Posted on 11/05/2006 7:57:26 AM PST by sully777
All species of wild seafood will collapse within 50 years, according to a new study by an international team of ecologists and economists. Writing in the Nov. 3 issue of the journal Science, the researchers conclude that the loss of marine biodiversity worldwide is profoundly reducing the ocean's ability to produce seafood, resist diseases, filter pollutants and rebound from stresses, such as climate change and overfishing.
"Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood," said study co-author Stephen Palumbi, professor of biological sciences at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station.
Palumbi and Stanford colleague Fiorenza Micheli, assistant professor of biological sciences at Hopkins, are two of 14 co-authors of the Science study, the first major analysis of all existing datasets—historical, experimental, fisheries and observational—on ocean species and ecosystems.
Based on current global trends, the authors predicted that every species of wild-caught seafood—from tuna to sardines—will collapse by the year 2050. "Collapse" was defined as a 90 percent depletion of the species' baseline abundance.
"Whether we looked at tidepools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging," said lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University. "In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are—beyond anything we suspected."
The impacts of species loss go beyond declines in seafood, the authors said, noting that human health risks also emerge as depleted coastal ecosystems become vulnerable to invasive species, disease outbreaks and noxious algal blooms.
"The ocean is a great recycler," Palumbi said. "It takes sewage and recycles it into nutrients, it scrubs toxins out of the water and it produces food and turns carbon dioxide into food and oxygen." But to provide these services, he added, the ocean needs all of its working parts—the millions of plant and animal species that inhabit the sea.
Accelerating declines
The research team analyzed 32 controlled experiments, observational studies from 48 marine protected areas and global catch data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's database of all fish and invertebrates worldwide from 1950 to 2003. The scientists also looked at a 1,000-year time series for 12 coastal regions, drawing on data from archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archeological sources.
"We see an accelerating decline in coastal species over the last 1,000 years, resulting in the loss of biological filter capacity, nursery habitats and healthy fisheries," said Dalhousie University co-author Heike Lotze, who led the historical analyses of Chesapeake Bay, San Francisco Bay, the Bay of Fundy and the North Sea, among other sites.
The results revealed that every species lost causes a faster unraveling of the overall ecosystem. This progressive biodiversity loss not only impairs the ability of the ocean to feed a growing human population but also sabotages the stability of marine environments, the authors said. Conversely, the study found that every species recovered adds significantly to the ecosystem's overall productivity and ability to withstand stresses.
According to the research team, species collapses are hastened by the decline in overall health of the ecosystem—fish rely on the clean water, prey populations and diverse habitats that are linked to higher diversity systems. This finding points to the need for marine resource managers to consider all species together rather than continuing with single-species management, the authors said.
Restoring populations
One pressing question for managers is whether losses can be reversed, the authors said. If species have not been pushed too far down, recovery can be fast, they found, adding that there is also a point of no return where recovery is unlikely, as in the case of the northern Atlantic cod.
Examination of protected areas worldwide showed that restoration of biodiversity greatly increased productivity and made ecosystems 21 percent less susceptible to environmental and human-caused fluctuations on average—an indication that ocean ecosystems have a strong capacity to rebound.
"The data show us it's not too late," Worm said. "We can turn this around. But less than 1 percent of the global ocean is effectively protected right now. We won't see complete recovery in one year, but in many cases species come back more quickly than people anticipated—in three to five to 10 years. And where this has been done we see immediate economic benefits."
The buffering impact of species diversity also generates long-term benefits that must be incorporated into future economic valuation and management decisions, the authors found. "Although there are short-term economic costs associated with preservation of marine biodiversity, over the long term biodiversity conservation and economic development are complementary goals," said co-author Ed Barbier, an economist at the University of Wyoming.
The authors concluded that restoring marine biodiversity through an ecosystem-based management approach—including integrated fisheries management, pollution control, maintenance of essential habitats and creation of marine reserves—is essential to avoid serious threats to global food security, coastal water quality and ecosystem stability.
"This isn't predicted to happen, this is happening now," said co-author Nicola Beaumont, an ecological economist with the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. "If biodiversity continues to decline, the marine environment will not be able to sustain our way of life. Indeed, it may not be able to sustain our lives at all."
Other co-authors of the Science study are J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences; Carl Folke of Stockholm University and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; Benjamin S. Halpern of the National Center of Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS); Jeremy B. C. Jackson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute; Enric Sala of Scripps; Kimberly A. Selkoe of NCEAS; John Stachowicz of the University of California-Davis; and Reg Watson of the University of British Columbia.
The study was conducted at NCEAS and funded by the National Science Foundation, the University of California system and the University of California-Santa Barbara.
