 My name is Durei Shin and you are watching Think Tech Hawaii. This show is called Finding Our Future, so it's all about sustainability, problems facing our environment and solutions we can face as community members. So today we have Ashley Watts, she's the owner of Loko Ia, which is one of the only sustainable seafood providers on Oahu and I would love if Ashley you wanted to share an intro for yourself and how you got involved in this. So thank you for being here. Thanks, sorry for having me. I have been a marine biologist practically my whole life and I came out to Hawaii as a Long Line Fisheries Observer. I was in manager of the observers for several years and got to know the industry and the fishermen around the island and then I wanted to do more sustainable impact and have more of an impact. I got my master's degree in engaging the community in marine conservation. So I wanted to do more of along those lines instead of just being a manager of the observer program. So I found Loko Ia which was started by Conservation International and I reorganized it, revamped it a little bit and now I've been running it for four years now. That's awesome. So the NOAA, what is it, Observers Program? Yeah, the Long Line Observers. That's really interesting to me. It's something I learned about only recently so I would love if you shared a little bit about that. What's the premise of it and what's the purpose that it provides? The Long Line Fisheries Observer Program allows for the Long Line Fishing Vessels to go out and have a sustainable footprint more so than other commercial fisheries worldwide. So they have these observers who watch their mitigation for sea animals and the protected species like the sea birds, the whales and the sea turtles. And so they document what is called on the vessels and they also do sampling and do certain tests on the animals if they are caught. Yeah. And they kind of just document the protocols that the fishermen go through in order to fish in a sustainable way. Right. So you're basically the watchdog of the Long Line Fisheries. Yeah, that's kind of a bad term but yeah. Oh, isn't it? Okay, that's good to know. And then can you explain for people who don't know the different types of fishing methods, so Long Line is one that's commonly used, but can you explain the differences in the most common ones that are used? Sure, locally the different fishing methods that we have are Long Line, which is a line that's usually 40 to 50 miles long and it's one line and then it has dangling branch lines on it with one hook. And so each of those hooks are baited. You only get a ratio of maybe, if you're lucky, 50% of those hooks would have something on it. So it's not a lot of catch. They're really easily able to mitigate the bycatch by the depth that they set the line and all of those kind of things. And then you have the short line fishermen who fish in the same method but they only have a line that's a mile long. So they can target different species. We buy from one of the fishermen who go out to the seamount and target the different monchongue species, so that's a shorter commercial fishing method. And then we have the guys who go out locally who go trolling and that's when you have lines connected to the vessel with one hook and you're moving around trying with a lure, usually not a live bait, trying to catch pelagic species. And then we have guys who go out and jig for bottom fish and that's when you have one line, one hook, and you're going out kind of moving the line up and down while the boat is stopped. Right, so in terms of bycatch, and bycatch is for those who don't know when you get untargeted species. So you're basically killing or injuring other animals in the ocean that you weren't intending to get. So that's a big problem amongst both environmentalists, animal rights activists just in terms of loss of animals. So what would you say, I mean, is it kind of in that order in terms of the amount of bycatch, like long lines have the most in terms of local fishing and then as you get into the shorter lines, it's going to be less? Right, and that's not only because they catch larger volumes of fish, but also because the long line guys, the line is set out for hours and left to soak so that the fish can be caught on it. While the trolling guys catch the fish, they pull it in and it's still alive. So that's why locally our Marlin populations are still healthy because a lot of the Marlin that are caught locally are released. And so the guys who troll catch or even the short line guys are able to get to the fish in time where it's still alive and they can release it and it's still able to live a normal life. So it's not considered a bycatch per se because it's not killed, like you said. So they have less of an impact on the fishing population. Totally. So long line seems to be the most common source or it's most common method for sourcing local fish. Would you say that's accurate? Yes. And so what percent of local seafood would you say is caught from long lining? That's kind of a difficult question to answer because a lot of our seafood that's sold locally not only in the grocery stores but in the restaurants and even in the seafood market such as Tomashiro's and things is imported seafood. Right. So then- How would you break it down? Like maybe it's not accurate, but if you have to kind of give a rough estimate, we always say 95% of plastic we find on the beaches is marine debris from other places and it's not 100% accurate, but it's kind of like based on what we've seen and since you're in the field, I'd love to know what you would say. Like if you go to a safe layer to land a traditional popular grocery store, what percent of seafood that