Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
No get-slim gimmicks: Eat less - except for fish
A desire to turn over a new, more healthful leaf typically accompanies the start of a new year. My mail, for example, has been inundated with diet books, most of which offer yet another gimmick aimed ultimately at getting the gullible reader to eat less and exercise more.
Publishers assume, correctly, that the shock of the scale after nearly six weeks of overindulging on food and drink will prompt the purchase of one or more books on dieting by people who are desperate to return to their pre-Thanksgiving shape.
And really, it doesn’t matter whether you choose a diet based on your genotype or the phases of the moon, or whether you cut down on sugars and starches or fats. If you consume fewer calories than you need to maintain your current weight, you will lose.
My advice here is to save your money, toss out (or donate to a soup kitchen) the leftover high-calorie holiday fare, gradually reduce your portion sizes and return to your exercise routine (or adopt one if you spent too much of ’07 on your sofa).
Meals replete with vegetables, fruits and whole grains and a small serving of a protein-rich food remain the gold standard of a wholesome diet. Still, at both ends of the age spectrum as well as in between, recent months have held some new findings — and some surprises — that are worth noting.
As the population ages and the prevalence of dementia rises, increased attention has focused on how diet may help keep cognitive decline at bay. A heart-healthy diet that keeps clogged arteries from limiting the brain’s supply of oxygen and nutrients has been linked to a lower risk of dementia.
Likewise, omega-3 fatty acids in fish and fish oil, which counter inflammation, appear to protect the brain as well as the heart and joints. A recent analysis of 17 studies in the journal Pain found that daily supplements of these fatty acids significantly reduced inflammatory joint pain.
But now there may be a new kid on the block: vitamin B12. A 10-year study with 1,648 participants in Oxford, England, found an increased risk of cognitive decline in older adults who had low blood levels of vitamin B12. This vitamin is found only in foods from animals, yet it is common for older people, especially those on limited budgets, to cut back on foods like meats and fish.
Strict vegetarians, who have long been cautioned to take B12 as a supplement to prevent a deficiency, can add brain protection to the list of potential benefits. The rest of us should feel comfortable about eating red meat and poultry as long as it is lean and consumed in reasonable amounts. A serving of cooked meat, fish or poultry is only three to four ounces.
The British researchers noted that high blood levels of homocysteine had previously been linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and that B12 is one of the vitamins, along with folate and B6, that lower homocysteine levels. However, the researchers found no benefit to cognitive function from folate.
Here we come full circle. A decade after the American Institute for Cancer Research issued its first major report on diet and cancer, a new magnum opus in concert with the World Cancer Research Fund was published late last year. Based on 7,000 studies of 17 kinds of cancer, it concluded that being overweight now ranks second only to smoking as a preventable cause of cancer. “Convincing evidence” of an increased risk resulting from body fatness was found for cancers of the kidney, endometrium, breast, colon and rectum, pancreas and esophagus.
Other major findings of increased risk included red and processed meats for colon and rectal cancer, and alcoholic drinks for cancers of the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus, breast, and colon and rectum.
“Convincing evidence” for cancer protection was found for physical activity against colon and rectal cancers, and for breastfeeding against breast cancer. “Probable” protection against various cancers was also found for dietary fiber; nonstarchy vegetables; fruits; foods rich in folates, beta-carotene, vitamin C and selenium; milk, and calcium supplements. –Jane E. Brody, writing in theNew York Times
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Shrimpers fading away
Fernandina Beach's past is clearly entwined with the history of the Florida commercial shrimping industry, which was born here more than 100 years ago.
Yet the very industry that has made this island what it is today is rapidly fading into memory. According to Kevin McCarthy, owner of Amelia River Cruises & Charters, there are only about a dozen shrimp boats left, and the shrimpers' unique lifestyle is becoming more difficult to sustain by the day; new downtown development plans also are squeezing out the remaining space left for commercial shrimp docks.
McCarthy, who has gathered extensive knowledge of the industry over several decades, and gives talks on the subject, says Fernandina Beach shrimpers are "starving to death. They won't be around much longer. They won't survive," he said.
In a recent talk given to an Elderhostel group, McCarthy said shrimping started here in the late 19th century when effluence from the paper mills put oystering out of business. Fernandina Beach was at that time an export spot for Southern yellow pine. The lumber business was also declining because of the practice of clear cutting. Some of the old buildings on the waterfront, once meant to hold lumber, were later converted to accommodate the shrimp industry.