Another wedge study. Stand by for the legislation to follow. If you like seafood you'd better eat it now. Will shrimp still be good after being frozen for 20 years?
Charley Tuna was unavailable for comment ...
I often think: Fish must get awfully tired of seafood. What are your thoughts, Hobson?
Aquatic doom ping
Apr 2051 futures in the Soylent Green corporation are through the roof!
I'm doing my best to eliminate as many Alaska king crabs and Gulf oysters as possible. Musn't get in the way of progress.
This study also has the Democrats re-taking the Congress in the 2052 election.
Yep, and during the Carter years of "reduced expectations" the Club of Rome warned us all we would run out of oil in twenty years. When twenty years passed, the figure was revised to 200 years.
Morons always forget to factor in the results of the free expression of human energy in an incentive based system.
They see free enterprise as the villain in a limited universe. In fact, the opposite is true. It is the change agent in an unlimited universe.
Reagan's hopeful vision vs Carter's "malaise"
It's the foundational difference in left/right philosophy
But then when it fails to happen, they'll pretend they did something that saved the world.
Does this mean no more coconut fried grouper sandwiches down at Cabot's in the Keys???
Does this also mean that the Wreck is going to stop selling that huge grouper sandwich in a basket?
Please tell me that the fishing community of the Florida Keys is going to be OK when this happens in 2025!!!!! I want to retire there!!!! I know the article says 2050, but liberals seem to find "evidence" that their initial estimates were wrong and that doom always occurs SOONER than expected!
These guys are slipping....I didn’t see one reference to the global warming scam during my fast scan of the article.
All one needs to do is to look at the West North Atlantic cod stocks.
At one time, the Grand Banks off Newfoundland were the greatest food resource on the planet. Now all the cod are gone, almost all the other fish are gone and despite the cod fishery being stopped 10 years ago, there is still no recovery at all in cod numbers.
Cod were the fish in fish and chips when fish and chips were good. Now we're stuck with haddock and a bunch of don't-taste-as-goods.
Bio-diversity was the keyword. We're destroying biodiversity.
1)We've heard it all before...yawn
2)It's a commie plot
3)Capitalism and human ingenuity can conquer all
But consider, people, that this planet has never had such a large human population producing so much toxic waste, destroying so much of the ecosphere. Nor has its atmosphere seen such a high concentration of carbon dioxide in the last many millions of years. The idea that none of that matters, that our ingenuity is supreme is the height of hubris, of folly.
Now I'm not saying that the liberal approach - spread the wealth - is better. I'm saying something much worse; unless we find ways to quickly reduce human population and pollution these things will happen suddenly and dramatically as the four horsemen once destroy all before them.
LL, if the Cretaceous Extinction failed to wipe out all life in the seas, how the heck do you think humans are going to do it?
The article talks about "wild" fisheries collapsing. Would a switch to corporate fish farms of cod help the Grand Banks recover? Would corporate farms force the Portugese and Japanese out of pirate fishing because corporate farms produce a superior fish for 1/10 the price?
Knowing alarmists, they will publish a paper in 2050 about the horrendous practice of corporate farm fishing with one sentence devoted to the rich diversities in the Grand Banks, etc.. Mother Earth News will publish articles on the return to free-range fishing.
Don't forget acid rain! Nobody talks about all the acid rain.
Reduce human population? Are you volunteering?
When the day comes that all the fishermen return home with empty nets they will abandon fishing and turn to farming or livestock production.
In time, you will either get your wish for a thinner herd or the fish will rebound and be refound.
Well, the reporting's getting a bit pickier now. Earlier, when this broke it was along the lines of it's all gonna die. In any case, why I agree with you that fisheries should be managed with some common sense, no-one without an axe to grind is suggesting that complete extinction of seafood fisheries is likely even if it's feasible.
Looks like the Worm was doing the hooking this time :)
And this kind of scare cr@p is going to give both science and environmentalism even more of a bad name.
Haddock? Hmmm.... that reminds me
One day, a boy walked into a butchers and said "Can I get some haddock please?" The butcher replies "No. This is a butchers so we don't serve fish."The next day, the same boy comes back to the butchers and says "Can I get some haddock please?" Feeling rather pestered, the butcher tells him once again "No. This is a butchers so we don't serve haddock!"
Sure enough the next day the boy comes back again and asks for some haddock. "Right that's it!!" yells the butcher. "Spell haddock!" Feeling rather confused the boy says "H-A-D-D-O-C-K." The butcher stares at him and says "You forgot the 'f'."
The boy grins at him and cockily replies "But there's no 'f' in haddock."
The butcher yells.. "THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU FOR THE PAST TWO DAYS!!"