you would buy as a consumer would be imported versus local or I'd love to know what you think on that. So I would think just as a general observation for markets around the island, I would say that at least 80% of the seafood is imported whether it be in the frozen section or the fresh section or the poke section. Right. Then that would leave what did I say 80% so 20% and then I would say a good 18% of that would be from the long line fleet and then the last would be from actual dayboat fishers are caught from local guys who do not have a full-on commercial operation. Got it. So what you can do to tell the difference between those types of fish is if you read the fine print, I know when you go in the grocery store it says local fish, local caught, especially in the poke seafood section. It really kind of challenges your brain because your brain thinks then that everything underneath is local, but it's very misconstrued. So you have to read the fine print. It says imported seafood or it might say local. And a lot of the poke served into Morris is local. So that would be not in the average. That would be like a 80% local 20% imported situation. So there's a big sign that says local and that means there's some local stuff in there. Right. It doesn't mean this is the local seafood section. That's good to know. Yes. And reading the fine print and so along the lines of fine print, I can also touch on the method of gassing the fish. So tuna has myoglobin and hemoglobin within the muscle. Same like us. So you know when you cut yourself and it bleeds up right right at first and then it turns dark red. Yeah. The same thing happens to tuna loin if it's left untreated. So if they want to preserve it for a long time and have that same red color that you like to enjoy with your poke or with your tuna steak, they gas it with carbon monoxide CO2 gas or carbon dioxide CO2. So they gas the fish in order to stop that reaction and maintain that color. And so I would say 99% of not 100% of imported tuna is gassed. Wow. It's like a preservative, essentially. So I tell the customers who come by from us directly at the farmer's market or restaurant chefs who buy from us wholesale to not purchase fish with your eyes, but also with your nose. So if the fish smells like fish, then it's not very fresh. We have ahi in the summertime that are lighter pink, aren't necessarily bright red, but are still just as fresh, just as firm. Yeah. It's because in the summertime they are doing different biological activities, and the water is hotter. A lot of times the females are preparing to spawn. So a lot of their energy is taken from their meat and put into their gonads, their reproductive organs. So the color isn't as red in the summer if it's fresh. But it's still just as fresh. It's still just good for poke. And then also locally, we have a different species of tuna called a aku or skipjack tuna. And a lot of people don't know that that is just as good for poke and raw preparation sashimi even, same like ahi. So yeah, could you talk a little bit about ahi? Because I know that that's really popular. Would you say that's the most popular fish? So talk about that and then the alternatives that exist and why they might be better options for our consumer who's trying to make better choices. OK. So ahi, I don't know if you know or if the people watching know that ahi refers to actually two different types of tuna. It's yellow fin tuna and big eye tuna. The big eye tuna is mostly more offshore, very far away from the island. It's caught majority of the time by the long line fleet. Sometimes a couple of the ahi will come close enough for the guys to catch locally. The local troll caught tuna is most of the time yellow fin tuna. Whenever I started working with the local fishermen and not the long line guys and I switched over and started doing this business, I was told over and over again that troll caught tuna could not be served as sashimi in the restaurants and it wasn't as good as long line tuna. So it took me a while, but I finally debunked that myth because it depends on how the fisherman catches the fish, how it's iced and chilled, and then how it's stored as well. So if the fisherman takes the utmost care with the fish, then the elephant tuna can be served. This is in the same preparations as big eye tuna. So I dropped sashimi grade tuna to several chefs around the island instead of them getting big eye from the auction. So that's really cool. And just knowing the difference between the ahi and also knowing the other species like the aku that you can have instead of ahi so that you're not putting as much pressure on the ahi population. It's sad to say that the poke craze going nationwide is probably truly gonna have an effect on the ahi populations throughout the world because people are coming to know poke and along with ahi tuna. And so when I have tourists come to our booth at the farmer's market wanting poke and I say I have aku or some other kind of fish, they're generally not apt to choose to consume that because they've only had ahi in the past. Locally some consumers know that marlin and aku are just as good, but unfortunately the way that those fish were treated in the past and the way that they were caught and not kept in quality by the fishermen have kind of given them a bad name. So even locally we're going through and kind of revamping the taste for marlin and for aku and trying to educate the public on the quality that they can provide and the same preparations that you might get with ahi. And would you say that it's better to have fish like marlin and aku because there's so much pressure on the ahi population or are there, is it because of like commercial practices