Today's front page New York Times story -- "Europe Takes Africa's Fish, and Boatloads of Migrants Follow" -- chronicles the human cost of overfishing. Fueled by billions in government subsidies, European fleets empty out West African waters, leaving nothing for subsistence fishermen. I wrote about this in an earlier post, but it's an important enough issue to warrant reiteration.
Wasteful subsidies promote mismanagement on both the European and African sides. Too often, countries strike subsidy agreements without any regard for the consequences, and the large amounts of money involved invite corruption and perversity. As Oceana's subsidies campaign director Courtney Sakai put it to me this morning, when we discussed the article: "It completely undoes good management."
That's why we are pressuring the WTO to cut back on subsidies, and enforce transparency in subsidy agreements. Subsistence fishermen, not to mention fish, don't stand a chance without changes at the top level of governance.
Will Africa’s farmland become a ‘resource curse’?
City preps and countries posture ahead of Copenhagen talks
Comments
View as Threaded
sindark Posted 8:00 am
14 Jan 2008
a sibilant intake of breath
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 12:00 pm
14 Jan 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
bookerly Posted 12:33 pm
14 Jan 2008
It's the insatiable demand for fish from developed countries. The oceans can't support it.
People need to eat less fish (wealthy people especially).
Read the articles and notice that the demand continues despite rapidly rising prices.
patrick in Beijing
Permalink
Delay And Deny Posted 1:07 pm
14 Jan 2008
I was just watching a 60 Minutes segment online about Bluefin Tuna and Sushi in Japan. They went through the usual cycle of there being a few fishing boats at first, then larger more sophisticated vessles and then up through fish farms.
In Japan they have such demand for what was once a delicacy, they can now sell the sushi for 50 cents a piece!
So, what puzzles me is how this "sustainable" system can produce so much so cheaply and yet be...sustainable?
It also makes me ask...what is "overfishing". Take any population. If you cull the largest mature adults, after they've mated, then what role, if any, do they play in the population. It would seem to me, that since inside a population, or group, there is constant competition for resources, food, and so on, that the remaining "runts" would be thankful that the larger fish were caught and turned into sushi.
And this seems the same for any large, high order animal. One the one hand, people decry the fate of the polar bears. But what about the other polar bears? I mean, I think it would be great if there were far less adult humans eating up the planet and using up all the stuff, and I'm sure you all feel the same way about me. So if the aliens or whatever start coming down and harvesting us, for many people, it would be the best thing going. Twice as much stuff for the survivors.
Back to the fish. I think of it like, an large adult who's mated has no more biological role. If you extract that individual for food, well, that actually frees up more resources. It doesn't take away anything at all. It would encourage growth and the population would happily rush to fill that slot.
Right?
My Log
Permalink
Blueplanet Posted 7:55 pm
14 Jan 2008
Permalink
suzannah Posted 11:58 pm
14 Jan 2008
Permalink
sindark Posted 12:48 am
15 Jan 2008
"Unlike agriculture, where investment in technology and capital increases long-term yields, without regulation technological development in fishing can only lead to more rapid resource depletion. Fishing remains sustainable only when regeneration exceeds exploitation. That balance must be at the core of any sensible fisheries policy, like those emerging in Iceland and New Zealand. The comparative barrenness of the North Sea and the Grand Bank demonstrates that this balance has not been respected, even when the states that are involved are the richest, most technologically capable, and most scientifically advanced in the world. Dr. Daniel Pauly, of the UBC Fisheries Centre, equates the process of "fishing outwards" to a hole being burned through a piece of paper. At the center are the now depleted waters of Europe and much of the Atlantic. According to Charles Clover, Environment Editor of The Daily Telegraph, two-thirds of Europe's commercial fish stocks are already outside their biological safety limits, while cod stocks have collapsed from Canada to Sweden. These problems of depletion have spread to the coasts of Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and elsewhere. They have reached into trenches and onto sea-mounts that were previously inaccessible to fishermen. The global trade system conceals depletion by allowing access to ever more distant stocks, thereby perpetuating the process of fishing outwards while concealing its occurrence.
