Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau: Oceanographer

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Now, when people think about farming, they say, "Well, are we going to farm tuna, or mackerel, or sardines?" Probably not, because they are pelagic animals who have a very difficult pattern of life that would be difficult to artificially make. But we need more imagination and more research to select the species that are going to be a practical, efficient protein manufacturer. Our very ancestors 10,000 years ago had stopped hunting to settle down and farm, but, before they did that, they had to have a fantastic knowledge of nature that they transmitted from father to son for generations, because they had selected in their jungle, their own deep forests, the most appropriate species in vegetables, corn, wheat, etc. – in animals, the vegetable-eating animal – the cow, the pig, the hen. They have not selected the lion, the tiger, the eagle, to make their food, because they are carnivorous. It's a tremendous wiseness from the ancestors because the carnivorous animals are too high, too far away, in the food chain; so the efficiency rate is very small.

All the fishing industry is based on carnivorous fish, which means a poor efficiency ratio animal. What I said is, "Why not eat worms'?" This is a big, fat sea worm which could be very simply found and are palatable when they're well cooked, so it's a matter of adjustment of our thinking. That's for year 2000 – not now.

PLOWBOY: If we could stop pollution now, by some miracle, how long would it take to clean up what is already polluted'?

COUSTEAU: My guess is that it would be pretty fast – pretty fast – something between five and fifteen years, because there is a leak in the sediment – small, but efficient. A leak of everything, including the nutrient salts, but it is theoretical because pollution is not going to be stopped at once. It's going to be done by stages. And what about thermal pollution? How are we going to stop that?

PLOWBOY: One question about international cooperation. I think that everyone agrees that international control should be exercised over the high seas. For at least the past ten years that I know of, and before that, there's been quibbling about deep seas, international law, that the boundary should be such and such, and they haven't been able to come to an agreement on a simple matter like this. Some nations even claim make a point of claiming fishing grounds and banks that lie a great distance from their shores – claim that these are their jurisdiction. These are of tremendous economic importance both to the nation and to the world as a whole, and I have the unfortunate feeling that it's going to take practically till these resources are no more until people get cooperative. I'd like to know whether you have any idea of how we could get international cooperation now before it's too late.

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