Overfishing unsustainable

Overfishing unsustainable

Overfishing is unsustainable- we are on the brink of collapsing ocean ecosystems and running out of fish

Even environmental experts are often surprised to learn the extent of the damage that overfishing already has caused in the oceans. Overfishing is defined as fishing that unsustainably depletes fish stocks and nonfished species or that damages the ocean environment. The term encompasses overexploitation of a target species, killing of nontargeted species (bycatch), and habitat destruction in which important physical features of the ocean environment are damaged. Globally, 90% of large fish are already gone. During the past 40 years, as stocks have disappeared, bigger boats have gone farther and deeper to find new fish. This unsustainable fishing effort has extended to the furthest reaches of the globe and down the food chain. The effects are being felt as people have less access to this important source of protein and as fish-consuming species such as seabirds and whales lose out in an intense competition with humans. The United States manages one of the largest ocean areas of any country, and the effects of overfishing in these waters are dramatic. Of 230 fish stocks (individual species or groups of related species) under federal management, 94 are known to be unsustainably exploited. For example, cod, long the staple of many diets and a main driver of North American exploration, are severely depleted. Atlantic halibut have been hunted to commercial extinction. Bocaccio, one of several highly depleted Pacific rockfish species, have been reduced to less than 10% of their historical population size in West Coast waters. Large predatory fish, including tuna, sharks, marlin, and swordfish, are largely gone. In the Gulf of Mexico, whitetip shark populations are at 1% of what they were in the 1950s. Most of the several species of abalone in California have been harvested to near extinction. This mismanagement of fishery resources has resulted in boomand- bust cycles in individual fisheries and economic dislocation as catches collapse and regulations are tightened to protect stocks.

The world is running out of fish, current methods of fishing are unsustainable

Vince 12, Vince, Gaia. Gaia is a science writer and broadcaster who is particularly interested in how humans are transforming planet Earth and the impacts our changes are having on societies and on other species "How the World's Oceans Could Be Running out of Fish." BBC Future. Smart Planet, 21 Sept. 2012. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120920-are-we-running-out-of-fish Web. 30 June 2014. CS

Global fish stocks are exploited or depleted to such an extent that without urgent measures we may be the last generation to catch food from the oceans. It has been some time since most humans lived as hunter-gatherers – with one important exception. Fish are the last wild animal that we hunt in large numbers. And yet, we may be the last generation to do so. Entire species of marine life will never be seen in the Anthropocene (the Age of Man), let alone tasted, if we do not curb our insatiable voracity for fish. Last year, global fish consumption hit a record high of 17 kg (37 pounds) per person per year, even though global fish stocks have continued to decline. On average, people eat four times as much fish now than they did in 1950. Around 85% of global fish stocks are over-exploited, depleted, fully exploited or in recovery from exploitation. Only this week, a report suggested there may be fewer than 100 cod over the age of 13 years in the North Sea between the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. The figure is still under dispute, but it’s a worrying sign that we could be losing fish old enough to create offspring that replenish populations. Large areas of seabed in the Mediterranean and North Sea now resemble a desert – the seas have been expunged of fish using increasingly efficient methods such as bottom trawling. And now, these heavily subsidised industrial fleets are cleaning up tropical oceans too. One-quarter of the EU catch is now made outside European waters, much of it in previously rich West African seas, where each trawler can scoop up hundreds of thousands of kilos of fish in a day. All West African fisheries are now over-exploited, coastal fisheries have declined 50% in the past 30 years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. Catches in the tropics are expected to decline a further 40% by 2050, and yet some 400 million people in Africa and Southeast Asia rely on fish caught (mainly through artisanal fishing) to provide their protein and minerals. With climate change expected to impact agricultural production, people are going to rely more than ever on fish for their nutritional needs. The policy of subsidising vast fishing fleets to catch ever-diminishing stocks is unsustainable. In Spain, for example, one in three fish landed is paid for by subsidy. Governments, concerned with keeping jobs alive in the fishing industry in the short-term, are essentially paying people to extinguish their own long-term job prospects – not to mention the effect on the next generation of fishermen. Artisanal fishing catches half the world’s fish, yet it provides 90% of the sector’s jobs.

