Atlantic blue crabs have spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean Sea, threatening the livelihoods of fishing communities—but can we build an economy around them?
Video by National Geographic CreativeWorks
ByJohnny Langenheim
Published January 29, 2024
As far as we know, no other species has had a greater impact on our planet’s biosphere than the human race. We’ve reshaped natural environments, connected the globe, changed the climate—and, as a result, triggered an explosion of invasive species that is disrupting the balance of terrestrial and marine ecosystems everywhere. For better or worse, humans are stewards of the planet’s biodiversity and we must quickly develop strategies and solutions to mitigate our impact. The UN has identified 2030 as the deadline for achieving its sustainable development goals and is working with a wide range of partners and projects to do so. One of these is SEA BEYOND—an educational program launched by the Prada Group and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC/UNESCO) in 2019 to raise awareness around sustainability and ocean preservation, addressing a wide range of issues affecting our oceans—including invasive species. While there are no quick-fix solutions to these invaders, efforts are underway to mitigate their impacts, both at sea and on land.
The snake wranglers of the sunshine state
What do the words ‘Florida’ and ‘reptiles’ bring to mind? Alligators perhaps? How about Burmese python? These giants, which can reach 16 feet (five meters) in length, first arrived in the US as prestige pets around the 1980s. Four decades of escapes and deliberate releases have seen their numbers explode—there may be anywhere from 100,000 to one million of the snakes currently loose in the wild. They have eclipsed the alligator as apex predator and are disrupting fragile ecosystems like the iconic Everglades National Park by preying on native species like bobcats, racoons and opossums. “Python v alligator” videos have proliferated on YouTube and, spoiler alert, the python usually wins. The State’s response has been to incentivize python hunters to humanely capture and destroy the snakes. Organized by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Foundation (FFWF), the annual Florida Python Challenge has become a high-profile fixture on the State’s calendar, with hunters competing for the most captures and the chance to win thousands of dollars in cash prizes. Among Florida’s most successful python hunters are two women: 61-year-old Donna Kalil and her snake wrangling protege Amy Siewe, who between them have caught hundreds of pythons. Whether hunting can have a measurable impact in controlling the python population remains to be seen.
The spear fishers hunting reef-raiding lionfish
With their distinctive spiny ruffs and zebra stripes, lionfish are among the more flamboyant of coral reef fish species. They are also formidable predators. Once confined to Indo-Pacific waters, lionfish first appeared in the Atlantic in the mid-eighties. Genetic testing suggests the entire Atlantic population is descended from 10 lionfish that were released in South Florida. They rapidly spread throughout the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and the Western Atlantic. Without any natural predators of their own in these waters, they are voracious hunters, competing with native reef predators like grouper and snapper, eating herbivores like parrotfish that clean algae from corals, disrupting the balance of Atlantic reef ecosystems already impacted by overfishing and pollution. So, what to do? The best answer we’ve come to so far is to eat them. Lionfish have flakey flesh with a delicate flavor, ideal for dishes like ceviche. The trouble is, they’re tough to catch. They turn their noses up at baited lines, so the next best option is spearfishing with scuba gear, which means one lionfish at a time. Florida and some Caribbean countries promote contests to catch and kill as many lionfish as possible—while enterprising restaurants are adding lionfish dishes to their menus. dishes to their menus.
The genetic engineers out to end malaria
Malarial mosquitoes are among the deadliest transmitters of disease on our planet, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Native to South Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, the Anopheles Stephensi species of mosquito likely made its way around the world as a stowaway on merchant ships via the bustling port of Djibouti—most devastatingly to Africa, where 96 percent of malaria deaths occur. Its spread has continued and a recent study suggests that as the climate warms, an additional 4.7 billion humans could be at risk of malaria and dengue by 2070, not just in Africa but in Southeast Asia, the Americas and even Europe. Solutions like mosquito nets, insecticide treated bedding and community education are effective if properly applied.
But one of the more promising—and positively futuristic solutions—may be gene drives. This involves tweaking the genome of disease-carrying mosquitoes such that specific traits are passed onto offspring, for example, infertility. The trait would then spread exponentially, potentially saving millions of lives, and even wiping out the entire species. This kind of genetic engineering is controversial though, with many experts fearing the unintended consequences that could arise, even with the most careful modeling and risk assessments. But given its life-saving potential, malaria may well prove the first frontier for a real-world gene drive scenario.
The chef turning invasive crabs into Michelin Star dishes
Crab bisque, crab claw ceviche, crab dumplings… these are just some of the preparations acclaimed Chiara Pavan uses to turn invasive Atlantic blue crabs into Michelin Star dishes. In fact, Venissa, the Venice restaurant that Pavan heads up with her partner Francesco Brutto, has two Michelin Stars, including a Green Star for its exacting sustainability standards. Atlantic blue crab species reached the Mediterranean in ballast waters and through the Suez Canal. They are voracious predators and their numbers have exploded along the coast of north Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. Fishing communities in the Italian Adriatic initially saw the crabs as an opportunity to supplement their income from clam and mussel aquaculture, but the crabs are now decimating the shellfish. The challenge now is to develop a food culture and a market in Italy for the crabs, as well as more government-led incentives to catch the invaders, whether to pulp them or to sell them. The hope in the long term is to create a sustainable demand across supermarkets and restaurants as well as an export market to the US (where blue crabs are a popular foodstuff), that helps control numbers, whilst still allowing Italy’s traditional clam and mussel aquaculture to flourish.
The issue of invasive species is just one of the areas that SEA BEYOND wants to raise awareness about. Since its debut in 2019, SEA BEYOND has contributed to the progress of ocean education on a global scale, training more than 600 international secondary school students, launching the ‘Kindergarten of the Lagoon’ (an educational program for preschool children in the Venice region of Italy) to forge a connection between kids and the lagoon ecosystem, and educating Prada Group’s ~14,000 employees worldwide.
Thanks to the donation of one percent of proceeds from the Prada Re-Nylon Collection – entirely crafted from regenerated nylon – SEA BEYOND is also expanding its area of intervention into two new areas: support for scientific research and humanitarian projects, both connected with ocean preservation.
Find out more about understanding our ocean in order to save it here.
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