At that time, says McCarthy, there was no market for shrimp, but they were so plentiful that "you could put a dip net in the water and pull them out." Locals even threw out cast nets from shore and brought them in.
Before the turn of the century, families from southern Italy had immigrated to the island, bringing seine nets along with them and increasing the shrimp catch.
Today, according to McCarthy, fall is the peak of shrimping season, and an excellent time to catch the coveted white shrimp. Only one shrimp boat is grandfathered in and allowed to net shrimp in the Amelia River, because the river is spawning territory. All other shrimp boats must be three miles out, or their nets may be confiscated. Although the shrimping industry has never been as controlled as fishing has been in New England, said McCarthy, the government does have controls on the nets and equipment used.
Shrimpers were condemned by environmentalists, he said, because the by-catch -- meaning anything else caught in the nets -- was about 40 percent. Although any catch that has market value is sold, the rest is thrown back into the water, and some of the by-catch includes protected species like sea turtles. The University of Georgia has partly solved the problem by developing TEDs, or turtle excluder devices, which have a chute at the top to allow sea turtles to swim out. The size of the mesh also has to be big enough to allow smaller shrimp to get out.
There are at least two major issues facing shrimpers today. One is the rise of landside shrimp farming; the other is the cost of fuel. Between these two factors, old-fashioned shrimp boat captains have had a hard time making ends meet. McCarthy said many local shrimpers are surviving by carrying peddlers' licenses so they can sell their product directly to the public rather than going through supermarkets or restaurants.
According to McCarthy, 90 percent of the shrimp we eat today is farm-raised in places like Thailand, China, India, Indonesia and Ecuador, with a few farms in the United States. Shrimp aquaculture has led to its own problems. Farmed shrimp contains antibiotics and higher levels of pollutants than wild-caught shrimp.
Shrimp farming has also contributed to the demise of mangrove swamps, which are important ecosystems that act as a buffer for large storm waves, and are a large part of fishery life cycles. According to Worldwatch Institute, almost a quarter of the world's mangrove swamps have been destroyed in the past 20 years, mostly to make way for shrimp farms.
"The same countries that produce lead-filled toys are producing seafood," says McCarthy. And only 1 percent of overseas food products are tested in the United States, he says. "Wild shrimp is nutritionally better for us even though it's caught from the bottom." -- News Leader, Florida
Business Toolbox: Your supply
To the editor: Time for quotas on fishing fleet
Re “Quotas Draw Fire Over Black Sea Bass, Scup and Fluke” (Dec. 16):
Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in Montauk, is quoted as saying: “We need to allow a certain amount of compassion for the humans here. If a difference of a few years in the quotas means someone gets to keep their house or gets to feed their kids, isn’t it worth it?”
The problem is, that’s what every commercial fisherman is saying in every port in every country. There are billions of fish hooks in the water, thousands of miles of nets, countless fishing vessels scouring the seas.
The world’s fish stocks are in decline as our appetite for fish increases. If we don’t solve this problem, paying off mortgages will be the least of our worries. Quotas make sense.
Paying fishermen not to fish, the same way we pay farmers not to grow certain crops, would make even more sense. New York and other coastal states should have a salt-water fishing license for all anglers, with the money going both to the commercial fishermen who don’t fish and for increased law enforcement to keep those who do fish honest. We all have to sacrifice for the common good. -- Rav Freidel of Montauk, writing to the New York Times
Thursday, January 3, 2008
British seafood giant likes sustainable Pacific cod
LONDON – Young’s seafood says it has saved the future of the cod fish finger with its latest range of products which uses MSC-certified, line-caught 100% sustainable wild Alaskan Pacific cod.
Whereas other manufacturers have looked to cod substitutes for their fish fingers, Young’s says its sustainable cod allows the products to be enjoyed with a “clear conscience”.
As for charges that Alaska is too far awayL “Local provenance is key and so we have also sourced as many ingredients as possible from Lincolnshire, including the wheat, peas and potatoes,” said a spokesman -- Talking Retail, UK
Don't try this at home!
TORONTO -- Bob Blumer has always been something of a daredevil among Food Network personalities.
From cooking a meal on a car engine during his series The Surreal Gourmet to entering a hot-chili-eating contest in New Mexico last year during the first season of his show Glutton for Punishment, Blumer doesn't back away from a culinary challenge.