specifically? What would you say is the main reason that we want to move away from ahi a little bit? Just ahi, I think both of those, but in addition just to being able to eat seasonally and being able to eat kind of with what the environment and the ocean and the land provides, I think our culture and the community and just the way we live has gotten very used to quickness and just being there and going to the grocery store and having the same thing over and over again. And even with the chefs I work with, they want to have the same dish on the menu year round and I try to encourage them to have seasonal dishes and certain things because we do live in Hawaii, we do have access to certain things year round, but we do have seasons for some fish and some produce and so it's nice to showcase that and kind of show the community members and the consumers that if they do support those locally seasonally produced produce, it's more sustainable for the island. Yeah, so just to circle back to the issue on carbon dioxide gassing of the tuna that's coming in, is there evidence that there is human health impacts to that, is that why that's a concern? I don't know the evidence of that, I just know that I wouldn't want my fish gassed. Totally. Whenever I first started doing research on this and even found out about it, I was talking with one of my friends, she's a local girl and she said that yeah, back in the day her dad was a fisherman and they would put a garbage bag on the tuna line and put it at the tailpipe and then that would be the CO2 gas they would use to treat the fish and so I guess it came from that practice and then we call it tailpipe fish. So I'm not sure of the medical or how repercussions of it. And two, the concern is not only with the gas itself but with the quality and the age of the fish. So right, if it stops the process then how are you to know how old the fish is or what kind of condition it was in whenever it was. So it might be just like a safety issue around freshness and then what would you say? Cause what I've learned in the research I've done about commercial fishing and this is globally is that the by catch rate is five to one, that you get five untargeted species that you're basically killing most of the time which includes dolphins, whales, turtles and then you get your one targeted, maybe ahi. And so to me that was like such a eye-opening thing that I wanted to not eat fish anymore so I haven't for the most part in the last like 10 years or so, but it sounds like you said it's about one to one for the long liners. Like what would you say about by catch? By catch, so the thing with a lot of the species that they catch that would normally be considered by catch are actually able to market them. Even the Aku that they don't treat very well and is sold for far less than what it should be valued at they're still able to sell it. So the only by catch that they have that's not marketable and that they don't sell are shark and the protected species. And so in that case the by catch is very low. I'm not sure of the recent numbers but the observer data would be able to produce the numbers that you would need to be able to figure that out. But I would say it would be like one in four cause they don't catch that many sharks. And then when they do they don't kill them they bring them up to the boat as far as they can and they cut the line to try to. So most of them live. Yeah and so they live they just have a bunch of jewelry like you'll see sharks with like five, six hooks in their mouth. Wow. And the thing about sharks is they heal really fast and it'll kind of like if it's impeding on their mouth their body would kind of spit it out and it'll just kind of they'll be able to chew without it. You very rarely see an instance where they are caught so many times that they die. So what percentage of like sharks for example would you say like do die being caught as by catch? Very small percentage. Okay. Yeah. And then some of them when they do pull them up and they're already dead. So that would be what would happen. Usually they don't pull them or anything. They would be it would be an instance where the line was in such a current or in such a way in the ocean that the shark swam and then killed itself or caught in the line another and then wrapped around its gills or something and wasn't able to keep itself alive. So the shark would already be dead. But a lot of the fishermen there is a market for shark meat, foreign markets and for different things like fish cakes and fish balls and stuff. And so they'll actually bring the shark on board and keep it and sell it. Oh, I see. And so it doesn't get wasted per se. Okay, cool. Well, we are gonna go to break. So thank you for tuning in to Finding Our Future where with Ashley Watts, the owner of Local IA and talking about sustainable seafood and fish in Hawaii. So thank you for tuning in and we'll be right back. I'm Richard Emery, one of the co-hosts with Kondo Insider, sitting next to my other co-host Jane Sugimura. We're very pleased to be on Think Tech Hawaii and provide this show of education, news and topics affecting living in an association. About 38% of our population lives in an association and you have very specific needs and rules to make an effective pairing of your home. So we're glad to be a part of this show and what do you think, Jane? And yes, we're very proud to be part of this program and what we wanna do is to bring to all of the people who are involved with Kondo's, especially people still on the boards and the owners, topics that will assist them in governing their projects and dealing with issues that boards and owners have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. In our shows