Fish populations are on the brink of extinction – unsustainable fishing methods are changing ecological communities

Bennett 12, Bennett, Dashiel, Reporter. "We're Going to Run Out of Fish." The Wire. The Atlantic Monthly Group, 21 Mar. 2012. http://www.thewire.com/global/2012/05/were-going-run-out-fish/52581/ Web. 01 July 2014. CS

As you can see, the amount of fish we harvest each year has skyrocketed (from 19 million tons to 87 million tons), but with improved techniques and increased production we're now in danger of depleting fish stocks all around globe. Some major commercial fish, like the bluefin tuna are being pushed to the brink of extinction and many others are near "collapse," which means a catch dropping to less than 10 percent of peak catch. We're eating them faster than they can replace themselves and our propensity to harvest fish at the top of the food chains, trickles down to affect the entire ecosystem of our water. From the report: Targeted fishing of top predators has changed whole ecological communities, with increasing abundance of smaller marine animals at lower trophic levels as a consequence of the larger species being removed. This in turn has an impact on the growth of algae and coral health. The overall theme of the report is that we're burning through our food resources at an unsustainable rate. (The WWF says we're consuming the equivalent of one and a half Earths every year.) The good news is that it isn't too late to reverse the trend, without cutting out fishing and eating fish altogether. The bad news is that attempts to place strict quotas on fisherman have been undermined by lobbying efforts and a lack of international consensus. No one wants to slow the speed with which we harvest the oceans, but if we're not careful, the oceans will do that job for us.

Overfishing = Eco-collapse

Overfishing is a serious threat to ocean ecosystems, 70% of fisheries are being exploited

DUJS in 2012(The Threats of Overfishing: Consequences at the Commercial Level by DUJS March 11, 2012 Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/winter-2012/the-threats-of-overfishing-consequences-at-the-commercial-level)