The second season of Glutton for Punishment begins with Blumer participating in a haggis-throwing contest in Scotland. But it's the season finale that will really throw viewers: Blumer travels to Japan to take a crash course in preparing the lethally poisonous fugu fish.
Even by Blumer standards, taking five days to learn what licensed fugu chefs in Japan spend three years studying -- and then eating the fish he prepared -- was extreme.
"As best as I can tell, I am the only person who has ever done what I tried to do," Blumer said in an interview conducted an hour after he'd finished eating a series of fugu courses.
"It takes three years to get the licence, and there are very stringent tests and exams and all that. I had five days to learn how to prepare it and then I actually ate the food that I prepared. A lot of people here thought I was crazy, and all of my friends and loved ones, pretty much everybody's been freaking out." – Globe and Mail, Toronto
Top food trends for 2008
Food and culinary trends offer the yin and yang of global tastes. For every new food, there’s a product we’re tired of. For every new piece of cooking equipment, there’s another to be discarded. For every new restaurant that opens, another one closes.
The American public has a far more sophisticated palate than it did even five years ago. Restaurants are abuzz with new chefs, new concepts, new wines and spirits, and new menus. Newspapers, television food shows, internet newsletters, magazines, and cooking schools keep us evolving and adding new foods to our lexicon of favorites. Home cooks are inspired by the past, the present, and the future.
We’ve seen glimpses of many of the food trends we’ll see in 2008. Now they’re gaining in popularity. Other trends are suddenly in the forefront without much warning. Watch for the culinary buzz on these topics in the coming months.
1. Back to the tap
Will there be a backlash in bottled water, as Mintel Global New Products Database expects? Bottled water has been one of the fastest growing beverage products ever, but recently in the United States and Europe some restaurants have stopped serving plain bottled water as consumers become more aware of the environmental impact of shipping water from remote locations to local supermarkets.
However, expect to see more "functional" waters such as those with added vitamins and calcium and flavored waters often with artificial sweeteners.
2. Fair Trade expansion
Mintel predicts more Fair Trade and Fair Trade Certified products appearing in the U.S., Latin America, and Asia. This includes coffee, chocolate, tea, and other products. While there will be more imports (such as European brands sold in those regions), expect to see more activity from local companies.
3. The road less traveled
Organic foods, sustainability, locally grown foods, and knowing where your food originates continue to grow in popularity among consumers. According to Mintel, organic food sales have grown 132 percent since 2002 while organic beverage sales nearly doubled (97 percent) during the same time.
The National Restaurant Association identifies the hot food trends of alternative-source ingredients which include locally grown produce, organics, sustainable seafood, and grass-fed and free-range items.
4. Easy-to-read ingredient labels
In 2008, many hope to see more food labels that read like a home recipe rather than a chemist’s shopping list, predicts Mintel. "Clean" labels contain ingredients easily understood by consumers.
Labeling also is an issue for fish. Country-of-Origin Labeling was implemented in 2005. It requires seafood labels to indicate the country of origin and whether the fish is aqua-cultured or wild.
In most American supermarkets there currently is little labeling on meat, produce, nuts, and other products.
5. Small plates, tasting menus
Small portions of food, wine, or other alcoholic beverages is popular, according to the American Culinary Federation.
6. Niche-focused menus
Food outlets have very focused menus. For example, some restaurants open with menus featuring only small desserts and pastries. Some have a self-serve freezer in the dining room with frozen soups, appetizers, and baked brie in puff pastry, perfect for entertaining. The customer takes home the purchased frozen sausage rolls, vegetable capponata in puff pastry, or the mushroom profiteroles and bakes them in time for serving.
7. Spice trail
Savory and hot spices are finding their way as flavoring and ingredients in desserts, cookies, and candy.
8. Culinary tourism
More and more families are organizing vacations around food experiences.
They take tours of local markets, cooking classes, and learn about food history. Wine trails are almost as popular in Ohio and Michigan as they are in California and the Northwest. – Toledo (Ohio) Blade
Branching out to sushi? A pro's shopping list
BOSTON – The original Oishii in Chestnut Hill is tiny and as hushed and serious as a library's special collections room. There are 12 places at the sushi bar and barely an airplane aisle of room behind the stools.
