Ocean fish could disappear in 40 years

http://www.news.com.au/world/ocean-fish-could-disappear-in-40-years/story-e6frfkyi-1225868059675

by DrSprout • 16 years ago

83 69 16 years ago

news.com.au

>THE world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 unless fishing fleets are slashed and stocks allowed to recover, UN experts warned.

An important lesson from the Canadian cod collapse is that when populations drop below a critical threshold, the stocks never recover.

hga6• 16 years ago

That may be due to the cod being an apex predator. I.e. has the total biomass of the region collapsed?

However this is a classic Tragedy of the Commons example and the fact that Canada dithered long enough for it to reach what looks like a point of no return is sobering (I was living in the Boston area in the dozen years leading up to Canada's closing of fishery and remember reading articles about this). Some governments are simply not going to handle this well for the regions of the ocean they economically control, and plenty of the ocean (although I don't know how much of it is how productive) is beyond those areas.

All that said, we're likely to see a continuation of farm raised fish replacing wild catched. Something akin to this happened thousands of years ago as we converted to agriculture.

yesbabyyes3• 16 years ago

Are you suggesting that we converted to agriculture after killing almost all wild animals?

ilovecomputers• 16 years ago

If we're gonna farm fish, we best do it right: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EUAMe2ixCI

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

> However this is a classic Tragedy of the Commons example

Not on that, but ppossibly the most tragic example I've ever witnessed.

robryan• 16 years ago

I'd assume this is slightly sensationalist? As in not all species of fish and areas are fished simply because of depth, remoteness and species unsuitable for eating.

pchristensen• 16 years ago

Long lines and bottom trawling make the ocean small and accessible while causing massive amounts of "bycatch" - species unsuitable for eating.

commieneko• 16 years ago

If the "low fruit" species are fished out, then the more remote, less desirable species are likely to be targeted. There is also the danger of damaging the eco system, or at least destabilizing it in unpredictable ways.

junklight2• 16 years ago

This already well underway. The book & film "End of the Line" is well worth a read. Also the massive disruption of the eco-system by removing large numbers of species has un-predictable knock on effects - for example massive numbers of jelly fish in some areas and of course the algae/plankton population explosions which in turn effect the ecosystem to the detriment of other species.

There is also a lot of deception in the naming of fish. Fish species are renamed in order to make them sound like fish we are used to. The fish species you get in British Fish and Chip shops are rarely the species our parents and grandparents ate

Tamerlin• 16 years ago

No, quite the opposite. It's actually tamed for public consumption. As bad and as short sighted as it is, over fishing is actually not the worst thing that we've done to the fish populations of the world.

For example, it ignores the fact that in the Pacific Northwest, in an orgy of short-sighted stupidity, we've managed to kill off nearly all of the greatest salmon runs in the lower 48. (Look around for the Elwha dam sometime.)

Nowadays, to find salmon runs the likes of which the Pacific Northwest was once known for you, there's only one place left: Kamchatka. And I have my doubts about how long they'll last. The only problem that the Kamchatka rivers don't have that the Elwha and Columbia Rivers had (some of the world's greatest salmon runs before human stupidity finished them off) is dams.

anigbrowl2• 16 years ago

The article is very shallow, but th problem is very real. the economist has had some very good coverage on this if you want to cruise their website for it.

The main scourge, the UNEP report says, are government subsidies encouraging ever bigger fishing fleets chasing ever fewer fish, with little attempt made to allow the fish populations to recover. The annual 27 billion dollars in government subsidies to fishing, mostly in rich countries, is "perverse," Mr Sukhdev said, since the entire value of fish caught is only 85 billion dollars.

This is the key issue. Being European, I remember since the 1970s that western European nations, particularly Spain, started ranging further afield because they had fished out most of the waters around their own coasts. The result was 'fishing wars' where trawlers would damage the nets or otherwise interfere with boats from competing nations, which resulted in a few diplomatic incidents. Now Euro fishermen catch way out in the mid-Atlantic, and indeed there have been clashes between Euro and Spanish fishing vessels.

Property rights are offered by some Economists as a solution, and I can see the logic of this; on the other hand I am unsure about the probity of just handing people property title for no value, and I'm uncertain about how these can be properly enforced in international waters anyway, absent solid maritime treaties. So in the meantime we have this idiotic subsidy system, which doesn't benefit anyone except the manufacturers of fishing vessels and equipment.

jacquesm2• 16 years ago

> there have been clashes between Euro and Spanish fishing vessels.