every Thursday at three o'clock, we hope you watch it and always feel free to send in topics for discussion. Aloha. Aloha. Aloha, you are watching Finding Our Future and my name is Dorae Shin and we have Ashley Watts, owner of Loco Ia here and a marine biologist talking about sustainable seafood and fishing in Hawaii is a super important issue that I think can get confusing for consumers. So we talked a lot about the fishing industry and their practices and now we wanna kind of shift to like what can a consumer do and what should consumers really be most aware of around their purchases. So when I think that I don't eat fish or buy fish based on what I've learned from an environmental perspective but for those who still do, you know, I think most of them go to Costco or Safeway or Foodland, what would you recommend that they are aware of? So buying seafood is kind of a challenge especially if you don't have a background in seafood at all or in marine biology. When there's a couple of entities that have put out ways to help. So there's Seafood Watch, there's Monterey Bay Seafood Aquarium and they have not only apps on your phone but guidelines telling you nationwide and locally about different species and whether or not they're more sustainable or less sustainable. That kind of gets confusing because they're not always specific for local species and a lot of the species that we eat locally aren't listed on those. And if they are, they might be listed in an improper way. So our Marlin population is very sustainable. So I highly recommend eating Marlin if you get the chance, it's very good. And also you can not only use those apps and whatnot but just read the fine print of whatever you're buying and try to buy from a fisherman themselves or we sell at the farmer's market. We distribute to several restaurants around the island. And then you can also just the species that you're buying you can look at those apps and maybe look at the web. We're trying to put the information up on our website as well to kind of denote the different species. But just don't eat a lot of shrimp. Beware of shrimp, they're caught with using a different type of method that involves a net and then encapsulates like the whole part of the ocean, the pelagic and they actually drag weights along the bottom of the shore or the sea floor and kind of disrupt that as well. And so it disrupts a lot of the organisms. So the way that the shrimp are actually caught is very unsustainable most of the times unless they have certain devices that do mitigation for protected species. Locally we have very sustainable shrimp that are farmed on Kauai and those are the ones that we distribute through our company. And then also the Auma Ebi or deep sea spot prawns. So those are two options that you can enjoy locally if you're really into shellfish and shrimp. Otherwise they do have certain MSC certified which is the Marine Stewardship Council. Companies that have certain fishermen that fish for shrimp in ways that are more sustainable. And you'll find those on the label. I think that Safeway has a couple of those brands. I don't think that Costco does. You have to be aware of how things are labeled. Sometimes they'll be labeled as sustainable but then you look in the smaller print or the fine print and there's something totally different. If you ever have any questions you can always contact us at local IA and we can help you. When you're at a restaurant I think just asking questions about the seafood and where it was caught and kind of getting the vibe from the server whether or not they feel confident in what they're telling you. And also if they have the same menu item on their menu all year round then it's probably not locally called and or sustainable. Right. So what's local IA's website? It's local IA Hawaii.com. Okay. So then on there will people be able to find like where they can source fish that you guys get? Yes. So we have our markets. We do three farmers markets a week and then we have a CSA type service where we provide fish a pound and a half to three pounds of fish a week to community members island wide and you can get those. We offer it every week but you don't have to get it every week. And then we also service several restaurants which are listed on the website as well as Kukua Co-op for retail. And then can you describe what a CSA is for those who don't know so they can get excited and maybe sign up? Yeah. So a CSA box is kind of what we modeled our CSF box. So a CSF is a community supported fishery. It's where you prepay each week for whatever the fishermen catch. It's a good way to support seasonality of fish and kind of whatever the ocean provides. Sometimes it's whole fish such as a kule and a pelu and then sometimes it's filet like ahi or ono or marlin. This week they're gonna have their choice between aku and mahi mahi. And so we also encourage them to take the bones and cook the bones and the broth and we've actually started making dog treats out of the fish skin. So we're looking for ways for not only us but our customers to learn how to utilize the whole fish as well to be more sustainable. Less waste. Yeah. So can you describe what separates local IA from other sources? Like what standards do you guys have that you're really proud of? At local IA we source directly from the fisher. Most people say fishermen but fishers can be women too. I'm a fisher. My best friend Jess is a fisher. So we get them directly from the fisher and we distribute directly to the chefs and consumers such as you guys. So we're different from any other distributor in that there's only at the most two or three sets of hands that touch your fish and the length of time that the fish sits or is in process