Posted on 11/03/2006 2:34:31 AM PST by familyop
The world's stocks of seafood will have collapsed by 2050 at present rates of destruction by fishing, scientists said yesterday.
A four-year study of 7,800 marine species around the world's ecosystems has concluded that the long-term trend is clear and predictable.
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By 2048, to be exact, catches of all the presently fished seafoods will have declined on average by more than 90 per cent since 1950.
The study, by an international group of ecologists and economists, says the loss of biodiversity impairs the ability of oceans to feed the world's growing human population — expected to rise by 50 per cent to nine billion in 2050.
Over-fishing also sabotages the stability of marine environments, profoundly reducing the ocean's ability to produce seafood, resist diseases, filter pollutants and rebound from stresses such as climate change.
Every species matters when it comes to the ocean's ability to repair itself, says the study, published in this week's Science magazine.
Dr Boris Worm, of Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, the lead author, said: "This is what is projected, not predicted, to happen. I am confident we will not go there because we will do something about it. But if this trend continues in this predictable fashion, as it has for the last 50 years, the world's currently fished seafoods will have reached what we define as collapse by 2048.
"Every year a higher percentage of the currently fished stocks has collapsed. We are losing it piece by piece."
Prof Callum Roberts, of the University of York, who was not involved in the study, said: "The animals and plants that inhabit the sea are not merely embellishments to be wondered at. They are essential to the health of the oceans and well-being of human society."
The scientists found that in 12 regions, which include the Wadden Sea, the shallow part of the North Sea, 38 per cent of exploited marine species of all kinds, including birds, had collapsed in the past 1,000 years while seven per cent was extinct. Some 29 per cent had collapsed since 1950.
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Dr Worm said the decline of cod on the Scotian shelf, off Canada, had led to changes throughout the ecosystem. But there was some good news in the paper.
Dr Worm said there was evidence that wherever protective measures were taken, species recovered rapidly and could cope better with problems such as global warming.
The catch per unit of effort — the standard scientific way of measuring fishing activity — goes up four-fold.
As wild fish stocks decline, farmed fish is expected to take over. Some 43 per cent of fish consumed is already farmed, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
But it warned that fish farming would struggle to maintain even present levels of production because the small wild fish that are fed to farmed species are being over-fished.
Willie Mackenzie, of Greenpeace, said: "This report confirms the scale of the crisis our oceans are facing. It's clear that fish and chips will be off the menu within our lifetimes if we don't act now.
"We need to ban destructive fishing practices and create a network of large-scale marine reserves around not just Britain, but globally".
Despite the problem of the oceans being on a time-scale comparable to global warming, the Government appears to have scrapped plans to introduce its promised Marine Bill in the Queen's Speech this month, the environmental group WWF said yesterday.
Then why is it last year I got flounder on sale for $3.99 a pound and now it's on sale for $6.99 a Lb?
Just wondered.
I caught my fill of fluke this year. am sick of it. (fluke and flounder fillet are sold as one and the same) what happens on the offshore fishing grounds I really dont know. I was on Long Islands north shore and looking across the connecticut while catching these.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1727109/posts
rising waters due to global warming and a hurricane will flood NY city. At least this way we will not have to worry about dead fish being left behind when Algore parts the waters.
Must be those price gouging oil companies grocery stores
Bush's fault.
Godzilla thanks you.
Now he will not eat all the seafood.
LOL!
Good job!
Nice catch...the large mouth bass ain't bad either.
Fisheries are a global commons. They are the perfect example of the tragedy of the commons. The point of the article is that if something is not done to stop the current trends, market forces will see to it that all fisheries are destroyed.
Your local example is the perfect example that this is true.
Our fellow dismissing Freepers are those without a very strong grasp of economics.
For them, in short:
When everyone owns something, no one owns it. Unrestricted, unregulated fishing means that fishermen each have the incentive to catch as many fish as possible before someone else does.
Fish reproduction is based on an ideal density. At the perfect density, fish produce ast a maximum rate in the wild. Above or below that you get less fish.
