Hello, please let me know if you can get this done well by the deadline.
You are L. Rozay, an executive at Ragnar Lothbrook Fisheries (LBF). LBF is North America’s leading commercial Fishery, the industry leader in raising, housing, and harvesting fish, and the world’s first organic fish farming company. You are tasked with determining the future direction of your company, as LBF is trying to further entrench its market domination in the highly lucrative fish farming and aquaculture industry. LBF is a pioneering force in fisheries, building its empire on its methods of fishing, classes of boats, and industry leading innovation. You are to write a brief to help guide the board’s decision on the extent that, all things considered, LBF should pursue expanding global production and distribution of its Fish stock, Fisheries, and canning and distribution centres.
Ragnar Lothbrook Fisheries: The Good:
LBF, headquartered in Canada, is the commercial fishing industry’s largest multi-national corporation. A fishery is an entity that farms and harvests fish, which are then sold to the market based on tonnage, with market forces setting the price. A fishery will capture wild fish, or ‘fish farm’ which is when a fishery raises and harvests its own fish. LBF also farms aquatic1 organisms such as crustaceans, mollusks, and aquatic plants, and owns most of the world’s oyster farms. LBF’s burgeoning organic fish farming produces fish that are monitored, controlled, and ‘prevented’ from exposure to synthetic toxic chemicals and radionuclides.
LBF provides 38% of North America’s stocks of salmon, trout, and tuna, and provides over 43% of North America’s lobster, and shrimp. LBF was the first fishery to buttress its stocks of salmon, tuna, and trout (the 3 most popular types of fish in North America) with aqua farming, and their pioneering innovation into aquatic farming created methods to control the quantity, quality and output of North America’s preferred fish, while simultaneously manipulating consumer preferences.
LBF came to dominate commercial fishing in the late 1960’s. LBF is Canada’s oldest fishery (founded in 1872). Until the 1940’s, LBF was recognized as a small Canadian company, operating in international commercial fishing. In the late 1930’s, LBF began to invest heavily in research and development, and created innovative seine fishing nets (dragnets) that far surpassed the quality and durability of other dragnets available. LBF dragnets were easier to deploy, and through a patented, innovative, micro-fibre thread system, LBF was able to create dragnets that could connect to another dragnet upon first contact. This expanded the number of dragnets a person or fishing vessel could utilize at once, thereby vastly increasing the range in which dragnets could be employed. Essentially, LBF dragnets only require that they come in contact to another dragnet, where their patented micro fibres then enmeshed with each other. Thus, a person fishing, or a fishing vessel, only need to ensure that their disparate nets will come in contact at some point, after having been deployed into water, to enmesh themselves, which leads to dragnets that are considerably larger than the competition. LBF’s competition continue to be restricted by dragnets that cannot connect to one another, and dragnets that can only be deployed in the area directly connected to the boat that is employing the dragnet or the person fishing who is employing the dragnet. LBF commercial fishing boats are thus able to consistently deploy dragnets that cover more area that their competition is able to cover, with the resulting dominance in their fish catches and stocks. By the late 1970’s, LBF dragnets were the industry standard, and LBF accounted for nearly 20% of North America’s fish stocks.
LBF’s second most important maneuver was their decision to emphasize food preservation throughout their process. LBF fisheries bought sizeable portions of shore lands in and around the Pacific Ocean, and all of the coastal regions of North America. Years later, LBF began investing heavily in canning and preserving their daily fish stocks in factories directly along shorelines, significantly reducing the time between harvesting the day’s catch and the catch ending up on the consumer’s plate. This has allowed LBF to set the industry standard for freshness and speed of delivery of fresh, or canned, fish, lobster, oysters, and shrimp. LBF’s close proximity to shore lands, and acute awareness of market trends, allowed the company to both dictate consumer preference, and quickly respond to market trends. LBF significant investment in aquaculture also allows the company to quickly shift their stocks of fish based on current consumer preferences.