Chef and owner Ting Yen, 44, born in Korea to a Japanese sushi chef father and Chinese mother, is the dignified and appealingly formal sensei of the house. He's known to all as Ting San (Mister Ting). Here's what his work space looks like.
The refrigerated neta case is kept between 35 and 40 degrees. It is three hands wide and lined with stainless steel. Inside, the fish and vegetables are portioned, wrapped in plastic, and ready to slice for an order.
In Japan, says the sushi master, the fish is left unwrapped and displayed on green leaves inside the case. Traditional Japanese sushi bars keep things simple by offering very few rolls, "just the easy ones," says Yen, "not crazy like here."
Yen orders pickled ginger from a Japanese company in New Jersey. Young ginger is sliced and cured in sugar and mirin, a sweet rice wine used for cooking.
The lime-green prepared wasabi is made from horseradish, powdered wasabi, and food coloring. Without the color it would be dull brown.
Moribashi are long, elegant, pointed steel chopsticks used for delicate tasks like picking up seaweed or uni (sea urchin roe). The steel is smooth and won't stick to the seaweed.
Fresh wasabi root grows wild in Japan and is cultivated along streambeds and mountainsides. It has been farmed in North Carolina and in the Pacific Northwest. Yen rubs the tip of the knobby green root in a circular motion over the rough bumps of a piece of wood-mounted sharkskin grater called oroshiki. The creamy paste is green and pungent -- like delicate horseradish, and tastes spicy; the mustardy heat bothers the nasal passages more than the tongue, and the burning is quick to pass.
For squirts, drips, and dribbles, Yen fills squeeze bottles with Ponzu sauce, spicy mayonnaise, vinegar, soy sauce, and the sweet unagi sauce.
All of Yen's knives come from a Japanese distributor. The yanagi, an Osaka-style slicer, means willow leaf (it’s shaped like a willow leaf) and is used for the final slice on straight and biased cut sushi and sashimi. To keep the fish from sticking, one side of the blade is flat and the other at an angle. When it goes down through the fish it pushes the flesh out and away from the blade.
The gyuto is a Japanese-made Western-style chef's knife that Yen uses to slice vegetables.
Small Atlantic mackerel are filleted and then cured. Yen portions the fish, salts the pieces for 40 minutes until dry and firm, rinses them in cold water, then stacks them in a wooden box with rice vinegar, crushed fresh ginger, and kombu for almost an hour.
With its slender 12-inch blade, the Global tako sashimi knife is a Japanese version of the Western carving knife. Global knives, designed and manufactured in Japan, have a straight edge and a hollow, sand-filled, perfectly balanced handle. Yen uses the tako for slicing tuna from the thick loin and for skinning long round fish like salmon.
The classic knife deba is used to break down fish and butcher meat without bones. Yen and his chefs sharpen their own knives every day on ceramic whetstones. The first stone is rough, the second medium, and the third shiny smooth.
Makisu are bamboo mats used for shaping the squarely cylindrical fanciful maki rolls.
For uramaki (maki with rice on the outside) Yen lines the makisu with plastic wrap.
The sushi master says that in Japan the sushi bar cutting boards are made of Hinoki, an aromatic cypress, and surrounded by flowing water and drains. After service, the boards are sanded down until they’re clean and smooth. Oishii's cutting boards are rubber.
"The Boston health department requires it and we're too busy to sand," says Yen. – Boston Globe
Friday, January 4, 2008
Business Toolbox: Unexpected riches
Rare pearl found in steamer clams
LAKE WORTH, Fla. – A couple in Florida enjoying a plate of steamed clams made an unusual discovery: a rare purple pearl.
George and Leslie Brock stopped at Dave's Last Resort & Raw Bar on Friday during a day at the beach. George Brock was about halfway through a dozen clams when he chomped down on something hard -- a rare purple pearl.
At least one expert said the find could be worth thousands of dollars.
"Few are round and few are a lovely colour, so this is rare," Vermont gemologist Antoinette Matlins told The Palm Beach Post. "I think they have found something precious and lovely and valuable."
The gems occur most frequently in large New England quahogs, clams known for violet colouring on the inside of their shells.
Brock's $10 plate of clams came from Apalachicola in the Florida Panhandle, said restaurant manager Tom Gerry.