The fewer fish there are available, the higher the price and the higher the incentive to catch more. Modern technology allows fishermen to catch pretty much the last fish or lower the density so much that it takes decades for the population to recover.
Thus, if we keep going along current trends, we will catch all of the wild fish.
Fish farming is an option, but fish farming is labor and energy intensive and involves transfers of food i.e. we grow grain and feed it to fish, rather than a freely harvested crop like in the wild.
There are two options to solve this problem:
Option 1: Socialism in the form of fishing quotas enforced by governments (with and international agreement) and some type of patrols.
Option 2: Privatization of fishing rights sold to large companies who have the capacity and incentive to maximize the production of the fisheries they own.
Are these the same scientists that said we'd run out of oil by 2000? Or are they the ones predicting global cooling and a new ice age back in the 1970's? Or perhaps the same ones that are now predicting global warming. Maybe they aren't really scientists after all.
Sounds like Seinfeld style science to me.
Structure in the form of reefs and shelves is also important. Personally I think some nursery areas should just be off limits to any fishing or traffic.
Admit it. Now you're just posting for the halibut.
My previous post was not meant to disparage you in any way...It was actually me "approving" of government intervention into property rights < excuse me whilst I puke > The oceans are too big for competing interests < retch > and need coodinated managment by competent people in order to optimize them. Nursery grounds should be no-go grounds.
I hear ya, but right now we have the worst of both worlds. Gummints own the fish and sell the rights to corporations who take all they can get their hands on.
It reminds ME how problems caused by overfishing, conducted in OTHER nations waters, are paraded before the eyes of the U.S. public, right about the time environmentalists push for yet another blanket, area closure. We keep trying to fix the world's problems on our turf, so to speak...
Sort of like the Kyoto Protocols being pushed on the U.S., while China puts a brand-new, coal burning power plant on-line, EVERY FRICKIN WEEK(!) using only the dirtiest coal the entire planet has to offer ---- their own.
Hey, there's fishery problems Worldwide, in Africa, near Europe, in Asian waters, in South America!
I know! Let's put more regulations on fisherman, here in the U.S!!! THAT will fix it!
If there are problems on the Chesapeake, deal with them there...
If government is the problem there (according to you - not "doing enough" to stop commercial fishing?) then deal with it there...but be specific.
Fishery closures, nationwide, might sound good to sports-fishermen, because they think they will then have it all to themselves... But what happens, here on the West Coast, is that the sports get stopped from fishing, also. And out here, in my local area, things are getting shut down, closed -off from access, even where there isn't much of a problem.
One thing also you must remember about "government" ---- when they take something away, they never (or rarely) give it back!
Local stocks, particularly of a few species, which just ten years ago the dyed-in-the-wool environmentalists among the fishery biologists (do I repeat myself here?) were telling us they were "concerned" about, have strongly rebounded.
BUT-- the enviro crowd won't admit it. Any good news, any hint of good news, brings blank stares, and stony silence.
They picked on us here [the enviro-nazis had a feeding frenzy!] but some of them were subtle about it, and realized there was lots of money to be made (by them) in the putting "those guys over there" out of the fishing business business...
Not satiated with that (of course) many of the enviro's still want to put the entire ocean "under glass".
Tens of thousands of square miles of currently in force area closures (offshore of California-Oregon-Washington) is not enough(?)
And that's not even mentioning the tens of thousands of sq. miles recently (by a stroke of George W's pen)"closed" to all fishing, Northwest of the Hawaiian Islands...
Then guys like you pop off at the mouth, saying "close it all down, close it all down".
You really don't have a clue as to what you are talking about.
Uh, just what are you talking about???
IFQ's in the Halibut of Blackcod fisheries in AK, perhaps?
Some East Coast IFQ set-up I know nothing about? [quite possible]
Just WHAT are you talking about? Please, be specific, or please shut your pie hole.
Cod knows I've tried to.
You did that on porpoise.
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