As well as fishing out, a process of "fishing down" to successively lower levels in the food web occurs, eventually yielding ecosystems containing nothing more than "jellyfish and plankton." Removing the top predators in an ecosystem does not, as earlier ecological science predicted, vastly increase the numbers of smaller animals. More often, it seems to destabilize food webs and populations. With a resource that is as important and as incompletely understood as the sea, it seems elementary to exercise caution when undertaking activities that have had tragic consequences in the past. When the states in question exist in far more dire circumstances than those of the developed world, such caution is doubly valid, especially as they have fewer means at their disposal to correct environmental mistakes.
Once a particular area, such as the Mediterranean or the North Sea, is depleted, its fishing capacity can no longer be used. The trawler fleets that once fished off of Naples or Plymouth must now travel ever farther afield to fill their holds. Disheartening evidence from depleted fisheries suggests that areas rendered barren may not soon recover, as they experience what is known in the ecological literature as the Allee Effect: a phenomenon whereby depleted resources are less productive and behave differently than healthy ones. This effect can drive species that are not eliminated by human activity to extinction regardless, as observed with the passenger pigeon."
a sibilant intake of breath
Permalink
Erik Hoffner Posted 1:41 am
15 Jan 2008
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
Permalink
Tasermons Partner Posted 1:43 am
15 Jan 2008
Industrial-scale overfishing doesn't just affect the targeted species, but also depletes other aquatic life.
For example, for every pound of shrimp caught in the Gulf of Mexico, they also catch at least nearly 9 or 10 pounds of other aquatic life, which simply dies in the nets and is usually thrown back overboard.
It's not very efficient.
Permalink
Jason D Scorse Posted 3:57 am
15 Jan 2008
Bottom line: There is no such thing as sustainable fishing on a commercial scale.
Buying a Big Mac is probably better for the environment than buying tuna.
Dems the facts.
I teach environmental economics and blog at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
Permalink
Blueplanet Posted 5:33 am
15 Jan 2008
Can you answer this then - why does the MSC exist? Surely, by their definition sustainable means plentiful, and when the population (Alaskan pollock?) has been 'sustainably' caught and we can't make fishfingers out of them anymore we shall move onto another plentiful fish species (wrasse?).
Cod were more than sustainable once, even a plague by human standards (remember the passenger pigeon?).
Sustainable to me means leaving the oceans and sea alone to recover, not moving onto last years cheap fish species.
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 5:54 am
15 Jan 2008
It is good, I guess, that the subject of ill-managed West African fisheries being depleted is receiving more attention, as a problem of African politics, economics and society. That is typical: no one ever talks of fish, for the most part, and of the vitality of fish species, save insofar as they are related to one or another fishery.
Of course, to think of fish as primarily or exclusively a "resource" involves a subjective distortion of reality. Ideally, the well-being of fish should be recognized as a good in itself, without regard to any economic benefit for human beings.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
Permalink
Tasermons Partner Posted 2:01 pm
15 Jan 2008
More than half the fish in Europe are caught illegally:http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/half_the_fish_i.p ...
Permalink
Blueplanet Posted 1:11 am
16 Jan 2008
Where a considerable value has been placed on a wild land animal (ivory, horn, fur, bone etc.) they have almost invariably been driven to the brink of extinction. Massive publicity (followed by a lot of money) saved the rhino and the elephant, will it save the tuna? No, because they are seen as a commodity, and not just by poachers, but entire peoples.
The perception that it is OK to eat endangered fish but not endangered land animals needs to change drastically worldwide before we can seriously conserve marine species.
Permalink
smithwalker13 Posted 6:07 am
10 Mar 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bfmyw-3yys
Permalink
smithwalker13 Posted 6:09 am
10 Mar 2008