Safeguarding Big Blue: Learn About Our Oceans May 11, 2012

Edmonds Community College’s Learn and Serve Environmental Anthropology Field (LEAF) School and the Mangrove Action Project will sponsor an event focused on sustainable oceans “Safeguarding Big Blue,” 7-9 p.m., May 11 at the Edmonds Conference Center, 201 Fourth Ave N. Edmonds. For more information, call 425.640.1125 or email erin.ryan@edcc.edu.

The event features speakers Captain Charles Moore author of "Plastic Ocean," speaking about the about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and tsunami debris that is beginning to reach our shores. Alfredo Quarto of Mangrove Action Project and Anne Mosness, organizers of Bluefestival, discuss how production of farmed seafoods changes coastal ecosystems, economies and communities.

Quarto, who has been working for more than 20 years to oppose the destructive expansion of shrimp farming along mangrove coastlines urges the public to "Question Your Shrimp," and to greatly reduce consumption of imported shrimp. Mosness, long time wild fish advocate, said she is concerned that policies, "generally under the radar screen, could lead to expansion of marine fish farms in our state and nation’s waters, approval of genetically engineered fish, even certification of farmed fish as 'organic'."

Organizations will also present information about the health and sustainability of the local marine environment.