The couple plan to have the pearl appraised and said they will sell it if it is worth a lot of money. – Associated Press
Business Toolbox: China
Bad press causes fish farmers pain
After 14 years of eel farming, Zhang Xiuguo last week thought of calling it quits.
Exports of aquatic products in the coastal county of Fuqing, Fujian -- which exported eel worth $53.83 million in 2006 -- have stuttered since last July, when "foreign press rumors about China's food safety escalated", Zhang, 44, said.
A recent New York Times report "sealed the fate of the crippled industry," said Liu Minglong, head of the city's eel association.
On December 15, the paper ran a 2,400-word piece, packed with Chinese translation in both audio and text, accusing the country of "farming fish in toxic waters," based on what it claimed were field interviews in the county.
"Farmers have coped with the toxic waters by mixing illegal veterinary drugs and pesticides into fish feed, which helps keep their stocks alive yet leaves poisonous and carcinogenic residues in seafood," the report said.
Eel farmers, including Zhang, who read the Chinese version, said the accusation is "totally groundless."
"The major pollutants in eel breeding are nitrogen, phosphorus and excrements which are found naturally," explained Xie Hejie, deputy chief of Fuqing's environment protection bureau. "When you have more fish farms, the environmental pressure on water quality will certainly rise.
"But all these pollutants can be naturally degraded I wouldn't say that water becomes 'toxic' under these conditions."
Strict regulations since 2003 have made drug use illegal, added Zhang. The Fuqing eel association, established in 2006, is responsible for the purchase and delivery of approved drugs. The county produces about 30 percent of the country's eels.
"Whoever uses illegal drugs is bound to lose money. The ordinary fish farmer has neither the incentive nor the place to buy them," said Chen Renping, deputy head of the local marine and fisheries bureau.
The country's top fisheries watchdog agreed.
"Strict controls have been set on the aquatic raising environment and aquatic food quality. A vast majority of our aquatic products pass safety standards and consumers can set their minds at rest," Ding Xiaoming, an official with the fisheries bureau affiliated to the Ministry of Agriculture, told China Daily.
Ding said some media reports are "irresponsible and mislead the public." -- China Daily, China
Business Toolbox: The environment I
Dangerous jellyfish spotted in Irish Sea
VANCOUVER – Just about anyone who has boated off the West Coast has observed the luminous, translucent beauty of a jellyfish pulsing through dark waters.
However, there can be too much of a good thing.
The mauve stinger, a lovely-looking jellyfish from the sub-tropical waters of the Mediterranean, suddenly turned up in the Irish Sea. The new population exploded into an infestation that covered 26 square kilometres to a depth of 10 metres.
These stinging jellyfish overwhelmed Northern Ireland's only salmon farm, killing every salmon -- big and small -- at a cost of $3 million. A week later, a similar mass, this time both mauve stingers and the indigenous compass jellyfish, threatened the Scottish coast.
This might be dismissed as one of those anomalies that news agencies move on slow days under the heading "oddities" except that there was nothing odd about it.
For a decade, reports have been coming in describing increasingly nightmarish jellyfish swarms in the world's oceans. The same mauve stingers that wiped out Northern Ireland's fledgling salmon aquaculture industry in a matter of days have been playing havoc with summer vacationers on the Mediterranean coasts, threatening billions in tourism revenue.
In 2006, they washed up on the beaches from Costa Brava to the Cote d'Azure by the tens of millions and 70,000 bathers and beachcombers required medical treatment for painful stings and allergic reactions while clean-up crews struggled to dispose of tonnes of rotting invertebrates.
Off the coast of Africa, reports a research team from St. Andrew's University in Scotland, the biomass of a sudden jellyfish infestation near Namibia is found to have ballooned to three times the biomass of the entire resident fish population.
And the commercial fishing industry in Japan has been plagued by repeated outbreaks of monster jellyfish that grow to two metres in diameter and weigh more than a defensive tackle from the New York Giants.
What's triggering the infestations isn't clear. Historic records show they are not a new phenomenon. However the frequency and magnitude appears to be increasing.
Some suggest the population explosions are triggered by pollutants which provide higher concentrations of nutrients. Some suggest it's because over-harvesting key predators like tuna and sea turtles has upset the natural balance. Some suggest that rising ocean temperatures and changed currents are to blame for both providing optimal breeding conditions and for moving populations to new territory.
