The Hay-on-Earth Forum 2011

Loaves and Fishes

The 2011 Forum focused on two issues that face complex, critical problems and which are indicative of the types of dilemmas facing a much wider range of topics.

Fish

The management, consumption and abuse of the world's fish stocks has been raising concerns for many years. Key species such as cod, Atlantic halibut and bluefin tuna have suffered from drastic over-fishing, barbell and catfish under threat from invasive species in the Mediterranean and fish such as the European eel under threat due to flood control, irrigation and power generation. One of the fundamental ways in which the EU has managed fish stocks, the Common Fisheries Policy, is due for renegotiation in 2012, we discussed what changes should be made. Other fisheries are managed through a variety of international agreements and local policies and we looked at the key challenges in these areas.

Grain

World wheat, barley and corn supplies suffered from a series of natural setbacks in 2010 including heatwaves in Russia and floods in Australia but also from the impacts of financial speculators. As a result food supplies have been severely stretched in some parts of the world and prices have reached record levels. Clearly this is an unsustainable situation but is it just an anomaly or should we tackling the root causes to mitigate any future problems. We discussed the ethics and impacts of financial speculation on food stocks and also whether GM has a role to play in providing security of food supplies in the face of extreme weather conditions.

To discuss these concerns we lined up five stimulating events across the topic areas looking at the issues, and giving you an opportunity to raise questions.

Hay Festival and its Hay-on-Earth programme play a crucial role in raising awareness and stimulating debate about the key sustainability issues facing the world” Mark Lynas.

fresh perspectives emerging from the confluence of ideas of artists, policy makers, cultural workers and academics giving participants the opportunity to embrace new ideas and open their minds to new paradigms of thinking.”Dr Erdelen, Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences at UNESCO described the Hay-on-Earth Forum