According to marine ecologists, overfishing is the greatest threat to ocean ecosystems today (1). Overfishing occurs because fish are captured at a faster rate than they can reproduce (2). Advanced fishing technology and an increased demand for fish have led to overfishing, causing several marine species to become extinct or endangered as a result (3, 4). In the long-term, overfishing can have a devastating impact on ocean communities as it destabilizes the food chain and destroys the natural habitats of many aquatic species (2). In the past, fishing was more sustainable because fishermen could not access every location and because they had a limited capacity for fish aboard their vessels. Today, however, small trawlers and fishing boats have been replaced by giant factory ships that can capture and process extremely large amounts of prey at a given time (2). These ships use sonar instruments and global positioning systems (GPS) to rapidly locate large schools of fish (1). Fishing lines are deployed with thousands of large hooks that can reach areas up to 120 kilometers deep. The trawling vessels and machines can even reach depths of 170 kilometers and can store an extraordinarily large volume of fish. Each year, these huge trawling ships comb an area twice the size of the United States. They use massive nets 50 meters wide with the capacity to pull the weight of a medium-sized plane (2). They also have several plants for processing and packing fish, large freezing systems, fishmeal processing plants, and powerful engines that can carry this enormous fishing gear around the ocean. Because these ships have all the equipment necessary to freeze and tin fish, they only need to return to their base once they are full. Even when the ships are filled, however, the fish are often transferred to refrigerated vessels in the middle of the ocean and are processed for consumption later (4). As such, industrial fishing has expanded considerably and fishermen can now explore new shores and deeper waters to keep up with the increased demand for seafood. In fact, it has been reported by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) that over 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are either ‘fully exploited’, ‘over exploited’ or ‘significantly depleted’ (5). The annual total global catch of fish is 124 million metric tons, which is equivalent in weight to 378 Empire State Buildings (2). Fishing gear is often non-selective in the fish it targets. For example, any fish that are too big to get through the mesh of a net are captured. Therefore, overfishing does not only threaten the species of fish that is targeted for food, but also many non-target species. As a result, these other species, including marine mammals and seabirds, are accidentally caught in the fishing gear and killed (6). For example, for every ton of prawn caught, three tons of other fish are killed and thrown away. Those in the trade refer to this practice of inadvertent catching of other species as bycatch (4). The FAO has pointed out that about 25 percent of the world’s captured fish end up thrown overboard because they are caught unintentionally, are illegal market species, or are of inferior quality and size. Many of the fish caught this way include endangered and over exploited species, 95 percent of which are eventually thrown away (2). Bycatch is not just limited to just unwanted fish, but rather affects all types of marine life, including whales, dolphins, porpoises, fur seals, albatrosses, and turtles. For example, tuna fisheries are indirectly responsible for the deaths of an estimated one million sharks annually due to bycatch. Small cetaceans, such as dolphins and porpoises, are also targets of bycatch as they are often caught in fishing nets. In fact, hundreds of dolphin corpses are washed up on the beaches of Europe every year, bringing attention to the growing scale of this problem (6). Many modern fishing methods are also irreversibly destructive. For example, bottom trawling, a technique that uses extremely wide nets armed with heavy metal rollers, can crush everything in the path of the gear, destroying fragile corals, smashing rock formations, and killing several tons of fish and animals as bycatch (7). As such, these practices can wreak havoc on delicate marine ecosystems. Not surprisingly, it has been reported that industrial fishing takes between only 10 and 15 years to wipe out a tenth of whichever species it targets (2). In fact, several marine species have already been fished to commercial extinction, and this number is rapidly increasing (1). One of the reasons for this is that the regulation of fishing vessels and the fishing industry is universally inadequate. Roughly two-thirds of the ocean is free of laws and fishing vessels only follow the laws ratified by their country of origin. However, most fishing countries have not ratified any international convention to protect the sea or marine life (2). Moreover, fishing factory ships and companies are given access to fisheries before the long–term impact of their fishing practices is understood (1). Today, the number of fish caught worldwide is actually shrinking as the fishing industry is in decline from many years of overfishing (2). The year 1988 was the first time in human history that global wild fish catches dropped and they have continued to fall ever since. In European waters, four out of every five known fish stocks are already beyond safe biological limits (7). Illegal and unreported fishing have also contributed a great deal to the depletion of the oceans and continues to be a serious problem. A new study conducted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 5 out of the 8 tuna species are at risk of extinction (8). All three species of bluefin tuna, for example, are threatened with extinction and are at a population that makes their recovery practically irreversible (2). The IUCN has also reported that freshwater fish are among the most endangered species, with more than a third facing extinction. Not surprisingly, among those at the greatest risk are species like the Mekong giant catfish, the freshwater stingray, and the European eel, which are used to make some of the most expensive caviars. The Mekong giant catfish is the closest to extinction, with as few as 250 left. Overfishing has reduced the numbers of Mekong freshwater stingray by over 50 percent in Southeast Asia and has reduced the giant Mekong salmon carp population by over 90 percent (9). As previously mentioned, shark populations have also been greatly affected by overfishing. There are already more than 135 species of shark on the IUCN’s list of endangered animals and more are being added each year. For example, the number of scalloped hammerhead shark has decreased by 99% over the past 30 years. Other species recently added to the endangered list include the smooth hammerhead, shortfin mako, common thresher, big-eye thresher, silky, tiger, bull, and dusky (10). Besides being caught as bycatch, sharks are now also being targeted by commercial fishermen for their fins which can fetch a substantial price on the Asian food market. Sharks are particularly vulnerable to exploitation because they have long life spans, are exceptionally slow to mature (taking as long as 16 years in some cases), and are relatively unprolific breeders (11). Recent reports suggest that over fishing has caused a 90% decline in shark populations across the world’s oceans and up to 99% along the US east coast, which are some of the best managed waters in the world. Because sharks are at the top of the food chain, a decline in their numbers has devastating consequences on marine ecosystems (10). Overfishing impacts not just the particular species that is exploited, but also damages other species of fish and disrupts local ecosystems. The stability of ecological communities depends largely on the interactions between predators and prey (12). Thereby, the balance of the food chain is disturbed when certain species are removed. As a result, many ocean species are disappearing and losing their habitats. The evolutionary process of marine species is also being altered, causing cycles of premature reproduction and relative decreases in the size of fish across generations. As predators diminish, the populations of smaller fish escalate because they were previously the food source of the bigger fish. In addition, the disappearance of these species affects many other species, like seabirds and sea mammals, which are vulnerable to the lack of food (2). A recent study found that overfishing is also decreasing the genetic diversity of fish worldwide. Diversity is projected to be reduced further if overfishing continues at the same rate (13). This has serious effects on nutrient recycling in marine ecosystems because fish species vary widely in their rates of nitrogen and phosphorus excretion. As such, altering fish communities creates divergent nutrient recycling patterns and disrupts the functioning of the ecosystem. Recently conducted studies in lakes affected by overfishing show that loss of species contributes to a decline in nutrient recycling and destabilizes the ecosystem (14). While it is often overlooked for other environmental issues, overfishing has historically caused more ecological extinction than any other human influence on coastal ecosystems, including water pollution (5). Unfortunately, due to a lack of data, the extent of this damage has only recently been recognized (15). Given that fishing is a food source for millions of people, attempting to solve the problem of overfishing not easy, especially for developing countries. Nevertheless, scientists and the UN Committee for Sustainable Development have called for a restoration of depleted fisheries and continue to stress the importance of stricter fishing regulations in oceans and inland waters (5). Sustainable fishing will be a necessary goal in counterbalancing depletion in fisheries and re–stabilizing coastal ecosystems.

