Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 04/14/2008 11:10:23 AM PDT by cogitator
The future food security of millions of people is at risk because over-fishing, climate change and pollution are inflicting massive damage on the world's oceans, marine scientists warned this week.
The two-thirds of the planet covered by seas provide one fifth of the world's protein -- but 75 percent of fish stocks are now fully exploited or depleted, a Hanoi conference that ended Friday was told.
Warming seas are bleaching corals, feeding algal blooms and changing ocean currents that impact the weather, and rising sea levels could in future threaten coastal areas from Bangladesh to New York, experts said.
"People think the ocean is a place apart," said Peter Neill, head of the World Ocean Observatory. "In fact it's the thing that connects us -- through trade, transportation, natural systems, weather patterns and everything we depend on for survival."
Marine ecosystems and food security were key concerns at the Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands, an international meeting of hundreds of experts from governments, environmental groups and universities.
"There is a race to fish, but in wild capture fisheries right now we can catch no more," said Steven Murawski, fisheries chief science advisor at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
"We catch 100 million metric tonnes per year, and that's been very flat globally. Our only hope is if we conserve and rebuild stocks," he said, adding that sustainable aquaculture could help make up the shortfall.
The current plunder is risking long-term sustainability with "too many fishing boats taking too many fish and not allowing the stocks to regenerate," said Frazer McGilvray of Conservation International.
"Once the oceans are gone, we're gone. The oceans sustain the planet."
The world has already seen the effects of over-fishing, experts said.
North Atlantic cod fisheries collapsed in the 1990s, anchovies previously disappeared off Chile, herring off Iceland and sardine off California.
Sixty-four percent of ocean areas fall outside national jurisdictions, making it difficult to reach international consensus or to stop illegal fishing -- a growing concern as high-tech ships scour the high seas.
"It's the Wild West. It's a very small number of boats but the technology allows them to take enormous amounts of fish," said Neill.
"They take only the high commercial product and they throw the bycatch overboard. The waste is extraordinary."
Marine life is also being harmed by climate change, said Murawski.
"We've seen that fish populations go up and down with variations in the climate," he said. "Increasingly we are starting to see long term change affect the productivity, the distributions, the migrations."
The trend is speeding up, Murawski said.
"Our forecasts are wrong," he said. "The melt-off is much faster than has been forecast in the models."
Meanwhile land-based pollution puts heavy strain on oceans, said Ellik Adler of the UN Environment Programme.
"Rivers of untreated sewage, factories, refineries, oil industry discharge their effluent into the marine environment, and this causes huge damage," he said. "Marine pollution has no political borders."
There are few easy fixes, experts said, but one initiative now being considered is setting up a global network of marine protected areas.
"You've got to get agreements between countries," said consultant Sue Wells, whose has worked in coastal East Africa. "Some developed countries have already closed some areas, and most coastal countries are now considering it."
Satellites could monitor no-catch areas, she said, while inspiration could come from South Pacific fishing communities.
"They have taboo areas, coral reef sanctuaries, where fish would be saved for bad weather periods or major festivals and feast," she said. "They know if they leave an area and don't fish there, they'll have much better stocks."
It is a view that has been lost in modern times, she said, where the common view now was "if I don't go and fish it, someone else will."
Thanks for the suggestion. It may be useful to some people to to reconfirm their misperceptions. I, on the other hand, don't need it.
FR’s biggest Al Gore supporter and Kool-Aid drinker
Name-calling and aspersion casting is a poor replacement for reasoned discourse. But I'm used to it. Do you think calling me names is going to do anything about the bluefin tuna?
Lets see. No more fish. Bread too expensive ‘cause of ethanol.. we’re all doomed! Government..especially world government..hurry up and save us. BWAAAAAA!/sarc
You mean the oceans aren’t dead?!
Ted Danson said they would be dead by 1998.
I am convinced that all of the human race must soon die, or we are not going to survive.
Muahahah China will rake the oceans clean! The Lilliputians and Luddites in this country are crippling us. China has no problems like that, because 1)they don’t care,.2) All dissenters are carved up and sold for their organs!3) they don’t care.
The problem with most of the oceans is that once outside the 200-mile coastal zone, there is no governing authority. It's every ship for themselves. And poaching is a serious problem a lot of places that do have a legal authority, but not much money to spend on enforcement. So the alternative would have to be economic; tariffs, import bans, trade sanctions, etc. to get countries to police and control their own fleets and coasts.
I have a fishing trip planned off Gulf Shores, AL next month...Does this mean I can’t go???
The atmosphere and the oceans have been in a decade long cooling trend. It’s that time... apparently.
Perhaps you could pass that comment on to Doc Hansen and his media hit men as well.
The tragedy of the commons. Perhaps the solution lies in bidding out the right to fish up to legislated limits, with the proceeds funding enforcement. This might drive up the cost of seafood, albeit to its true market level.
SST anomaly maps are in respect to a certain period which is generally from 1960-1990 which was a cool period. That's called smoke and mirrors for the uninformed and easily duped.
The salmon are not there because the Environmental Imams killed all hatchery salmon. Saying that they were not “natural.” So again the Environmentalist caused a problem where none existed before.
Oh, great! Now they are bringing race into this. Affirmative action for fishies, anyone?
I was just about to post the same thing. The most amazing thing about that report is that the “scientists” think that maybe the heat is going down so deep they can’t find it....kinda like their - well, you know :)
No it isn't. It's George Bushes fault.
Geez, no wonder you get laughed at so much. Well, never one to abandon a FReeper in need, I'll give you a quick synopsis of what the 3000 scientific robots currently plying the worlds oceans have discovered in their attempt to map out the waters that have warmed the most ~ they couldn't find ANY oceans that have warmed at all, so the snooty as thou scientists concluded this is due to one of 2 things;
a)The scientists cannot read a thermometer, or;
b)The ocean's heat has changed course and is now going deep, deeper than the robots can dive, instead of the "old science" type of heat, which always rises!
Ain't that cool!
That's irrelevant right now. The current anomaly maps show large cool areas attributable to El Nino. There are, of course, currently related meteorological effects happening, too. When La Nina fades, the surface waters will warm up. Whether that's normal or higher than the base period temperatures, the oceans won't look nearly so cold then, because the surface waters will be considerably warmer.
Those SST anomalies are still gauged against the cool period of 1960s-1990s, so yes, an El Nino year will look even warmer. That’s is to be expected if meausred against a known cool period.
It's an intensely political region where trouble is never more than a day away. China would like to gain the region but Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, and some others have a problem with that. Might be oil, too. Pure dynamite.
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