Commercial fisherman and Board President of the North American Marine Alliance Jason Jarvis mentioned that the legislation would impact communities losing access to fisheries.
“If the MARA Act passes, the only real ‘experiment’ will be on the communities that will lose access to their fisheries, the nearby marine life exposed to filth and fish viruses, the consumers who eat these farmed products and, sadly, the farmed fish themselves,” Jarvis said.
Program Manager at Inland Ocean Coalition Mia Glover commented that healthy ocean ecosystems sustain biodiversity and support food webs. “We all depend on healthy ocean ecosystems because they produce much of the oxygen we breathe, sustain immense biodiversity, and support food webs that feed billions of people worldwide,” Glover stated.
Don’t Cage Our Oceans, a coalition including seafood businesses and conservation groups, indicated that it supports community-based seafood farming like seaweed and bivalve aquaculture. However, the coalition opposes the industrial model which it compared to “factory farms on land”.