Ragnar Lothbrook Fisheries: Economic Implications:
LBF is one of Canada’s principal employers. LBF has fisheries all along the coastlines of North America, and has stretched commercial fishing into the Pacific Ocean. LBF has a presence in areas around the world which produce the bulk of the world’s supply of specific fish; LBF essentially controls salmon fishing in Alaska, cod fishing in the Lofoten Islands, and tuna in the Eastern Pacific. The majority of these fisheries are either owned by LBF, and those that are not owned by LBF rely heavily on LBF dragnets.
LBF is Canada’s single largest employer (over 275,000 Canadians), and the single largest employer of individuals from otherwise marginalized communities. LBF supports communities that are in close proximity to their fisheries and canning facilities, along coastlines and shorelines. In truth, LBF’s production and canning sites are a boon to local communities, and stimulate economic growth for those regions, and Canada, overall. In areas already near production sites, the nearby communities enjoy great economic stimulation, as industry to cater to LBF springs up to meet the sustained demand. LBF gives priority to local subsistence fishing communities when building and staffing canning and production sites, and contributes directly to improving the fortunes of these communities. LBF touts the fact that the company has not hesitated to invest in remote, otherwise communities that were, until then, marked by isolation, and deprivation. In these coastline/shoreline communities/regions, before LBF builds their production/canning sites, they make significant contributions to the region’s infrastructure, and routinely built schools, roadways, hospitals, research centres, and in 1 example, a university. LBF holds that “a strong surrounding community is in Ragnar Lothbrook’s best interest.”2
LBF holds it their “social responsibility [to] train and hire employees from local and neighbouring communities, and compensate them at a rate that allows us to recruit and retain the best talent in the industry.”3 LBF’s first production site was built in the early 1960’s in Fort Ellringtona, on the westernmost coast of British Columbia. Before LBF’s arrival in the early 60’s, the region surrounding Fort Ellringtona had the country’s highest unemployment rate and lowest high school graduation rate. Now, Fort Ellringtona is a bustling Canadian metropolis, with the world’s first Aquaculture Institute of Innovation and Technology (AIIT).
All told, LBF employs hundreds of thousands of workers worldwide, as a sizable portion of the world’s commercial fishing occurs in LBF facilities. Fishing vessels, owned and operated by LBF, account for almost 2/3rds of North America’s fish stocks. Furthermore, LBF also employs tens of thousands of factory workers worldwide at their canning and preservation factories, in areas directly accessible to LBF operated fishing vessels, and along coastlines and shorelines. LBF distribution centres, located further in-land, handle the packing and distribution of fish and aquaculture throughout the nearby region, and LBF distribution centres provide canned fish and aquaculture that is to be distributed around the world.
LBF routinely refers to their larger canning and production sites as campuses, and each campus has lavish production sites, and areas designated specifically for LBF’s industry leading dragnet innovation and R&D. It is from here that LBF shapes, guides, and makes lasting contributions to the international commercial fishing industry. QBC is the single largest employer of Aquaculturists, fishery scientists and fisheries management engineers in North America, and 33% of LBF’s workforce is geared towards commercial fishing innovation and R&D. Because commercial fishing research and innovation requires highly trained, technically skilled, and specialized employees, LBF has become the foremost leader in training some of the world’s most sought after employees, with LBF funding additional Ph.Ds. for their employees.
Ragnar Lothbrook Fisheries: Political Clout
LBF Fisheries, dragnets, and production/canning sites have established Canada as the international leader in commercial fishing; the Canadian government has partnered with LBF on many successful research ventures that have increased Canada’s profile as the international leader for commercial fishing, and fishery management.
