Spread the Joy: Advent 2025: Day 16

16 years ago today, the James Cameron film Avatar debuted in theaters. While I have never seen any of the films in the series, I know that they carry with them an ecological message. I had been planning on focusing on a charity that supports the sustainability of our food supply and the effects on our ecosystem, so with today's date in history, I figured today is as good as any in my charitable giving themed Advent.

For today's Advent, I have selected the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation or ISSF for short. As someone employed in the culinary industry, being able to continually grow food is vital. The harder the item to come by, the more expensive it will cost. The more expensive our food becomes, the less customers will come to eat at your establishment and soon you find your restaurant closed. So a regenerative food supply is good for the human race and good for our planet as it promotes the health of the food chain.

The ISSF was founded in 2009 by a group of scientists, fisheries and other conservation organizations to 'undertake science-based initiatives for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of tuna stocks.' Thanks to the ISSF, a number of innovations have been made in reducing 'bycatch', a term for other fish and sea life that get caught in traps and nets used for the harvesting of specific seafood. They've helped replenish the bigeye tuna from an over-fished state and they've helped to establish catching limits based on scientific data and observations from fisherman to prevent over-fishing of other variety of tuna. The ISSF has also helped fisheries to commit to the banning of 'shark-finning'; the wasteful practice of cutting off a shark's fins for a God awful tasting soup and discarding the rest of the shark, where in having lost its ability to swim properly, sink to the ocean floor and die a slow death. 

The ISSF has a long way to go. The Asian market relies heavily on both tuna and shark fin for both local and  international sales and consumption. Japan refuses consistently to adhere to internationally agreement fishing limits on tuna because of the high demand of sushi and sashimi grade tuna. Current market rate for bluefin tuna, which is dangerously close to being listed as endangered, is around ¥17,000-20,000 ($244-$488) per kilogram!

The thing to consider is that once the bluefin supply is nearly exhausted, those fisheries that rely on tuna for sushi/sashimi grade sale are going to go after the yellow fin and other more plentiful varieties of tuna and the cycle will continue over and over and over until the ocean is just one big empty body of salt water.

If the food supply of our world's oceans and the sustainability of it's occupants are a top priority- nay, a concern!- of yours then I encourage you to donate to the ISSF here!

Since today's Advent is devoted to the health and safety of our oceans, I thought it would be appropriate to gift to you a tropical tune for your day 16 Christmas song. A real champion of aquatic animals and preservation of them, I selected a song by Jimmy Buffett. Fun fact: Jimmy was born on Christmas Day, 1946. Talk about having lots of reasons to celebrate Christmas! Or maybe he had his birthday party on a different day...

Anyways, here's Jimmy with his 1996 holiday hit, Christmas Island.

Enjoy!