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'Only 50 years left' for sea fish
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JayC9
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'Only 50 years left' for sea fish
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Natural protection
Enlarge Image
There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study.
Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.
Writing in the journal Science, the international team of researchers says fishery decline is closely tied to a broader loss of marine biodiversity.
But a greater use of protected areas could safeguard existing stocks.
"The way we use the oceans is that we hope and assume there will always be another species to exploit after we've completely gone through the last one," said research leader Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Canada.
This century is the last century of wild seafood
Steve Palumbi
Should fish be off the menu?
Send us your comments
"What we're highlighting is there is a finite number of stocks; we have gone through one-third, and we are going to get through the rest," he told the BBC News website.
Steve Palumbi, from Stanford University in California, one of the other scientists on the project, added: "Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood."
Spanning the seas
This is a vast piece of research, incorporating scientists from many institutions in Europe and the Americas, and drawing on four distinctly different kinds of data.
Graph of fish decline.
Catch records from the open sea give a picture of declining fish stocks.
In 2003, 29% of open sea fisheries were in a state of collapse, defined as a decline to less than 10% of their original yield.
Bigger vessels, better nets, and new technology for spotting fish are not bringing the world's fleets bigger returns - in fact, the global catch fell by 13% between 1994 and 2003.
Historical records from coastal zones in North America, Europe and Australia also show declining yields, in step with declining species diversity; these are yields not just of fish, but of other kinds of seafood too.
Zones of biodiversity loss also tended to see more beach closures, more blooms of potentially harmful algae, and more coastal flooding.
We should protect biodiversity, and it does pay off through fisheries yield
Carl Gustaf Lundin
Experiments performed in small, relatively contained ecosystems show that reductions in diversity tend to bring reductions in the size and robustness of local fish stocks. This implies that loss of biodiversity is driving the declines in fish stocks seen in the large-scale studies.
The final part of the jigsaw is data from areas where fishing has been banned or heavily restricted.
These show that protection brings back biodiversity within the zone, and restores populations of fish just outside.
Click here to see where the evidence came from
"The image I use to explain why biodiversity is so important is that marine life is a bit like a house of cards," said Dr Worm.
"All parts of it are integral to the structure; if you remove parts, particularly at the bottom, it's detrimental to everything on top and threatens the whole structure.
"And we're learning that in the oceans, species are very strongly linked to each other - probably more so than on land."
Protected interest
What the study does not do is attribute damage to individual activities such as over-fishing, pollution or habitat loss; instead it paints a picture of the cumulative harm done across the board.
Even so, a key implication of the research is that more of the oceans should be protected.
Nets on tuna boat. Image: Wolcott Henry 2005/Marine Photobank
Modern fishing methods such as purse seine nets are very efficient
But the extent of protection is not the only issue, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the global marine programme at IUCN, the World Conservation Union.
"The benefits of marine-protected areas are quite clear in a few cases; there's no doubt that protecting areas leads to a lot more fish and larger fish, and less vulnerability," he said.
"But you also have to have good management of marine parks and good management of fisheries. Clearly, fishing should not wreck the ecosystem, bottom trawling being a good example of something which does wreck the ecosystem."
But, he said, the concept of protecting fish stocks by protecting biodiversity does make sense.
"This is a good compelling case; we should protect biodiversity, and it does pay off even in simple monetary terms through fisheries yield."
Protecting stocks demands the political will to act on scientific advice - something which Boris Worm finds lacking in Europe, where politicians have ignored recommendations to halt the iconic North Sea cod fishery year after year.
Without a ban, scientists fear the North Sea stocks could follow the Grand Banks cod of eastern Canada into apparently terminal decline.
"I'm just amazed, it's very irrational," he said.
"You have scientific consensus and nothing moves. It's a sad example; and what happened in Canada should be such a warning, because now it's collapsed it's not coming back."
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Natural protection
Enlarge Image
There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study.
Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.
Writing in the journal Science, the international team of researchers says fishery decline is closely tied to a broader loss of marine biodiversity.
But a greater use of protected areas could safeguard existing stocks.
"The way we use the oceans is that we hope and assume there will always be another species to exploit after we've completely gone through the last one," said research leader Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Canada.
This century is the last century of wild seafood
Steve Palumbi
Should fish be off the menu?
Send us your comments
"What we're highlighting is there is a finite number of stocks; we have gone through one-third, and we are going to get through the rest," he told the BBC News website.
Steve Palumbi, from Stanford University in California, one of the other scientists on the project, added: "Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood."