of distributing is greatly minimized. So we get you very fresh product. And I think for me what's appealing and I think what would be appealing for a lot of consumers who are trying to make better choices every day is just the transparency within our food system whether it's meat or produce or fish. I think that when there's a transparent lineage of sourcing then you have this level of trust. And I think a lot of that trust has been lost or ignored that people would just be like I don't have time to like this up. So it's great that places like local IA exist so that there's this one hub that they can trust and they know that somebody like you won't be sourcing from a super industrial commercial store. So I think that's really great. So thank you for starting and I know it's a lot of work to have your own business. No, yeah, it's a lot of work, but it's very rewarding. We are very honored to be able to provide seafood and actually have it 100% traceable. So we have full integrity. All of our distribution is online in a full traceability system called this fish. So our customers are able to scan a QR code or go online and then put a code and actually get in contact with a fisherman who caught their fish, get the knowledge of who caught it, when they caught it, where they caught it, how they caught it. I love that it's all online for them to see. So it's not only just traceable because we said it's from caught by Kacoa Seward, but it's also fully online. They can see it for themselves and so we're honored to be able to provide that. Yeah, that's great. And we, oh, I wanted to talk about a salmon. What do you know about a salmon? Cause that's a really popular fish. Like a lot of people get the wild Alaskan, whatever from Costco and they're like, it's sustainable. So is that true or what do you know about that? So salmon, I don't really know a lot of details about salmon. I do know that any farm raised salmon is not necessarily sustainable and really bad, not only for the way that it's raised, what it's given, how it affects the environment around it, but the stocks are actually affecting the wild salmon stocks. And then I have friends in Alaska who are being affected by mining in different industrial kind of advances. And so that's something to look into if you're gonna eat salmon and try to support the salmon harvesters and the salmon populations that don't promote those kind of things, but always look and get the fresh, not farmed one for sure. Yeah, for salmon specifically. Yeah. Okay, and then I guess I'm wondering, cause now we're talking about farmed fish and so I've heard both sides and I've done some research on it. And basically my personal conclusion was, it's almost equivalent to factory farming. They're feeding the fish, for the most part, GMO feed. That's unnatural and laden with pesticides. And they're basically enclosed in a small space and it's very stressful for the fish, which are sentient beings. But I've also heard the sustainability side that it's like urban density, it's more sustainable because you're doing everything in one area, you're not pulling and having by-catch issues. So what is your perspective on farmed fish and any of the nuances you might see in that? I think farmed fish is good for certain things like you say, maybe for making fish sticks for populations that need a lot of food or something for like that. Yeah. I think that you do have to read the fine print of those operations as well and actually get to know what's going on and what effect they have on the environment and what you say like they're feeding them. There are several sustainable farming operations like the Kawhi Shrimp on Kawhi and there's Konakampachi that's pretty sustainable. They're actually trying to do, I'm not sure how it's going because I haven't looked up any updates but they have offshore pens where they're farming tuna now, so that might be a sustainable way to farm. The shrimp farms in Kuhuku are one of the most sustainable farms. Oh, that's good to know, yeah. There's some farming that are really sustainable but there's some farming that's not sustainable at all and so I think instead of going to farmed fish, I think just eat less fish and be knowledgeable about where your seafood comes from. Yeah, I think that's the most important thing and I think a lot of people always just want to go to the alternative. Same thing goes with meat. It's so bad for the environment. They're like, well, what's the alternative and really it's like the plastic message reduce, reuse, recycle, reduce first and then look for alternatives because at the rate of increasing demand we can't sustain that demand and so we need to look at how much we're requiring for our own pleasure. Yeah, locally we can supplement our diet with Ulu and with things that we have an overabundance of with sweet potatoes and different things, like eat local, know where your food comes from and eat a balanced diet I think is a much better way than to look for other sources of food. I think eat locally is the most important part. Yeah, totally. Well, this is super helpful for me. This is like me doing my own research as an environmental advocate and ocean advocate. So it's so good to have people like you who know what they're doing and hopefully we can have more of these conversations out in the public and people can just become more and more aware. So thank you for joining us on the show today. Thank you so much for having us. So this is Finding Our Future. We're here every other Wednesday from one to 130. So thank you for tuning in. We'll be covering a lot of issues around local sustainability issues as well as solutions with some awesome advocates. So thank you and we hope you tune in again.