Honoring the economic and cultural value of Rhode Island's shellfish
“Want to grow the hippest, healthiest food going? Perhaps you want to become the most sustainable farmer on the planet. Or maybe you just want to make a couple bucks working on the water.”
Bob Plain will be taking Dr. Dale Leavitt’s Applied Shellfish Class and will be using his blog Narragansett Bay Blog to share what he learns in the class.
To view the Narragansett Bay Blog click here.
The article written by Keven Proft for ecoRI on December 8th details a RISD Professor’s vision of an Oyster Habitat Restoration Project as Public Art along the Providence Waterfront.
To read the full article click here.
Shared on behalf of the: Westerly Sun
Researchers at the University of Rhode Island are directing two studies: a statewide survey collecting people’s insights on shellfish farms and another which looks at commercial and recreational activities in Quonochontaug, Ninigret and Point Judith.
The survey has been spread throughout RI to farmers, commercial harvesters and waterfront property owners. The study is led by Tracy Dalton a URI marine affairs professor, and measures how many shellfish farms people are ready to accept in Narragansett Bay and the salt ponds.
David Beutel, aquaculture coordinator for the Coastal Resources Management Council, hopes the study will help Rhode Islanders understand aquaculture and collect information that is hard to acquire. Dalton also anticipates knowledge from the surveyors about how much support they are willing to give.
To read the full article by Cynthia Drummond click here.
Shared on behalf of the New York Times
The article form the New York Times by Paul Greenberg considers using author Michael Pollan’s advice “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants” and looks to come up with a guidelines for consuming seafood. Greenberg’s haiku like suggestion is as follows:
Eat American seafood.
A much greater variety than we currently do.
Mostly farmed filter feeders.
Some explanations are in order.
Greenberg goes on to justify his suggestions for consuming seafood.
To access the full article click here.
“Allen Hazard, a wampum maker and member of the Narragansett Tribe, carries on an age-old tradition of creating objects of beauty and symbolism with quahog shells. Hazard is one of only three artisans in the world who make wampum in the traditional Eastern Native way. Contrary to popular belief, wampum did not attain the status of currency until after the arrival of Europeans on American shores.
Here, Hazard talks about what the quahog shell represented, and continues to represent, to the Narragansett Tribe:
Wampum is sacred. That’s the word to use when you’re speaking about wampum with a traditional Eastern Native. Why? Because anything that gave its life so that we could continue ours was deemed special. There’s no other way to put it. Money doesn’t do that.”
Please click here to read the full article.
*Photo by Acacia Johnson*