Gone Fishin’: Australis Aquaculture CEO Josh Goldman

JoshGoldmanaquacultureMaking responsible choices as a seafood consumer has never been more complicated. An average fish-eater might be aware that tuna is high in mercury, or that Chilean sea bass is over-fished, but even the most devoted environmentalists usually have to refer to their pocket Seafood Watch guide when perusing the fish counter at their local grocery store to make sure they’re choosing something that is a) sustainable, b) not filled with toxins, and c) something they know how to cook.

One of the developments in the 21st Century seafood industry, for better or for worse, is the growing market share that farmed fish represents. But are farmed fish sustainable? What makes one farmed fish a more responsible choice than another, or than a wild caught fish? Our guest today on Sea Change Radio is Josh Goldman, the CEO of Australis Aquaculture, the world’s largest producer of Barramundi, or what the company calls “sustainable sea bass.” Goldman walks us through innovations in aquaculture and tells us everything we’ve always wondered about fish farming – from why there aren’t any tuna farms to whether the all-powerful Japanese seafood industry is finally coming around to more responsible production practices.

To close the show, Sea Change Radio host Alex Wise reads an excerpt from Yale Environment 360 about the ongoing struggle to transform the Japanese seafood industry.