Couldn't pass up on a Haddock joke :-)
(Gotta go - I have a Haddock) ((bada-bing, rim shot))
who cares I will be long dead
There will be farm-raised salmon at $50/lb.
Despite what these individuals claim, it would be a good and profitable idea for the US to create an immense "aquaculture" industry, raising 'whitefish' for consumption.
It is pretty easy in concept. Just a bunch of "bottomless" barges anchored together away from the coast in a mild current area. Each barge descends a net, and fish are raised in the nets.
All you need is some fish food and time. The ocean current aerates and cleans up the water. Then, when the fish have grown, you pull the nets up and bring the fish to the processing plant.
Maybe five square miles of such boats could provide most of the fish needs for all of Japan. Their environmental impact would be small.
It is really a win-win. The fishermen get a fixed income, the market gets a regular supply of quality fish, the wild fish populations recover, and some of the barges can even be set aside to breed-and-release more endangered fish to boost their numbers.
This type of aquaculture has already been proven on the small scale, using float-pontoons instead of barges; but it needs to be done on the huge scale, so that it is feeding nations, not just cities.
Most folks don't relize that the reason we see so much shrimp and prawns at the grocery store is we are losing higher trophic fish such as cod.
IOW the shrimp (lower trophic) is what is left.
That is my simplistic explaination.
What also gets me is if the Fishermen can only keep one type of Rockfish and have to toss the other types back due to regulations how does that help when the ones tossed back die due to the bends (exploding swim bladders) why not keep them for market sales if they are going to die anyway.
I am all for managing and preventing over fishing but it has to be done with better stewardship and more so in international waters.
Also studies show a resilance in higher trophic fish such as Albacore tuna in the North Pacific for the last few years.
Which is stumping the scientist that I sit through seminars listening to.
Bottom line (JIMO) we do have problems but we can find solutions without going overboard on regulations.
Thanks for the input. It is greatly appreciated.
We are going to have to get used to the taste of mosquitoes, cockroaches, ants and flies. Because there are plenty of insects around and I don't think we will run out of them anytime soon. And if we do, at least we'll be able to sit in the yard in peace.
Correction. It's not a hot item at the moment...but just google "acid rain". You'll find a lot of people talking about it.
We're going to find out because there's not a chance in the world that humanity will act to save the wild stuff.
Oh the hu-manatee!
We're going to find out because there's not a chance in the world that humanity will act to save the wild stuff.
They are concerned about wild seafood. Are there wild moo cows, wild chickens, wild wheat, wild potatoes in any economic quantity now? What happened?
Now how can this be? National governments, including the purportedly "free" government of the United States have been managing fisheries based on the instructions from UN treaties, the WTO and other global organizations. The US has bought into this global soviet style central control of our natural resources since 1990. You can't even buy sea bass in many parts of California, even though it is not an endangered species, or the minions of brainwashed representatives from the Monterey Bay Aquarium will picket the store selling it and shut the business down.
So we should have fishing jumping into our laps while we sun ourselves on the globally warmed beaches by 2050!
If the fish can avoid the fisherman, as easily as this story avoids the FR search engine, we'd have nothing to worry about.
Liberlllarry, the soviet style global community tha controls the fisheries will be responsible for the collapse, if indeed there is one. They have a deceitful habit of counting fish where there aren't any, so they can return with gloom and doom stories from their less than scientific surveys. They are manipulating the fisheries to put individual and small fishers out of business,much like the handful of international oil companies have pretty much eliminated the mom and pop operations of the past.
Time to wake up and smell the coffee! Socialism,or the new style corporatist fascism that is funding the global agencies and fueling the fake globalism that will give them unbridled power over nations and economies, especially on a global scale DOESN'T WORK. It will, has it ALWAYS has in the past, kill millions if not billions of human beings. Don't forget the darlings who started the 'sustainable' fisheries/agriculture/cities/lifestyle movements are the same people who believe that the human population of the planet should be 500 million best case scenario, 1 billion tops. That means billions of people must be eliminated through starvation, disease and disaster. So, since they've been managing the global fisheries since the 1990s, and they KNOW they will collapse, one can only conclude that it is because that is the goal of these anti-humans.
If the four horseman hit the earth with a vengence it will happen because it has been engineered to happen.
http://www.vhemt.org
I'm still not sure if this site is satire or not.
Did you read the Kurlansky book?
No more than I would volunteer to die in a war, no more than most volunteer for such duties...but that hasn't stopped hundreds of millions from being killed in recent wars.
Stephan Budiansky recently wrote an interesting book - Airpower - in which he describes the city-killing strategy which dominated WWII. It didn't work because the weapons weren't powerful enough...but they will be in the next war.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.