LBF has always been an easy company for Canada’s federal government to support; at its heart, LBF remains Canada’s oldest fishery, and the principles that underlie Canada’s Fisheries Management and Protection Act, are the principles that necessitate Federal support of LBF. Over the last 50 years, the Canadian government, interested in environmental protection, and protecting the aquatic eco-system, has consistently provided federal funding for LBF’s burgeoning research. With each passing decade, as LBF has become a Crown Corporation, the Canadian government has continued to grant LBF autonomy and independence, under the idea that all of LBF’s progress in fisheries management, maintenance, and restoration, further establishes Canada as the international leader in Fisheries management. LBF has access to government resources, facilities, and researchers, and is able to make use of the collaborative possibilities that are a result of Canada’s place within the larger international fisheries network. The Canadian government has provided LBF with more grants and funding than any other Canadian organization, and LBF undoubtedly relies on the Federal government to help cover some of the costs associated with pursuing further research.
It was actually LBF funded AIIT scientists that first began noticing low biomass levels and reduced biological growth in waters that were heavily fished. LBF scientists then learned that low biomass growth was indicative of overfishing, and produced data that firmly established resource depletion and reduced biological growth as symptomatic of overfishing. Sustained overfishing can lead to critical dispensation, where the fish population is no longer able to sustain itself, which then upsets the entire marine biology eco-system. Low biomass levels, reduction of fish that eat snails that carry parasites, and massive growth of jellyfish (that compete with fish for food) also result from overfishing.4
In 1992, LBF sounded the international alarm on overfishing, after the collapse of cod fishery in Newfoundland. LBF researchers advised the government’s decision to impose an indefinite ban on fishing in the Grand Banks. In conjunction with LBF, the federal government imposed stringent regulations on the types of dragnets that could be used in commercial fishing in Canada, and imposed rules pertaining to the size and efficacy of dragnets that are produced in Canada, but used internationally (LBF dragnets are the industry standard, so 80% of dragnets used in the world are consistent with the Canadian governments specifications for dragnets, specifications tightly controlled and regulated by LBF).
LBF’s concern for overfishing was motivated by a mid-1980s report by the UN and the World Bank that the world’s fishing fleets were losing US$50 billion each year through depleted stocks and poor fisheries management. Aware that LBF’s fortunes were directly tied to healthy oceans, LBF then began investing heavily in researching ‘sustainable’ and organic fishing. It is through this research that the international community created standards for acceptable levels of fishing. Industrial commercial fisheries (the largest culprit in overfishing) were then forced to invest heavily in biological research in all areas where they operated, and international standards made it necessarily for industrial commercial fisheries to ensure that fish stocks that they are harvesting do not have negative marginal growth. In sum, industrial commercial fisheries have to prove that they do not fish in a manner that prevents replenishment of stock by breeding. Industrial commercial fisheries are now also required to conduct research into long term sustainable yields, and have this research structure their operations in a given region.
These rules, coupled with the new regulations regarding dragnets, eliminated much of LBF’s competition. There were few fisheries that had the resource backing, and government approval, to meet these new regulations, but the federal government made sure that it reflected LBF’s interests in these regulations, as upwards of 6.1% of Canada’s GDP is directly tied to LBF and the fishing industry. Canada is now recognized as the international leader in fisheries management, and Canadian dragnet standards are essentially international dragnet standards.
LBF now finds their interests consistently reflected in Canadian environmental and fisheries policy. In many cases, the Federal government defers to research produced by LBF funded institutions when implementing policy aimed at fisheries management. Federally funded research into fisheries management has LBF representation throughout, with several LBF executives and stakeholders on the board. Fisheries research is mandated by the Fisheries Protection Act, and gives federal and provincial oversight of Canadian fisheries and dragnets.
Ragnar Lothbrook Fisheries: Philanthropy:
LBF is the single largest contributor to worldwide aquatic research, recovery, restoration, and protection. LBF has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to water recovery efforts, habitat reconstruction projects, and is the company that spurred the idea behind ‘sustainable’ fishing.
