Dune Lankard, an Alaskan fisherman, has always looked to the sea for food, work, and purpose throughout his entire life. Lankard, who is a member the Athabaskan Eyak tribe, an Indigenous group from Copper River Delta, said that he started fishing at five years old. I don't really have any other skills than the ocean.Lankard was born in 1959, which is also the year Alaska became a state. He has seen many natural and man-made catastrophes, including the commoditization and destruction of the traditional fishing lifestyle of Indigenous people. He says that he has seen it all as an Indigenous fisherman.A massive magnitude 9.2 earthquake in 1964 caused a tsunami that decimated fisheries and killed more than 130 people. Twenty-five years later, the Exxon Valdez crude oil tanker crashed into Bligh Reef, Prince William Sound. It spewed 10.8 million gallons into the ocean. The oil spillage affected 1,300 miles (and much more) of coastline and water, which are still in good condition.The problem facing Alaskan fishermen is not over. Already, Alaska is feeling the effects climate change. The warming oceans are already wreaking havoc on salmon, wild kelp forests and bird ecosystems. This is on top of the ongoing losses from the 1989 oil spillage. The Sounds spring run of herring was more than 200,000 tons before the Exxon oil spill. Today, only 4,000 tons return annually. After several bad seasons, Lankard sold his fishing license.Lankard now embraces regenerative ocean agriculture, which is a method of growing seaweed and shellfish under water. This helps to reduce the impact of warming waters. Lankard was once a commercial fisherman. Now, he mostly farms kelp.Alaska's economy has been built on extracting. Lankard says that Alaska is a state of natural resource extraction. Regenerative ocean farming creates a new regenerative economic system that is based on restoration, mitigation and conservation.Bren Smith, a Canadian commercial fishing captain and ocean farmer, developed the concept of regenerative marine farming. Ocean farming is his vision of the future.Smith was quickly disillusioned by monoculture in salmon farms after he left commercial fishing boats in Bering Sea in 1990s. He claims aquaculture was promoted as a solution for overfishing but was just as destructive.Smith was disillusioned with the fishing industry and set out to find a sustainable way to work with the oceans. Smith made his way to Long Island Sound where a program was available to lease shellfishing areas to commercial fishermen who were under 40. He leased 20 acres of water and has been raising oysters, mussels, and kelp at Thimble Island Ocean Farm, Connecticut, since 2005. Smith spent time there perfecting his sustainable ocean farming model, a journey he wrote about in his James Beard Award-winning memoir Eat Like a Fish.What is unique about the ocean's role as an agricultural area? Smith says that it is easy to ask this question when you slow down. Why don't you grow things that won't swim away or need to be fed? There are many types of shellfish in the ocean, as well as thousands of plants that can be grown. This opens up new possibilities for agriculture.
