vision and the priorities to manage sustainably its natural resources. the visn for development to get rid of this corruption and to decentralize power and resources. [ratsimbazafy speaking native language]

[badouraly seaking native language] narrator: in madagascar, the villages of velondriake have found that local marine regulatn are pushing people towards a sustainable future of aquaculture, while in san diego, california, innovation is outpacing federal laws and threatening t local fishing culture.

[film advance clicks] [indistinct conversation] man: i grew up fishing. i made my first tuna trip when i was 9 years old. i'd get out of school early, you know, during the summers to go fishing with my dad, and then my son nick, he loved fishing since he was little, too. man 2: immediately when i was born, like, i knew. like, i didn't that i was ever gonna do anything else. i just

knew i was gonna be a fisherman. david: rinse him a little. i never even thought about third generation. just a couple of weeks ago, i said, "wait a second. we're third generation." you know, i didn't even think about that, and my granddaughter is doe working at the market. that's fourth generation. nick: our goal is to catch the bigeye tuna. the largest bigeye that we can catch is our goal.he davi's been fishing about a thousand miles out for tuna, and a lot of people say, "well, y do you fish a thousand miles?" we're not allow to fish within 200 miles of the beach, our regulations in the united states.ni ck: it's kind of a struggle sometimes. there's certain restrictions that, you know, really harm some fishermen. david: when we go fishing, like with this boat, we have an observer on the boat 100of the time, so they mark down everything we catch. we have certain size mono we have to use. whave to use a certain size hook. we're not allowed to use squid. you know, we're not allowed to use the best bait. we go through all these measures,

but these other countries don't. they're using filet mignon on the hooks, and we're using a hot dog. man: the u.s. is the largest importer of seafood in the urworld. we import 91% of seafood, and our primary source is china. it comes both at air large emental cost in terms of the carbon footprint, shipping fish halfway across the globe, and it comes at financial cost. the trade imbalance in seafood for the united states is $13 billion to $14 billion a year. nick: it seems like it would be a lot better for the american fishermen if we didn't import as much fish. david: in other countries, they gas the fish, or they actually, you know, dye the fish, basical you can't tell, you know, by the color or the

smell because it's, you know, been co2 gassed. it's a tough business for us. [film advance clicks] otn: good seafood's heap. cheap seafood's not good, andyo don't really have a lot of time. there's no such thing as a 60-day, dry-aged tuna, so you got to get it, get it off the boat, and get it out there and get it sved in restaurants. know your source is ge. we have no frequent flyer miles on our tuna. our fish is coming right o boat in san diego. we're the first stop from the dock. if it's getting flown in from fiji or around the world, t'we don't know wheres coming from. there's no trace and trust. trace and trust starts at the dock from the boat. you're offloading right to the fishmonger, ght to the box, and then where it goes. it's the foreign fleet. they have very little rul, very little regulations, no permits, no licenses. they're doinghi

ever wrong, and when the americans are doing everything right, yeah, it's very difficult for the american fisherman to compete with the foreign fish and treign pricing that comes into it. dn: when i was 16, i lear to scuba-dive. i just love being in the ocean, and then i saw an oportunity to become a sea urchin diver, so i learned to process sea urchins, first in my garage, so i then started diving the evening, and delivering to sushi bs. i had a couple tough years, but we learned to start buying local seafood. i started buying local lobsters and local swordfish and oth local fish, and i started buying out of baja california.i arted buying groupers and snappers and scallops out of baja california andiversified the business. [saw whirring] we buy directly from the boats.

we know who we're buyg from, and then we take care of the quality and get it to our different customer levels, whether it's a wholesaler in san francisco or whether it's a restaurant here in san ego or an individual who walks in the door. we'll bring the fish back here, and w'll grade the fish one by one, so each fish, we'll do a tail cut, a core sample. we'll grade the fish. uh, number one? this one's a little different. the tail is a little bit off color, but the core is nice,o i graded it a 2g with a two plus 4. we have ao limited amouwild fish we can take to keep the population sustainable, anyet we have a growing population in the world, so we need this seafood. there are more imports now. half the world's seafood s is being farmed. it's not happening in the u.s. it's happening in another country under probably less strenuous environmental conditions, andil mean we don't have it