LBF’s international philanthropic initiatives focus on clean water initiatives and supporting fish farmers in the developing world. LBF has donated over 1.8 billion dollars to clean water initiatives throughout the developing world. LBF is singlehandedly responsible for drilling wells, installing rudimentary plumbing, and providing fresh water to the world’s poorest people. Nationally, LBF has consistently appeared on Canadian lists of most charitable organizations, with donations towards marginalized communities throughout Canada. LBF invests heavily into the UN’s worldwide fish farming programme; roughly 500 million people in the developing world rely on subsistence fishing either directly or indirectly, and as a result, LBF provides heavily discounted, and subsidized, use of their dragnets and fishing vessels to developing countries, and requires simply that these governments allow for LBF to further invest in the country, and build production and canning facilities, and also ‘catch share.’5
LBF continues to fund AIIT, and has successfully hired all of the leading researchers in marine biology, and aquatic sustainability, and is now said to dictate international fisheries research. LBF is responsible for the ‘Sustainability Council,’ a UN sponsored panel on sustainability in fishing that contributes to international fisheries policy. In fact, LBF has lobbied the Canadian government to gain control of the fisheries and commercial fishing industry, and become their own industry watchdogs, as they claim that they have the most vested interest in “guiding the issues surrounding fisheries internationally, and nationally.”6
All told, LBF, since 1988, has not donated less than $100 million dollars a year to its various social initiatives.
Ragnar Lothbrook Fisheries: The Bad:
Speaking off the record (for fear of reprisal from LBF), fisheries researchers, industry insiders, government officials, and NGOs have all expressed concern with LBF’s refusal to acknowledge that it is not possible to solve the overfishing issue. It is widely understood that present and projected population levels make overfishing a continuing reality. These stakeholders claim that LBF’s conduct alone has stalled progress towards mitigation methods that can save selected fish stocks, and prevent the collapse of others altogether. LBF’s position is that they are the industry leader in fisheries research, and they therefore are in the best scientifically backed position to determine whether “overfishing is a necessary results of commercial fish production.”7
Furthermore, LBF resists calls for the industry to shift away from creating bigger and bigger dragnets. LBF argues that maintaining commercial fishing at current levels allows the company to generate immense profit, and fund their industry leading R&D into fishery management and fish stock restoration projects. Industry insiders, however, argue that LBF is simply trying to leverage their position of power over the international commercial fishing industry; to date, LBF has not even acknowledged a connection between their commercial fishing endeavours and overfishing. In fact, LBF disputes use of the term ‘overfishing’ in reference to any of its operations.
There are unconfirmed reports that LBF dragnets may actually exacerbate overfishing, and some LBF dragnets8 have been connected to the destruction of fish stocks in some highly sensitive ecological areas. The first reports that connected LBF to overfishing were met with legal action on the part of LBF; lawyers for LBF successfully argued that any discussion of their dragnets constituted a violation of their legally protected proprietary data and trade secrets. In the second instance, in the days leading up to the Fisheries Watchdog Organization (FWO) publishing an exploratory piece on LBF’s research into sustainability and overfishing, the Canadian government allowed LBF to take over the FWO’s research (under the auspices of their agreed upon settlement that LBF is best served to be their own industry watchdogs). This report was never released, and the Organization’s facilities were shuttered, with the CEO and board members of FWO all becoming high ranking officials at LBF at nearly double their previous salaries. LBF then produced an AIIT sponsored research paper that investigated dragnets and overfishing, and dismissed long-term negative impacts on sustainability.9
An equally important aspect of the FWO’s research that too was subsequently buried was their research in conjunction with oceana.ca, into Fish Fraud. This decades long research, a data driven comprehensive study of fish fraud, and mislabelled fish at markets, grocery stores, and restaurants, was the result of increased transparency demands from consumer advocacy groups. This research, which had reached early conclusions that 43% of fish sold in North America was improperly labelled, was “repurposed” and instead, LBF published an AIIT backed study that contained demonstrably false and factually incorrect statements about LBF’s operations.10 This study acknowledged Fish Fraud as an industry wide concern, and claimed LBF is the only fishery with 100% accuracy in labelling11 (which is statistically impossible), while pinning the entire 43% of mislabelled fish in the industry on every other fishery in operation (fisheries that pale in comparison to LBF operations and cannot therefore account for that much of the fish in the marketplace). As a result of what LBF terms “credibility for our industry” the company advocates tightening labelling restrictions and regulation in the industry, while exempting itself from these same rules.
