START is pleased to report that we have joined the Healthy Earth partnership and its sustainable seafood system entry in the exciting $500,000 Gulf Coast Challenge. The goal of the challenge is to create innovations that will benefit our marine environment and stimulate the economy of our Gulf Coast communities.
The Healthy Earth partnership’s objective is to build a billion dollar sustainable seafood industry based on the more environmentally sound harvesting and processing of mullet that will help preserve our marine environment and the fishing heritage and culture of our local communities.
This will be achieved by conducting a Gulf fisheries improvement project to attain a marine stewardship certification and build an innovative, no-waste local processing plant that will produce a variety of value-added mullet products including roe, fish fillets, Omega-3 fish oil, fishmeal and fertilizer. The multi-phase project will help sustain the mullet population, take some of the fishing pressure off other more threatened fish species like Grouper and stimulate the local economy with a wide range of new job opportunities.
START’s role in the partnership will be to help educate the public about the benefits of choosing mullet over other less sustainable seafood selections by expanding the Seafood Savvy section on our START1.org website and partnering with participating local restaurants in creating special menu offerings and events featuring mullet.
You can help START and the Healthy Earth partnership move towards the $500,000 first prize award to fund this exciting project by going to the Challenge’s website at gulfcoastchallenge.org. To show your support, click on “See The Gallery”, scroll to the Healthy Earth entry that’s number 18 and register a “like” to the right and under the comments section. Your support is much appreciated.