Spanish fishing vessels are not Euro fishing vessels then ?

intellectronica3• 16 years ago

So now it's a race with those Himalayan glaciers. Which will disappear first? ;)

intellectronica3• 16 years ago

Amazing - even just joking about green scaremongering gets you downvoted.

jbooth3• 16 years ago

You made it abundantly clear that not only didn't you read the article, you're not the least bit interested in learning new facts, just in labeling any concern about the environment as "green scaremongering".

jcnnghm• 16 years ago

At a certain point economics would dictate that fish farms would be cheaper than commercial fishing due to scarcity. Plus you could probably charge a premium to gouge the hippies for their compassion, desire for 'clean-water' fish, saving the planet rhetoric, and whatnot.

yesbabyyes3• 16 years ago

Farmed fish eats fish. For each kg of farmed fish, you have to catch two to five kg fish in the ocean. Some of this is fast-growing and might be ok to harvest in large quantities, but most of it, we don't know.

Farmed fish also spreads disease and destroys the local ecosystem. Chiles coastline is in pretty bad shape because of extremely large scale salmon farming.

glhaynes• 16 years ago

Can it be done sustainably? Can a complete ecosystem be established where the feeder fish don't have to be harvested from elsewhere?

plesn3• 16 years ago

My guess is that at a certain point we will have to reconsider our animal based food habits, not based on ethics but on efficiency mainly. We gain some specific contributions from them (B12 vitamin etc) but for others (most proteins included) there should be more efficient ways to get them. The higher you are on the food chain, the more efficiency you loose on the process, so it would better be for something specifically produced at that point of the chain.

lionhearted2• 16 years ago

> THE world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 unless fishing fleets are slashed and stocks allowed to recover, UN experts warned.

I dislike the rise of sensationalism and exaggeration in the media quite a lot. I dislike the rise of sensationalism and exaggeration in the United Nations even more.

Daishiman2• 16 years ago

It's not sensationalistic. You know damn well they're talking about edible fish that we're accustomed to eating now. You're just being intellectually dishonest.

lionhearted2• 16 years ago

> It's not sensationalistic.

The thread title was "Ocean fish could disappear in 40 years" - the first line starts with "THE world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050..." That's sensationalism.

> You know damn well they're talking about edible fish that we're accustomed to eating now.

Actually, the thread title - "Ocean fish could disappear in 40 years" made me click on it, because I thought it was about ecosystems getting destroyed by oil spills, or pollution, or something. And then the article was just about overfishing. And it exaggerates the chances.

> You're just being intellectually dishonest.

C'mon now, that's totally unnecessary - nightmare scenario of fishless oceans is sensationalism. There's an important point there, but the hand-wringing is a bad trend in my opinion. Exaggerating the effects of terrorism, pollution, fishing, copyright infringing piracy, and so on - it's a bad trend in my opinion. And if you disagree, why not be civil about it? "I don't think it's too sensationalistic because x, y, and z..." would work.

jbrun• 16 years ago

Make sure to watch the film The End of the Line: http://endoftheline.com/ - which explains the Canadian Cod collapse,the current state of affairs, and potential solutions.

Also take the time to watch some of the recent TED talks from Mission Blue which offer a good outline of the state of the ocean's and potential solutions.

http://www.tedprize.org/mission-blue-voyage/

antidaily• 16 years ago

A recent WWF report says tuna (bluefin) could be wiped out by 2012.

epochwolf• 16 years ago

Not really an issue, the world is ending by 2012 anyway.

nostromo• 16 years ago

I'm conflicted -- I enjoy eating fish because of its health benefits but I don't want to contribute to over-fishing. What's the ethical and healthy thing to do? Tofu all day every day?

junklight2• 16 years ago

There are sustainable fisheries. For example:

http://www.theecologist.org/how_to_make_a_difference/food_an...

And interestingly enough - the fish in Macdonalds fillet of fish is sustainably produced as well.

Again I can't recommend the book "end of the line" enough (as I notice others have on this page. Including me ;-) )

plesn3• 16 years ago

Our ancestrors did not eat meat or fish every day, today's vegetarians do not eat tofu everyday either. The goal is to be complete in nutrients: you won't be much wrong if you associate cereals, legumes, fresh vegetables, fruits/dried fruits (to get glucids, fibers, proteins, vitamins and minerals) and possibly some dairy products/eggs for lacking nutrients. Think of the traditionnal associations (rice and beans, couscous, houmous and bread, fallafels and pitta ...) and try to be diverse and curious. Cooking is a form of hacking !

dmm3• 16 years ago

Who were your ancestors? How far back are you talking about? Hunter-gatherers? I think you'll find that people ate pretty much everything edible around and that meat was a highly desirable food and eaten whenever possible.