Spanning the seas
This is a vast piece of research, incorporating scientists from many institutions in Europe and the Americas, and drawing on four distinctly different kinds of data.
Graph of fish decline.
Catch records from the open sea give a picture of declining fish stocks.
In 2003, 29% of open sea fisheries were in a state of collapse, defined as a decline to less than 10% of their original yield.
Bigger vessels, better nets, and new technology for spotting fish are not bringing the world's fleets bigger returns - in fact, the global catch fell by 13% between 1994 and 2003.
Historical records from coastal zones in North America, Europe and Australia also show declining yields, in step with declining species diversity; these are yields not just of fish, but of other kinds of seafood too.
Zones of biodiversity loss also tended to see more beach closures, more blooms of potentially harmful algae, and more coastal flooding.
We should protect biodiversity, and it does pay off through fisheries yield
Carl Gustaf Lundin
Experiments performed in small, relatively contained ecosystems show that reductions in diversity tend to bring reductions in the size and robustness of local fish stocks. This implies that loss of biodiversity is driving the declines in fish stocks seen in the large-scale studies.
The final part of the jigsaw is data from areas where fishing has been banned or heavily restricted.
These show that protection brings back biodiversity within the zone, and restores populations of fish just outside.
Click here to see where the evidence came from
"The image I use to explain why biodiversity is so important is that marine life is a bit like a house of cards," said Dr Worm.
"All parts of it are integral to the structure; if you remove parts, particularly at the bottom, it's detrimental to everything on top and threatens the whole structure.
"And we're learning that in the oceans, species are very strongly linked to each other - probably more so than on land."
Protected interest
What the study does not do is attribute damage to individual activities such as over-fishing, pollution or habitat loss; instead it paints a picture of the cumulative harm done across the board.
Even so, a key implication of the research is that more of the oceans should be protected.
Nets on tuna boat. Image: Wolcott Henry 2005/Marine Photobank
Modern fishing methods such as purse seine nets are very efficient
But the extent of protection is not the only issue, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the global marine programme at IUCN, the World Conservation Union.
"The benefits of marine-protected areas are quite clear in a few cases; there's no doubt that protecting areas leads to a lot more fish and larger fish, and less vulnerability," he said.
"But you also have to have good management of marine parks and good management of fisheries. Clearly, fishing should not wreck the ecosystem, bottom trawling being a good example of something which does wreck the ecosystem."
But, he said, the concept of protecting fish stocks by protecting biodiversity does make sense.
"This is a good compelling case; we should protect biodiversity, and it does pay off even in simple monetary terms through fisheries yield."
Protecting stocks demands the political will to act on scientific advice - something which Boris Worm finds lacking in Europe, where politicians have ignored recommendations to halt the iconic North Sea cod fishery year after year.
Without a ban, scientists fear the North Sea stocks could follow the Grand Banks cod of eastern Canada into apparently terminal decline.
"I'm just amazed, it's very irrational," he said.
"You have scientific consensus and nothing moves. It's a sad example; and what happened in Canada should be such a warning, because now it's collapsed it's not coming back."
fistfullofsteel
Well-known member
won't be long before we wipe each other out. human race = nature's biggest mistake
mountain muscle
New member
We are a virus.
G
Gambino
Guest
nature will win out in the endfistfullofsteel said:
patsfan1379
New member
The Sky Is Falling!
No, I don't believe that.fistfullofsteel said:
But humans made a HUGE mistake when they stopped revering nature and started believeing they were the "Masters" over everything on this planet and had the right to exploit things instead of appreciating what there was.
p0ink
New member
Wiping out of fish stocks by 2048 'unlikely': FAO
Terra Daily ^ | 11/03/2006 | Staff Writers
Posted on 11/03/2006 3:09:56 PM PST by cogitator
The conservation status of fish and crustaceans in the world's oceans is "unacceptable" but dire predictions published Friday in the US magazine Science are "unlikely", according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
"To state that all exploited taxa will have collapsed by 2048, the authors have made a simple extrapolation of their results across the next 40 years. This is statistically dangerous," said Serge Michel Garcia, director of the FAO's Fishery Resources Division.
He added: "Such a massive collapse ... would require reckless behaviour of all industries and governments for four decades, and an incredible level of apathy of all world citizens to let this happen, without mentioning economic forces that would discourage this from happening."
The US-Canadian study warned that accelerating overfishing and pollution of the oceans could force seafood completely off of mankind's plates by the middle of the 21st century.