Overfishing is the biggest environmental crisis facing ocean ecosystems- it threatens entire collapse in the short term

DAVID FESTA, DIANE REGAS, and JUDSON BOOMHOWER in 2013, Festa is director, Diane Regas is managing director, and Judson Boomhower is a fellow of the Oceans Program at Environmental Defense in Washington, DC, Sharing the Catch, Conserving the Fish, Issues in Science and Technology, http://issues.org/24-2/festa/

Additionally, overfishing has broad ecosystem impacts. For example, bottom trawling, in which boats drag gear and nets along the seafloor, can damage deepwater corals, sponges, and other features important for commercial and noncommercial species. Some types of fishing gear also cause very high bycatch, including juvenile fish and threatened or endangered animals such as whales, sea turtles, and seabirds. Large-scale biomass removals by fishermen can have unpredictable effects on ocean food chains. Ecological research suggests that kelp forest food chains have been totally changed by fishing. Two major blue ribbon commissions, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Oceans Commission, concluded that the United States faces an ocean crisis. And although climate change is a serious threat to future ocean productivity, overfishing has had a bigger impact. The United Nations–mandated Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the most thorough look at Earth’s ecosystems ever, concluded that overfishing is “having the most widespread and the dominant direct impact on food provisioning services, which will affect future generations.”

Overfishing disrupts ecosystems and causes overgrowth of hazardous species

Schei and Vidas in 2011

(Peter Johan and Davor, “The World Ocean in Globalisation : Climate Change, Sustainable Fisheries, Biodiversity, Shipping, Regional Issues”, Leiden : Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. 2011, EBSCO)