There is also serious concern in the canning industry about Argsepherin-D (AS-D), a type of chemical that is released during LBF’s canning process. The scientists who are researching AS-D are LBF employees, and have signed confidentiality waivers that preclude them from reporting their findings to third parties. Their most recent findings have identified a rarely occurring cancer disproportionately appearing in a small, but statistically significant, number pf production plant workers in Canada and the US. LBF, however, have hired all of the leading environmental scientists in the field; most environmental advisory boards have not yet identified AS-D as a chemical compound, let alone a cancer causing agent, and for this reason it will be at least 20-30 years before this chemical is even identified as a concern requiring further investigation, and in that timeframe LBF will continue to billions of pounds of canned fish/aquaculture worldwide. Unreleased documents detail that LBF’s CEO became concerned when he heard of AS-D, and commissioned a secretive health and safety inspection, with the results only available to the board. While the results are not widely known, LBF has significantly improved the ventilation systems in 7% of their production plants, but this option is not widely available as the cost is said to be prohibitive. Employees are legally prohibited from discussing what LBF deems ‘workplace issues’ as LBF has also successfully legally defined these as proprietary data and trade secrets.
While LBF has not acknowledged that the production of its canned fish releases AS-D during the process, there is serious discussion about shifting canning facilities to regions of the developing world where LBF will invest billions of dollars in infrastructure, and create jobs in a highly competitive marketplace that does not apply the same harsh environmental and health standards that employment in the developed world requires. LBF’s trade agreements with countries that are to received subsidized dragnets and fishing vessels may force these countries to take on the majority of LBF’s international canning and distribution. Any agreement that allows LBF to offshore their canning facilities would create a significant number of jobs in economically starved regions, while allowing LBF the opportunity to work in countries with labour laws that are “better reflective of [LBF’s] interests.”12
LBF does not acknowledge publically or privately acknowledge (even to their employees) that they are making virtually zero progress in sustainable fishing.13 LBF dominates the entire commercial fishing industry, and as the industry benefits, LBF benefits. In truth, if overfishing were to truly lead to a reduction of supply of the world’s fish stock, LBF would still be able to leverage their control over that supply and manipulate the market to maintain immense profitability. There are signs that the company may seek to move moreso towards the East, and expand production into the North and South Atlantic Ocean. This plan is in conjunction with ideas for LBF to begin to incrementally scale back the effectiveness of the dragnets that they use in North America, while scaling back the effectiveness of the dragnets that they sell to their North American competition to a greater scale (it is the company’s best kept secret that LBF does not sell their competition14 their best dragnets. LBF’s best dragnets can capture up to 19% of the fish and aquatic organisms in a given area; while the company sells their competition dragnets that catch only 14.8% of the fish and aquatic organisms in a given area15), thus reducing the amount of fish that will be caught, and allowing North American waterways to replenish themselves (if they have not already reached critical dispensation). LBF will then wait a decade or so for these North American areas to replenish, and point towards this as evidence of advancements in sustainability (they will reduce how much of the fish stock they remove by simply using less efficient dragnets, but not actually altering their processes).
Partnerships in the developing world will provide LBF with access to their waterways, waterways that do not have stringent rules on replenish rates or regulations on the types of dragnets that can be used. LBF will then be able to access waterways in areas of the Atlantic ocean that are much more remote, allowing LBF to use their ‘experimental’ dragnets (dragnets that indiscriminately catch more than 21% of the aquaculture in a given region16 are internationally banned) away from the prying eyes of industry insiders, corporate watchdogs, and government regulators that would object to the use of dragnets that indisputably result in critical dispensation. There are reports that LBF’s ‘experimental’ dragnets were “connected to significant drops in plankton17 in areas where LBF dragnets were deployed.”18
Lastly, LBF’s ‘catch share’ program may actually be a program that simply allows LBF to overfish in coastal regions in the developing world, and export 98% of the catch back to the developed world, thereby overfishing someone else’s waters. While these countries will benefit immensely from LBF resources that can help local farmers, and their governments will be able to better fish their own waters, LBF will have access to vastly more territory to establish their fisheries, and as long as they ‘share’ some of the yield, they can plunder as much fish as waters permit.19 This, of course, will require that LBF build factories throughout the developing countries in which they operate (creating tens thousands of jobs internationally) to aid in the canning process.