Most likely it's the convergence of all these circumstances, as happened in the Black Sea, where an introduced jellyfish coincided with over-fishing at the top of the food chain and nutrient pollution. This one species came to represent 90 per cent of the total marine biomass there.
What's this got to do with us here on the West Coast? Well, the common pattern in these jellyfish events seems to be that something disrupts the local ecological structure -- nutrient loads, predator-prey imbalance, environmental change that yields surprise advantages or disadvantages to species -- and unexpected and sometimes extreme consequences eventually follow.
How many of these elements are already present here?
For decades we've had pollution from agriculture, industry, municipal sewage and the localized byproducts of aquaculture. Extensive disruptions have already occurred and continue in the predator-prey structure of our marine food chain. Ocean conditions are already changing rapidly as the climate warms.
In other words, we're well-primed for unintended results. But are we primed to manage change before it manages us? Recent Harvard University research published in The Review of Economics and Statistics and reported in New Scientist argues compellingly that economists must start including unexpected but extreme events in routine cost-benefit analysis.
So all our actions here in B.C., from the location of new fish farms to commercial and recreational resource harvesting, from habitat alteration in watersheds to the regulation of pollutants, should be undertaken strictly according to the cautionary principle, in prudent expectation that like the salmon farmers so cruelly blindsided in Northern Ireland, we, too, may have to pay the unexpected price of disaster, sooner rather than later.
And, as that Harvard study points out, while we can pay now or we can pay later -- later, we might like the price a lot less. – Vancouver Sun
Business Toolbox: The environment II
Dangerous jellyfish spotted in Baltic
BERLIN – Finnish marine biologists have identified a dangerous species of invasive jellyfish in the Baltic and raised fears that the creature has the potential to drastically reduce fish stocks in what is already regarded as one of the world's most polluted seas.
Evidence collected by scientists aboard the Aranda, a ship operated by the Finnish Institute of Marine Research, revealed that the Mnemiopsis leidyi species of jellyfish which caused huge declines in fish stocks in the Black and Caspian Seas had been sighted in the Baltic's Gulf of Finland.
Dr Markku Viitasalo, one of the institute's senior marine biologists, said that the crew of the Aranda spotted the species of combed jellyfish, which had never been seen in the Baltic before, while cruising in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland last week. He said the species almost certainly arrived in the Baltic after leaving the waters off North and South America which are their natural habitat and entering the ballast tanks of container ships plying the Atlantic for Europe.
Dr Viitasalo told Der Spiegel magazine that the species had found its way into the Black and Caspian Seas by the same means and had almost completely wiped out fish stocks in both. The discovery followed other disturbing evidence collected by the Aranda which suggested that decades of effort invested by the countries of northern Europe in cleaning up the Baltic had made minimal impact so far.
The institute said research carried out by the ship's biologists had shown that the sea's already damaging phosphorus levels had actually risen off the coasts of Poland and Russia.
"It is very important to monitor whether these efforts have had any effect and the answer is not yet," said Dr Viitasalo. Phosphorus, a by-product of agricultural fertilisers which are allowed to run off into the Baltic, and human waste promote the growth of blue algae. The weed-like substance pollutes the Baltic in summer, covering the sea's surface in acres of bad-smelling, green sludge which cuts the vital oxygen supplies needed by fish and other plant life.
Recent figures released by the Helsinki Commission or Helcom – a 10-member organisation comprised of Baltic seaboard countries which has been trying to cut the sea's pollution levels since 1974 – revealed that 730,000 tons of nitrogen and 36,300 tons of phosphorus were currently being found in the Baltic each year.
The organisation said that the amounts were enough to trigger massive algae pollution.
The Aranda's findings highlight the urgency of the latest attempt to rescue the almost completely landlocked sea. Last month the European Commission signed up to the Baltic Sea Action Plan, which aims to restore the sea to "good ecological status" by 2021.
The plan, which will be implemented from 2010, gives each of the Baltic's nine seaboard countries individual pollution reduction targets to cut phosphorus emissions by 15,250 tons and nitrogen by 135,00 tons annually. It also aims to step up efforts to protect declining fish stocks, reduce pollution caused by heavy shipping traffic and equip small communities which currently discharge their effluent directly into the Baltic, with proper sewers and waste treatment plants.
Unfortunately, the plan will do nothing to stop the Aranda's latest discovery and halt the jellyfish's spread across the Baltic. – The Independent, U.K.
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