happening in the u.s. because of all our regulations. schubel: aquaculture refers to growing seafood in water. the problem within freshwater, which is where most of it comes now, well, freshwater is going to be under serious pressure as we go farther into this century because of climate change, so we need to be looking to the ocean. we don't have a single fish farm anywhere in the united states in federal waters. at the present time, there are two applications for permits--one off san diego and one off long island, new york. in an area the size of lake michigan, we could produce an amountafood equivalent to the total global wild catch. [film advance clicks]

man: this facility was built toe grow le white sea bass to then release back out into the wild to replenish the wild stock. but what we realized over time is, if we put a million fish out in the ocean and we get 10% ofha them back,means we got 100,000 fish back out of a i million. ake a million fish and put them in a cage and grow them, get a million fish back out and put them on the table. our plan here is take everything we've learned how to do in growing theses specd demonstrate the technology, transfer the technology from the research level out to the commercial level, and to do that, we're a permit a farm to produce 5,000 tons of fish about 4 miles out to sea. now, mussels and oysters, we

know how to do that. we've done that for a long time, and we reasonably know how to grow fin fish, but're not growing it here. we're growing it in other parts of the world d then bringing it here. now we get back into the balance part of it again. does it really make sense for us to have our salmon coming from chile, being processed in china, and then flown into our market? does it make sense for us to have europe sea bass grown in gree and then brought into southern california? we had 16 canneries in southern california from los angeles too san did were 40,000 people in the tuna industry alone in san diego and in southern califoia, but now all there is is the corporate offices for those tun companies. the processing and the ships, the boats are all inp the westeific now. we've seen the seafood industry in southern calornia wane quite a bit from when i was a

kid, and at the same tim as i mentioned earlier, the world popula'n has tripled, so we' bringing in less seafood, even though the demand is going up and up, so we have this opportunity to grow fish in the waters off the coast in clean, clear water that's not polluted. it's not within a bay. it doesn't interfere with water skiers or kayakers or anybo else, but it'll be out in 200 feet of water in a quarter- to a half-knot current going by, which means that the water stays clean and the biomass of the fish has no impact on the environment, and yet we're still in very close proximity to the market, so the product when it's brought in is harvested and on the dock within a couple of hours after it's taken out of the cage, which means it's very fresh and ready to go to market. [film advance clicks] david: it's a hard thing

because, as a commercial fishermirst thing you say is, not a good thing because, you know, it'competition for us.t try to look at, you know, the whole picture. n mes: it's very difficult to say because, aserican fisherman, you take priden that. there's a tradition and a heritage, and you don't want to lose that. my family's been involved inishing here for over 130 years, so if you're gonna do aquaculture and yo're gonna hire commercial fishermen that are gonna be displaced and they're going to be able to work, i'm all for it, but if you're not gonna hire commercial fishermen, then i have to be against it because you' putting those guys out of work. rudie: there are good mariculture operations, and the are bad mariculture operations, you know. the good ones, they don't have the high densities, and they're able to keep their densities low and

control the type of food they have so they don't have problems with dise escape or parasites or all the problems that, let'say, the bad farms have. david: you have to be careful that it's nothere they put too many fish in and they have to feed--you know, give them antibiotics and all theseyo thingsknow, so if it's more of a natural thing and they're, like, getting local sardines or anchovies from us to feed them, i'm kind of in support of that. kent: it's really inhe environment's best interest for us to the open ocean, and when we say, "we'reot gonna do it here. we're gonna grow it in another country," we're just kind of saying, "we're not worried about the environmental issues as long w they're not here. gt any way you want, and we'll just bring it in," and that's not acceptable to me.

announcer: "earth focus" is made possible in part by the orange county community foundation and the farvue foundation. t t t)

[n t t t) arrator] they are vast expanses of serene, crystal clear waters as far as the eye can see. [aaron] it is an absolutely unique place. it's usually less th i six feet of water tha matrix of sand, seagrass, little corals and sponges that offers good foraging grounds for many different species [sarah] the fish are just going about their business. you juel see them in their owent, eating and cruising, and it's really neat to see. [narrator] these are th, a place where recreational anglers pursue the ongendary bonefish, taand permit. [justin] there's no other place i'd rather be fly fishing than on the flats. [andy] flats fishing is just a very romanticized,