DrSprout• 16 years ago

You would be amazed how easy, enjoyable, cheap, and healthy lentils, peas, and a variety of other beans are for replacing meat.

gregwebs• 16 years ago

You should start by questioning what health benefits people say you are getting. For example, you may not need omega-3 from fish if you reduce other sources of omega-6 in your diet. You should also question anyone that tells you to substitute beans for fish or any vegetable for an animal- the nutrient (and anti-nutrient) composition is going to be entirely different. Fish is generally a good source of vitamin D and iodine in addition to the nutrients of land animals. You can get iodine from seaweed. Eating more than small quantities of properly prepared tofu is making yourself a human experiment. Pasture raised meat is sustainable and healthy. Hopefully we can figure out some sources of sustainable seafood!

stretchwithme2• 16 years ago

when there's every incentive to take all you can before everyone else does, this is bound to happen. as someone has already said, this is a repeat of the tragedy of the commons

we need a system of property rights for the seas, rights to fish at certain places and times, that create incentives to not overfish and to protect this valuable resource.

If you own the rights to a stream of income, you don't have the incentive to gut it and sell whatever you can sell now before everyone else.

Agriculture is impossible without property rights also. Why would you plant and take care of plants if anyone can just take what they want?

anigbrowl2• 16 years ago

I see your point, but the difference is that land is fixed and generally easier to enforce authority over. International waters are outside normal jurisdictions by definition, so how do you grant and enforce property rights in non-coastal fisheries?

Say you want to divide up Atlantic fisheries for this purpose, trying to balance the demands of 40 or 50 countries that operate fishing fleets is going to be a nightmare. If you go just by coastal size, where do you draw the line over which countries are allowed to participate? Developed countries with better fishing and food distribution industries, like Canada or the EU, are going to claim larger chunks based on the size of their existing economy, whereas poor countries on the west coast of Africa that don't have blue-water fleets are naturally going to object that they're being cut off from future access to resources.

moultano• 16 years ago

That's the great thing about marine sanctuaries. You agree upon a region in the middle of the ocean to declare off-limits for fishing. The fish population of those regions repopulates the rest of the ocean, and you have the best of both words. Unrestrained fishing, and stable fish stocks. You can even find perpetrators using satellites, which helps with enforcement.

The hard part is agreeing upon regions both large enough and spanning enough biomes.

stretchwithme2• 16 years ago

Sell all rights to the highest bidder and then distribute the funds to each country according to population.

The ultimate guardian of any property right is the owner. Just as government is unable to keep squatters out of foreclosed properties, so to it is impossible to keep looters out of the seas with active interested owners.

I'm convinced that owners will come up with all sorts of ways to enforce their rights. It will be their money on the line, after all. And if the penalties for poaching are high enough, the incentives are going to be in favor of owners.

The practical effect of this is fish will cost more than just the cost of picking it up out of the ocean. And that's exactly what needs to happen. The price needs to reflect the relative scarcity of these resources in order for people to change their habits.

Property rights can accomplish what we need. Collective ownership has failed and its time to act accordingly.

jamesshamenski• 16 years ago

stop eating fish. support no fishing zones. support desert based salt water fish farms.

miguelpais• 16 years ago

In my country for long there were no such problems because the government imposed the proihibition of fisherman to go out to get some kinds of species during their mating and growing time. That way fish was allowed to reproduce and grow. Every time the fish you're eating has eggs a few dozens of new fishes could have been spared if the reproduction was allowed to take place. Also sometimes the nets used to catch the fish are too tight not allowing baby fishes to get out.

The problem with the law was that it was in reality imposing a time of starvation every year to the fishermans and their families, while the same species could be bought at the markets imported from other countries. The measure was one of the first to be abandoned when the political regime changed.

I don't really know what is the possibility of fishing companies to cycle between the fishing species during the year to let the other species grow, but that still seems like an alternative to me.

I also think that a fish diet is much more healthy than a meat diet, so a danger like the possible extinction of fishing species shouldn't be taken lightly just because we can get the proteins somewhere else.

ghoerz• 16 years ago

The issue with having individual fishing companies determining policies is that it invokes the tragedy of the commons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

This is addressed in part by the Law of the Sea Treaty, but this only addresses waters out to 200 nautical miles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_Sea_Treaty

Living resources past this zone are free game. If any fishing companies pull out of a region to allow the populations to grow, it only opens up opportunities for other companies to come in.

jarin• 16 years ago

I love sensationalist titles. Bluefin tuna are not the only fish in the ocean.

Ocean fish could disappear in 40 years

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