The Dilemma:
To put it bluntly, you can advise LBF to further invest heavily in dragnet innovation, and maintain commercial fish production as is, while seeking to expand LBF fisheries into the developing world (and away from the glare of critics), along with production, canning, and distribution. Shifting more production to the developing world would allow LBF access to untouched waterways, and give the company the ability conduct research into sustainability while utilizing their ‘experimental’ Longclaw dragnets.20 This option allows LBF to maintain their industry dominance, and allow the company to continue to conduct their own research into overfishing, critical dispensation, and AS-D’s connection to canning, the key issues facing the industry. Or, you can defend scaling back LBF production, and gradually turning your attention towards sustainable fishing, and investing significant resources towards shifting the company into the industry leader in the long term sustainable production and distribution of products from fisheries. This is a long term plan that is more in line with LBF’s roots as a small fishery, and a movement that LBF has the power to shape with its resources.
Scaling back LBF production would also entail acknowledging LBF’s potential connection to overfishing (and AS-D), with the reasonable expectation that LBF would relinquish their industry wide control over aquaculture sustainability and overfishing research (thereby opening LBF up to government and third party oversight) to make positive contributions towards fish stock protections, and minimizing overfishing/critical dispensation rates worldwide. Acknowledging that LBF is connected to overfishing and critical dispensation may lead to a slight loss of consumer trust in the marketplace and a slight loss of marketshare (marketshare that your competition will very quickly snap up, companies that rely on amoral management and show no interest in sustainability based research). Regardless of your choice, LBF will maintain itself as an international leader in commercial fishing, and aquaculture production. The only difference is whether the company will pursue solutions to minimize overfishing (the #1 issue facing the industry) independently, or open itself up for third party oversight, which may not actually aid in the process, as LBF already employs the world’s leading scientists and researchers and the company is already committed to achieving this goal. Maintaining control, and resisting oversight, of LBF’s overfishing research has the further benefit of allowing LBF to position itself as a leader in ‘sustainable aquaculture’ while reaping the good PR that would come with that. If research into methods to minimize overfishing prove inconclusive, LBF can simply continue to shift the majority of their aquaculture production and distribution to the developing world, away from international attention, and point to the resultant improvement of fish stocks in North America (because North American shores will only use less effective dragnets) as evidence of progress towards sustainable fishing.
It must be duly noted that opening LBF to third party and government oversight would reveal facts that industry insiders already privately acknowledge21 but LBF has publically rejected; overfishing seems inevitable, especially in waterways closely connected to the world’s poorest people, who rely on these waterways for sustenance (to say nothing of the worldwide increase in population growth, which puts added pressure on worldwide fish stocks). This admission would further buttress a long term divestment from further dragnet innovation/expansion, and allow LBF to fully invest its significant resource base22 into making advancements in sustainable fishing, a nascent industry that does not have potential of creating as many jobs as those found in commercial fishing, but the potential to create many sustainable jobs in much smaller scale fisheries, with the same demand for highly trained and technically skilled workers worldwide; but the consequent loss of commercially scaled profit. This would lead to a decrease in LBF sales, but keep LBF as the industry leader. Any loss of revenue will adversely affect stakeholders worldwide, and limit LBF’s ability to make lasting contributions to their philanthropic endeavours, and eliminate thousands of jobs worldwide. Any divestment away from strict innovation in dragnets would be a long term decision23 but there are whispers throughout the industry that LBF’s competition, which expresses no concern whatsoever about sustainability (they focus strictly on Economic growth), will snap up any marketshare that LBF divests (these being companies that also have far less regard for any social responsibilities). In fact, LBF’s competition has their own versions of Ironside dragnets (dragnets that decimate a given region and almost always directly lead to critical dispensation), but have thus far resisted to putting theirs on the market because they are much more harmful than LBF’s industry standard dragnets. It must be further noted that, regardless of LBF’s choice, overfishing will continue (with LBF leading the industry, it does not make sense for their competition to undertake their own dragnet innovation, but if LBF were to begin to reduce their production, in the face of increasing worldwide demand, their competition will most certainly step up in their absence, with much more harmful dragnets, under the aegis of simply maximizing profit by responding to increasing worldwide consumer demand.
