Sushi is the new steak and modern cuisine can’t do without the occasional lobster tail. Seafood is sold at a loss by a subsidized commercial fishing industry that is the oceans’ worst enemy besides climate change.
 | Picture Gallery (Click on the picture to start)Overfishing threatens our oceans. Find out how sustainable seafood could help. |
During the last decade, as nutrition experts hailed the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, and seafood became a source of protein equivalent to meat, the global seafood market grew rapidly. Supermarkets and restaurants in the West try to outdo each other by offering “sustainable” supplies and reassuring labels, however threatened the various species really might be.
The state of the world’s fisheries, however, is a grim one: 50 percent of all fish stocks are fully exploited and 30 percent are depleted. Only one percent is starting to recover.
Karoline Schacht, fisheries policy officer of WWF Germany, explains. “Destructive fishing practices, such as bottom trawling, are damaging and destroying sensitive marine habitats,” she says. “Millions of non-target fish and other ocean dwellers are incidentally killed as bycatch. This has pushed the largest living space on Earth to its limit – threatening not just marine habitats and species but also the livelihoods of coastal communities, human health, and food security.”
In 1992, Newfoundland, Canada became the synonym for those ecological and economic dangers. The flourishing cod fishing industry came to a shuddering halt when cod season arrived, but the cod did not.
Decades of mismanagement and banking on never ending supplies resulted in 40,000 jobless people and an ecosystem in decay. An immediate fishing ban was introduced to encourage a swift recovery of both cod stocks and the fishing industry, to no effect. “The sad truth is that the catch moratorium still exists, but the stocks never came back”, says Schacht.
Aquaculture: Food For Thought
In 2008, the average global per capita supply of fish and seafood reached the all-time high of 17 kilograms. Some 2.1 million fishing vessels and an estimated 43.5 million people working in the fishing industry ensured that the wild fish supply stagnated at just below 90 million tons since the mid 1990s.
The imbalance between wild supply and increasing demand is being covered by aquaculture. The 2008 report on the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), found that fish farms were responsible for 47 percent of the yearly output, making aquaculture the fastest growing animal food sector. The per capita supply of fish farms rose from 0.7 kilograms in 1970 to 7.8 kilograms in 2006.
It sounds like a blessing, but can be a curse. “It could take pressure off wild stocks”, says Karoline Schacht, “But only growing or hatching fish that would otherwise have been caught in the wild is not a good idea. The cultured species depend on fish meal made from wild fish. The problem of overfishing is thus exacerbated.”
In addition, huge parts of coastline, such as Asian mangrove forests, have given way to artificial ponds and basins. The residues of the farmed fish and uneaten fish meal contaminate the water. Parasites infesting the fish crop also invade the wild seas. The mix is made worse by the pesticides and antibiotics used to prevent the farmed fish from dying young.
Many farmed species are a threat to native diversity. In the competition between alien and resident species, the alien species might better wild stocks, something evidently happening in areas of salmon farming in British Columbia, Canada. Alien Atlantic salmon are escaping from the cages and slowly altering the native gene pool.
Fishy regulations
Fishing has long been considered a ‘free for all’, the last bastion of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that humanity long ago abandoned on land. This has made sustainable policymaking and regulation of the fish trade very difficult. ”Non-regulation has been built upon the notion that the seas are inexhaustible and fish is there to feed the world”, concludes Karoline Schacht.
Instead, modern fishing practices need to protect habitats, non-target species, and immature fish. In Europe, where fisheries management is largely centralized, “a regionalisation on national governmental levels should take place,” argues Schacht, “ acknowledging that there are different problems in different areas of the EU”.
So far the impact on the environment has largely been ignored. Although no detailded estimate is available, the unwanted bycatch amounts to 20 million tonnes globally. Nonetheless, those scandalous rates continue to grow as subsidies for “modernization” of fishing fleets and fuel still exist.
In terms of successful reform, Europe could take a leaf out of Iceland’s book. The country’s fishing policy has proven that fish stocks can indeed prosper despite being hunted by their main predator, man.
In Iceland, individual and transferable fishing quotas are given to each vessel and for each species. The size of the quota is determined by the average catch over a three-year-period. To guarantee success for everyone, quotas can be traded among boats. The formerly undocumented bycatch has to be recorded. Aditionally, Iceland closes the well known spawning areas as long as the fish are breeding.
The main objective of these fishers has changed from maximizing the harvest to establishing a sustainable stock. Although 63 percent of the examined stocks in Iceland still need help rebuilding, there is new hope for the troubled waters.
In his study “Rebuilding Global Fisheries” published in 2009, marine biologist Boris Worm offers further hope. A combination of approaches, such as catch quotas and community management, coupled with strategically placed fishing closures, ocean zoning, selective fishing gear, and economic incentives, would help the fisheries to regenerate, he says.
“Lessons from one spot need to be applied very carefully to a new area," says Worm’s co-author Beth Fulton of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship in Australia. "There are no single silver bullet solutions. Management efforts must be customized to the place and the people” Otherwise the fish dish may become a rare delicacy that few can afford.
editor: Bettina Fachinger
publishing date: November 20, 2009
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