The scientists said they were "shocked" and "disturbed" by the conclusions of their own research, saying the trend toward mass disappearance of fish and seafood species was speeding up.
If not reversed, they said, humans would have to stop eating seafood by 2048.
"Most if not all conclusions regarding the relation between species diversity and the resilience of the ecosystem ... have been available for years if not decades," Garcia said in an e-mail to AFP.
"It is evident that a further decay of the situation of wild stocks can only be globally detrimental for food security," he said.
The effort to combat the situation, "as we see it from FAO, shows contradictory signs of progress (in a few leading countries) and stagnation (in many developed ones)," he wrote.
FAO member states are "struggling to implement" a 2001 code of conduct for responsible fishing, "often despite unfavouravble economic and social conditions", he said.
Positive signs include the implementation of the "ecosystem approach", which also dates from 2001 and is "progressing rapidly in a small number of leading countries", along with quotas and eco-labelling, he said.
In the Mediterranean Sea, trawling below a depth of 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) is prohibited, he added.
"Faster progress (would require) a stronger political will ... fuller collaboration of the industry, more participative governance and more deterrent enforcement," Garcia said.
Noting that the UN agency estimates global demand for fish at 180 million tonnes in 2030, Garcia said: "Assuming that wild stocks continue to produce about 90 million tonnes as they do today, this implies doubling the present aquaculture production with a not insignificant impact on the environment and a potential shortage in fish meal (used for aquaculture feed)."
Currently some 35 million tonnes of fish is processed into feed for farmed fish and livestock.
Nearly one fish in two, 43 percent, consumed in the world last year came from fish farms, compared with nine percent in 1980.
Terra Daily ^ | 11/03/2006 | Staff Writers
Posted on 11/03/2006 3:09:56 PM PST by cogitator
The conservation status of fish and crustaceans in the world's oceans is "unacceptable" but dire predictions published Friday in the US magazine Science are "unlikely", according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
"To state that all exploited taxa will have collapsed by 2048, the authors have made a simple extrapolation of their results across the next 40 years. This is statistically dangerous," said Serge Michel Garcia, director of the FAO's Fishery Resources Division.
He added: "Such a massive collapse ... would require reckless behaviour of all industries and governments for four decades, and an incredible level of apathy of all world citizens to let this happen, without mentioning economic forces that would discourage this from happening."
The US-Canadian study warned that accelerating overfishing and pollution of the oceans could force seafood completely off of mankind's plates by the middle of the 21st century.
The scientists said they were "shocked" and "disturbed" by the conclusions of their own research, saying the trend toward mass disappearance of fish and seafood species was speeding up.
If not reversed, they said, humans would have to stop eating seafood by 2048.
"Most if not all conclusions regarding the relation between species diversity and the resilience of the ecosystem ... have been available for years if not decades," Garcia said in an e-mail to AFP.
"It is evident that a further decay of the situation of wild stocks can only be globally detrimental for food security," he said.
The effort to combat the situation, "as we see it from FAO, shows contradictory signs of progress (in a few leading countries) and stagnation (in many developed ones)," he wrote.
FAO member states are "struggling to implement" a 2001 code of conduct for responsible fishing, "often despite unfavouravble economic and social conditions", he said.
Positive signs include the implementation of the "ecosystem approach", which also dates from 2001 and is "progressing rapidly in a small number of leading countries", along with quotas and eco-labelling, he said.
In the Mediterranean Sea, trawling below a depth of 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) is prohibited, he added.
"Faster progress (would require) a stronger political will ... fuller collaboration of the industry, more participative governance and more deterrent enforcement," Garcia said.
Noting that the UN agency estimates global demand for fish at 180 million tonnes in 2030, Garcia said: "Assuming that wild stocks continue to produce about 90 million tonnes as they do today, this implies doubling the present aquaculture production with a not insignificant impact on the environment and a potential shortage in fish meal (used for aquaculture feed)."
Currently some 35 million tonnes of fish is processed into feed for farmed fish and livestock.
Nearly one fish in two, 43 percent, consumed in the world last year came from fish farms, compared with nine percent in 1980.
I believe it was the T-800 model 101 that said about humans, "It is in you nature to destroy yourselves."
bran987
New member
yeah you're fucking rich. and that's the exact reason why the fish will be fucking dead. just like einstein said. compound interest is the greatest discovery of all time, although it's merely an exponential function.redguru said:
I know there are conspiracy theorists all around the internet that say he never said it. But if he didn't, he should have.