Instructions for completing assignment (important, please read carefully):
In no more than a total of 1,875 words (please indicate your total word count at the end of the analysis. Assignments that do not indicate the word count will not be graded.) analyze the following ethical issue: Which position should you defend to the board, supporting increasing expansion of LBF, or a shift towards sustainable fishing? To answer this question, students should do the following: (please provide a brief introduction, that states the issue, and your position approx. 75 words).
Apply any six of the seven moral standards (i.e. utilitarianism, moral rights, the principle of justice, principle of care, virtue ethics, Kantianism, egoism), to the full extent that they are applicable, to both support and critique your position on the ethical issue (clearly state your position and clearly indicate which moral standards you are applying) (approx. 1,200 words);
Indicate whether Milton Friedman would agree or disagree with your position on the issue and why, based on his criteria and constraints (approx. 200 words); and
Make reference to any other relevant cases and/or theoretical concepts discussed in the course to support and/or critique your position (approx. 400 words).
No additional research beyond the course materials is required. Include any reasonable factual assumptions you are making if necessary. Note that you won’t be graded on the specific alternative you defend but on the quality of your analysis and your demonstration of your grasp of the course concepts and cases. This assignment is to be completed by you alone. You may not discuss, ask, or allow another student or anyone else to read, review, or give any comments on your answer (or even an outline of your answer), and you may not discuss, review, or give comments on any other student's answer or outline. Failure to observe the requirement to write your assignment alone will be considered a serious ethical violation, so please be careful to avoid problems. Please do not ask if you can go over the word limit (the total maximum of 1,875 words) as I will reply that you should not go over the word limit (in fairness to other students).
Instructions for submitting assignment (important, please read carefully):
The final assignment must be emailed to me as an attachment by Tuesday, August 13th, 12:00 pm (high noon).
Please clearly indicate your name, the date, the course number, and the instructors name on the cover page of your assignment.
Please note that there is an automatic grade deduction of 5% for each day (24 hrs) late for any reason (i.e., including health-related reasons, so please do not wait until the last few days to complete the assignment). This policy will be strictly enforced, so if you ask for an extension, the response will be that you can submit the assignment late but you will receive the 5% per day grade deduction.
Good luck on the assignment!
1Aquatic farming requires that a fishery cultivate freshwater and saltwater populations of aquatic organisms under controlled conditions.
2 Ross, K. ‘LBF, Our Story.’ 1995, P. 6.
3 Ibid. 84.
4 LBF’s current research indicates that as many as 85% of the world’s bodies of water may be overfished; overfishing, which can occur in bodies of water of any size, can destroy an entire fish stock, and destroy the fishing communities that rely on the harvest.
5Catch sharing is simply allowing another party to draw fish from another’s yield.
6 Ayodele, R. (2006) LBF wants to be become their own watchdogs. Globe and Mail. April 27th, C8
7Press Release: LBF on Overfishing. 2006.
8 The sale of Longclaw, LBF’s most effective dragnet, has been banned internationally, because of its catastrophic impact on marine life in waterways.
9 A report that was written in opposition to the findings in internal LBF memos. In fact, this report also led to the resignation of every member of LBF’s ‘Sustainability Council.’
10This report also was written in opposition to the findings of internal LBF and AIIT memos.
