Over-fishing the World's Seas

by Peter Denton

In 1992, some 30,000 Canadians were suddenly without work when once plentiful stocks of cod off the coast of Newfoundland completely collapsed. The area had been a key source of employment for Canadians and one of the most productive fisheries in the world for hundreds of years.

According to the new report Fishing for Answers: Making sense of the global fish crisis, the Canadian debacle was a dramatic warning sign that the world's fisheries face serious issues of ecosystem degradation, overfishing, and increasing consumer demand. The report was written by Yumiko Kura, Carmen Revenga, Eriko Hoshino, and Greg Mock of the World Resources Institute.

"A tide of new technology has swept aside the limits that once kept fishing a mostly coastal and local affair," says Fishing for Answers co-author Yumiko Kura, "resulting in a rapid depletion of key stocks and serious disruption and degradation of the marine and freshwater ecosystems they live in - what many have termed a global fisheries crisis."

While fishing is an ancient activity that has long provided food and income for its practitioners, the practice is still an essential component of not only local livelihoods, but also the global economy.

Approximately 1 billion people, many of whom live in developing nations, depend on fish for their main source of animal protein, Fishing for Answers maintains. In addition, 35 million people rely on either fishing or aquaculture as a source of income. The global fish catch for 2000 was valued at US$81 billion, and the international fish trade was worth US$55 billion.

Overfishing - the action of fishing beyond the level at which fish can naturally replenish themselves - was first recognized as a local problem in the early 1900s. After World War II, the report asserts, overfishing became a widespread issue as the capacity and range of commercial fishing vessels increased rapidly.

"Since 1992, overfishing has become one of the major natural resource concerns in the industrialized world, and increasingly in developing nations as well," Fishing for Answers reports. "Seventy-five percent of commercially important marine and most inland water fish stocks are either currently being overfished, or are being fished at their biological limit."

The report cites controversial research estimating that the quantity of large, commercially desirable fish such as cod, tuna, swordfish, and salmon has dropped more than 90 percent in the world's oceans since the start of large-scale industrial fishing. While some marine fishery experts quibble over exact figures, they largely agree that key commercial fish stocks have experienced significant decline.

According to Fishing for Answers, these overfished stocks will only experience more stress as the demand for fish increases rapidly. Over the last thirty years, demand for seafood products has doubled, the report claims, and is anticipated to grow at 1.5 percent per year through 2020. In addition, the number of people employed through fishing has doubled in the last twenty years. The report notes that this unsustainable growth is nearly three times faster than the general population growth.

"Most people have little idea of what the 'fisheries crisis' is, or what it means to them," said Kura. "From a consumer's point of view - at least in most developed nations - the sad condition of fish stocks is not obvious. There are still plenty of fish available in markets and restaurants, although the types may have changed and the prices may be higher."
 
Fishing for Answers calls for specific changes to the habits of consumers, fishers, and politicians in order to stem the global fisheries crisis. Through a strong commitment to the sustainable management of marine ecosystems, the report emphasizes, and the education and encouragement of fish consumers to take an active role in supporting sustainable fisheries, the world's fisheries can be managed appropriately and more crises like the collapse of the Newfoundland cod population can be averted. (WRI Features, 631 words)