In terms of ecosystem effects, heavy fishing pressures act to simplify marine ecosystems so that they become dominated by small fishes, squid, jellyfish, and microbes.’7 Bottom-fishing impacts can reduce once structurally-complex habitat to featureless muddy bottom.’ The loss of structural and genetic diversity impairs the ability of marine communities to adapt to changing conditions, making them more vulnerable to environment al stresses and climate change. q ¡ leavy fishing is of course not the only pressure that marine ecosystems are experiencing, but the synergistic impacts of overfishing in combination with other stressors are increasingly severe. The explosion of jellyfish populations now plaguing beaches in many parts of the world, for example. reflects a combination of severe overfishing of natural predators like tuna, sharks and swordfish; rising sea temperatures, caused mainly by global warming; and pollution that has depleted oxygen levels in coastal shallows.20 Jellyfish blooms are a health hazard to beachgoers and fishermen. But, as noted by Dr. Josep-María Gill, a leading jellyfish expert in Spain, ‘the big problem is not on the beach. It’s what’s happening in the seas.’ It is widely recognised that the status quo is no longer acceptable. But so far, only limited progress has been made, primarily with respect to the impacts of deep-sea bottom fishing on vulnerable seabed ecosystems. This progress is the direct result of global frustration crystallised in the 2006 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on sustainable fisheries (61/105) which called for immediate action by states and RFMOs to either manage deep-sea fisheries to prevent significant adverse impacts on deep-sea biodiversity (vulnerable marine ecosystems), or not allow them to proceed. A UNGA review of progress in 2009 resulted in a call for acceler ated efforts and a further review in September 2011. While it remains to be seen how effectively this resolution is implemented, it has, together with the global scrutiny accompanying it, served to stimulate progress. Nevertheless, more is needed to confront the problems that face high seas fisheries in the 21 st century. We need: — to find innovative ways to safeguard ocean health and resilience; — to improve our management institutions; — to eradicate IIJU fishing; and — to harness modem technologies to serve the common good.

Overfishing causes ecological extinction and is a catalyst for other ecosystem collapse

Jackson 1(Jeremy B.C., Kirby, Michael X., Berger, Wolfgang H., Bjorndal, Karen A., Botsford, Louis W., Bourque, Bruce J., Bradbury, Roger H., Cooke, Richard, Earlandson, Jon, Estes, James A., Hughes, Terence P., Kidwell, Susan, Lange, Carina B., Lenihan, Hunter S., Pandolfi, John M., Peterson, Charles H., Steneck, Robert S., Tegner, Mia J., Warner, Robert R, “HISTORICAL OVERFISHING AND THE RECENT COLLAPSE OF COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS”, Ecology Through Time, Vol. 293, Issue 5530, EBSCO)

Ecological extinction caused by overfishing precedes art other pervasive human disturbance to coastal ecosystems, including pollution, degradation of water quality, and anthropogenic climate change. Historical abundances of large consumer species were fantastically large in comparison with recent observations. Paleoecological, archaeological, and historical data show that time lags of decades to centuries occurred between the onset of overfishing and consequent changes in ecological communities, because unfished species of similar trophic level assumed the ecological roles of overfished species until they too were overfished or died of epidemic diseases related to overcrowding. Retrospective data not only help to clarify underlying causes and rates of ecological change, but they also demonstrate achievable goats for restoration and management of coastal ecosystems that could not even be contemplated based on the limited perspective of recent observations atone.

Few modern ecological studies take into account the former natural abundances of large marine vertebrates. There are dozens of places in the Caribbean named after large sea turtles whose adult populations now number in the tens of thousands rather than the tens of millions of a few centuries ago (1, 2). Whales, manatees, dugongs, sea cows, monk seals, crocodiles, codfish, jewfish, swordfish, sharks, and rays are other large marine vertebrates that are now functionally or entirely extinct in most coastal ecosystems (3-10). Place names for oysters, pearls, and conches conjure up other ecological ghosts of marine invertebrates that were once so abundant as to pose hazards to navigation (11), but are witnessed now only by massive garbage heaps of empty shells.

Such ghosts represent a far more profound problem for ecological understanding and management than currently realized. Evidence from retrospective records strongly suggests that major structural and functional changes due to overfishing (12) occurred worldwide in coastal marine ecosystems over many centuries. Severe overfishing drives species to ecological extinction because overfished populations no longer interact significantly with other species in the community (5). Overfishing and ecological extinction predate and precondition modern ecological investigations and the collapse of marine ecosystems in recent times, raising the possibility that many more marine ecosystems may be vulnerable to collapse in the near future.

