Ethical Seafood, Aquatic Animal Welfare, & Marine Conservation - Addendum

Erin McCann 1:25:53

In pausing to reflect at the end of our conversation here, Wasseem and I realized that we moved through our initial question faster than intended. We had some more to discuss in terms of Ethical Seafood Research. So Wasseem, want to circle back? When you think about the story of why you chose to found Ethical Seafood Research and why you chose to focus on the welfare of aquatic animals within the seafood industry, tell us a little bit about your motivations and how you navigated this path.

Wasseem Emam 1:26:32

Okay, so sorry, Erin, this is because if now we're doing this as an additional thing, then do I -- can I assume that people know what I said in the beginning, or do I just start all over again?

Erin McCann 1:26:44

Yeah, we would do it as an addition, and we're just filling in the gaps.

Wasseem Emam 1:26:49

Okay. So, as I'd mentioned, I was reviewing these reports that various consultants were submitting to the European Parliament on fisheries and aquaculture. And I thought, well, you know, I can do this. And it felt like a natural continuation of the work I had been doing up until that stage, you know, and I really wanted to be involved in these interesting projects.

But at the start, ESR was just me and, you know, bid together with these other consultants. And then I worked with the Aquaculture Stewardship Council on revising their fish welfare standards. That's one of the big certifiers of seafood, well, aquatic foods in general, let's say. And then I worked with the Aquatic Life Institute, who are very focused on the mission of improving the lives of aquatic animals.

And when I saw their model and their vision and their passion, of course, I'd already been working on fish welfare research, so it was an issue close to my heart, but I never thought about dedicating my organization to it. So, I think they inspired me to grow as well. And that's something I didn't mention earlier, but it definitely convinced me that animal welfare was the field that I was most interested in.

And then one of the philanthropic funders encouraged me to seriously think about starting my own organization around, you know, fish welfare. And, um, they told me, well, why don't you submit a proposal for funding? And, you know, they said, you know, be ambitious, you know, you know, sky's the limit, you know, like, what would you do with, you know, x amount?

And I actually did submit something that I was a bit, I thought preposterous, but they actually liked it, you know, and when I got the funding, which was a lot more than I was expecting, I was like, oh, okay, so now what? You know, it was one of those moments, but it spurred me to then think about, well, okay, this is what I said I would do. How do I actually achieve that?

And a month later, when I was in Zanzibar, like I was mentioning for this residency, being with other leaders and thinkers from across the continent who, many of them had their own organizations, it felt a lot more achievable for me. I realized that it was time to start seriously thinking about growing ESR. And when I met this person that I mentioned in Kenya who was looking for work and encouraged me to start a project there, we got talking and then we realized there was an opportunity, a gap, let's say, to do good work there.

And since my roots are from Africa, Egypt, it made sense to start there, and I'm glad that I did that because it's worked out so far. And I wanted to mention earlier, just I never mentioned my background, but actually I'm an ecologist, so I'm an aquatic ecologist. And, you know, my background was in conservation, so, you know, marine biology-type work. But a lot of people with marine biology degrees, they end up working in industry, you know, either doing environmental assessments for, let's say, oil and gas or, you know, renewable energy or there's not that many jobs, unfortunately, in that world. So either justifying industry's practices or trying to mitigate the damage they cause.

And for me, it was fisheries and aquaculture. I worked a bit with fisheries, but I realized how depressing the state of our oceans are and the scale of the problems that you deal with. You have to be quite, I think, thick-skinned to not, you know, be depressed by some of these issues. And then, of course, aquaculture was always touted as a solution, you know, to overfishing, to, you know, depletion of the oceans.

So, I kind of started to slowly move in that direction. But again, I wasn't really comfortable in the aquaculture world because people, it tends to be a bit like agriculture in the sense of like, very mathematical. You know, you have this input and you get this output, you know, and the idea of, you know, think of animals as commodities or, you know, inputs and outputs, you know, didn't really sit well with me.

And then my PhD supervisor at the University of Stirling in the UK at the time, she suggested to me to assess fish welfare in Egypt as part of a project that they were doing. I was like, oh, I never thought of animal welfare before. But as I started to get more into it and read about the various assessment frameworks so on, actually, it felt like a really natural continuation of my background in ecology and it felt like a nice home.

So, you're in industry, you're not really kind of justifying it, but you're kind of still doing behavioral-type research, and you can actually be building on the knowledge base that exists. So that's sort of how I got into animal welfare and fisheries and aquaculture, sorry in particular, and I've just never looked back since, really. And there's just so much work to do to improve the lives of these animals. So we really need all hands on deck. Yeah.

Erin McCann 1:32:14

Powerful examples of drawing on opportunities from various supporters and mentors, and also charting your own path and bringing different aspects of your experience together. Recognizing tremendous need and finding ways to support and address those needs in spaces that, as we discussed, still need more research and more funding and more prioritization. Thank you so much for sharing that additional context.