11 LBF is aided by the fact that they are the only Fishery in Canada exempted from investigation and scrutiny from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Exemption from inspection also means that LBF does not have to adhere to the CFIA’s fish labelling requirements, making their 100% Accuracy in labelling claims unverifiable. International labelling standards are derived from data provided by respective governments, and as such, the lack of LBF data provided to the Canadian government impedes international LBF scrutiny.
12 LBF Internal Memo to the Executive board.
13Similarly, LBF does not acknowledge that all of their endeavours into producing ‘organic’ are essentially window dressing. While LBF farms/produces ‘organic’ wild fish and farm fish under strict (and ideal) conditions, neither wild fish nor farmed fish can be certified organic because no organic standards exist to regulate them; organic farmers feed their livestock 100 percent organic feed, as required by law, but that’s simply not possible to do for wild fish that forage and scavenge for food in the open ocean. Moreover, it is simply not possible to ensure that farmed fish are not exposed to (however miniscule) amounts of synthetic toxic chemicals and radionuclides that are present in all waterways (in at least trace amounts). Granted, LBF’s ‘organic’ fish are the healthiest and most sustainably farmed in the marketplace, but not technically organic, because such standards do not exist. LBF is able to advertise their fish as ‘organic’ because they are the first, and only, company to legally trademark the ‘organic’ label for fish, which they did shortly before the International Fish Certification Council declared that is impossible to create organic standards or a certification/certifying process for fish. Thus, LBF is the only company that is able to market their fish as ‘organic’ fish, in a highly competitive marketplace with uninformed consumers.
14 LBF dragnets are the industry standard. LBF products are so effective that the vast majority of LBF’s competition comes from fisheries that do not use LBF facilities for canning or preservation, but operate with LBF dragnets.
15 This is one of the main reasons that LBF continues to dominate its competition, as they do not have the class of vessels, or their size of dragnets, and those companies that choose to purchase LBF dragnets for their own use are not purchasing the best dragnets available and will always have smaller yields, while LBF far surpasses their output.
16 Industry Insiders have contested the fact that LBF only acknowledges their most effective dragnets, Longclaw dragnets, for example, ‘catch more than 21% of the aquaculture in a given region’, without having to provide a more specific data. This is largely due to the fact that Longclaw dragnets catch anywhere from 21 to 53% of the aquaculture in a given region. In fact, these dragnets are so effective that critical dispensation is more likely to occur after their first deployment, and as such, are internationally prohibited. LBF does not release any information about the production, or use, of Longclaw, for fear of public disapproval that would come if consumers knew of their use. Virtually every LBF engineer privately expresses dismay at the very existence of Longclaw dragnets, (they have argued unsuccessfully that LBF should have never been produced Longclaw dragnets, and should destroy all Longclaw dragnets and prototypes), and are troubled by its continued existence.
17 Plankton is the most populous and critical food source to many large aquatic organisms, such as fish and whales. Dragnets that decimate the levels of plankton in a given area have a catastrophic negative impact on all aquaculture. In North America, LBF adheres to Longclaw’s ban, as the immediate negative impact of coral reef destruction and plankton collapses would be much too obvious to conceal from stakeholders.
18 Internal Memo to the LBF board. LBF’s public rejection of these reports amounts to the company rejecting established science, scientific evidence, and indisputable facts. LBF publically denies any link between their dragnets and overfishing/critical dispensation.
19 In most cases, LBF will enter into partnerships with governments in developing countries to ensure that local fishing regulations are re-written ‘in a manner that reflects LBF’s interests.’
20 There is a very real possibility that this is simply a ploy to maximize profits, while keeping their methods a secret from the international fishing community.
21 Third party oversight might also expose LBF’s systematic approach to ignoring Fish Fraud when it is in their economic interest (which is the majority of the time), and the unreported percentage of LBF fish that is not properly labelled (which industry insiders put at as much as 41%).
22 Many industry insiders, executives, employees, and government regulators believe that the key to LBF making advances in aquacultural sustainability is simply greater R&D investment, which LBF has heretofore opposed because of the impact this would have on shareholder returns.
23 This divestment would occur over a 15-35 year time frame.