Are you saying their method was valid or flawed?
Scientists come up with these things based off the smallest piece of evidence to justify their need for being or need for a job or need to get more funding for their projects. Its like firefighters lighting fires so they can keep thier jobs as they are now needed more than ever. Are you that naive to think we can fish all the fish out opf our oceans.
fistfullofsteel
Well-known member
dognutz said:
you can have 99.999999% scientists say one thing but there is always one asshole who needs the attention and has to go against what a blind man can see.
Are you truly so naive as to believe it CAN'T be done? Are you so incredibly obtuse as to believe that there is NO LIMIT to the abuse the oceans can take?dognutz said:
Just as there is no limit to the amount of clear cutting rainforests can take, huh? There'll ALWAYS be more trees, right
The human race has single-handedly brought about the extinction or near extinction of not a few, not tens, not hundreds, but 1,000s of species. Not just animals but plants, shit entire frigging ECOSYSTEMS. While natural selection does normally cause one species or another to fail, we artificially wipe out successful, thriving species because they have pretty fur, or pretty feathers, or because they unfortunately decided to live where we want to create farmland, or oil fields, or because we find their home a convenient place to dump our sewage, or because we find them tasty and nutritious.
Human greed and human arrogance will be the the ultimate cause of our own destruction, too. It may not be in 50 years, but our species has done more harm to this planet, through pollution, destruction of ecosystems and microcosms, the draining off of resources in terms of mining and drilling, in the past 200 years than had been done in all it's billions of years of existence. If we continue at the current rate, unchecked, what EXACTLY do you think is going to happen? Do you really think it's going to get BETTER, particularly after we've added a few billion more useless frigging consuming humans and more and more nations become industrialized???
And then what, pack up into our spaceships and go move somewhere else??? Yeah, like that's gonna happen. This is the only home we have, and the only home we will EVER have and it is the height of arrogance and stupidity that we take it for granted and don't think even for a moment of what messes we are creating for future generations.
gotmilk
New member
dognutz said:
Well, I live on the coast of Maine and there are problems. Limiting the number of fishing days has helped some of the stocks like Lobster and Haddock but stocks of cod is down the shitter still.
Then again...it's like like the Africans eat lobster so we might be ok.
mountain muscle
New member
musclemom said:Are you truly so naive as to believe it CAN'T be done? Are you so incredibly obtuse as to believe that there is NO LIMIT to the abuse the oceans can take?
Just as there is no limit to the amount of clear cutting rainforests can take, huh? There'll ALWAYS be more trees, right
The human race has single-handedly brought about the extinction or near extinction of not a few, not tens, not hundreds, but 1,000s of species. Not just animals but plants, shit entire frigging ECOSYSTEMS. While natural selection does normally cause one species or another to fail, we artificially wipe out successful, thriving species because they have pretty fur, or pretty feathers, or because they unfortunately decided to live where we want to create farmland, or oil fields, or because we find their home a convenient place to dump our sewage, or because we find them tasty and nutritious.
Human greed and human arrogance will be the the ultimate cause of our own destruction, too. It may not be in 50 years, but our species has done more harm to this planet, through pollution, destruction of ecosystems and microcosms, the draining off of resources in terms of mining and drilling, in the past 200 years than had been done in all it's billions of years of existence. If we continue at the current rate, unchecked, what EXACTLY do you think is going to happen? Do you really think it's going to get BETTER, particularly after we've added a few billion more useless frigging consuming humans and more and more nations become industrialized???
And then what, pack up into our spaceships and go move somewhere else??? Yeah, like that's gonna happen. This is the only home we have, and the only home we will EVER have and it is the height of arrogance and stupidity that we take it for granted and don't think even for a moment of what messes we are creating for future generations.
Hey! Leave the oil fields out of this.
Last edited:
mountain muscle said:
It all contributes. And frankly for all the money that's being sunk into those oil fields to draw up what's left, 200 times MORE should be invested to find a viable alternative.
The oil WILL run out, there is only a finite amount. You cannot rely indefinitely on a finite resource.
musclemom said:
It all contributes. And frankly for all the money that's being sunk into those oil fields to draw up what's left, 200 times MORE should be invested to find a viable alternative.
The oil WILL run out, there is only a finite amount. You cannot rely indefinitely on a finite resource.
I was gonna make a comment around this idea, but figured it'd be a whole 'nother thread, lol.
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