Current fishing practices have the potential to destroy the ocean’s ecosystems through overfishing

Dartmouth 2012 (Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, Peer reviewed articles from Dartmouth’s undergraduates, The Threats of Overfishing: Consequences at the Commercial Level, March 17, 2012, http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/winter-2012/the-threats-of-overfishing-consequences-at-the-commercial-level#.U7IP9r-vt69, SM)

According to marine ecologists, overfishing is the greatest threat to ocean ecosystems today. Overfishing occurs because fish are captured at a faster rate than they can reproduce. Advanced fishing technology and an increased demand for fish have led to overfishing, causing several marine species to become extinct or endangered as a result. In the long-term, overfishing can have a devastating impact on ocean communities as it destabilizes the food chain and destroys the natural habitats of many aquatic species.¶ In the past, fishing was more sustainable because fishermen could not access every location and because they had a limited capacity for fish aboard their vessels. Today, however, small trawlers and fishing boats have been replaced by giant factory ships that can capture and process extremely large amounts of prey at a given time. These ships use sonar instruments and global positioning systems (GPS) to rapidly locate large schools of fish . Fishing lines are deployed with thousands of large hooks that can reach areas up to 120 kilometers deep. The trawling vessels and machines can even reach depths of 170 kilometers and can store an extraordinarily large volume of fish. Each year, these huge trawling ships comb an area twice the size of the United States. They use massive nets 50 meters wide with the capacity to pull the weight of a medium-sized plane. They also have several plants for processing and packing fish, large freezing systems, fishmeal processing plants, and powerful engines that can carry this enormous fishing gear around the ocean. Because these ships have all the equipment necessary to freeze and tin fish, they only need to return to their base once they are full. Even when the ships are filled, however, the fish are often transferred to refrigerated vessels in the middle of the ocean and are processed for consumption later. As such, industrial fishing has expanded considerably and fishermen can now explore new shores and deeper waters to keep up with the increased demand for seafood. In fact, it has been reported by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) that over 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are either ‘fully exploited’, ‘over exploited’ or ‘significantly depleted’. The annual total global catch of fish is 124 million metric tons, which is equivalent in weight to 378 Empire State Buildings .¶ Fishing gear is often non-selective in the fish it targets. For example, any fish that are too big to get through the mesh of a net are captured. Therefore, overfishing does not only threaten the species of fish that is targeted for food, but also many non-target species. As a result, these other species, including marine mammals and seabirds, are accidentally caught in the fishing gear and killed. For example, for every ton of prawn caught, three tons of other fish are killed and thrown away. Those in the trade refer to this practice of inadvertent catching of other species as bycatch. The FAO has pointed out that about 25 percent of the world’s captured fish end up thrown overboard because they are caught unintentionally, are illegal market species, or are of inferior quality and size. Many of the fish caught this way include endangered and over exploited species, 95 percent of which are eventually thrown away. Bycatch is not just limited to just unwanted fish, but rather affects all types of marine life, including whales, dolphins, porpoises, fur seals, albatrosses, and turtles. For example, tuna fisheries are indirectly responsible for the deaths of an estimated one million sharks annually due to bycatch. Small cetaceans, such as dolphins and porpoises, are also targets of bycatch as they are often caught in fishing nets. In fact, hundreds of dolphin corpses are washed up on the beaches of Europe every year, bringing attention to the growing scale of this problem.¶ Many modern fishing methods are also irreversibly destructive. For example, bottom trawling, a technique that uses extremely wide nets armed with heavy metal rollers, can crush everything in the path of the gear, destroying fragile corals, smashing rock formations, and killing several tons of fish and animals as bycatch. As such, these practices can wreak havoc on delicate marine ecosystems.¶ Not surprisingly, it has been reported that industrial fishing takes between only 10 and 15 years to wipe out a tenth of whichever species it targets. In fact, several marine species have already been fished to commercial extinction, and this number is rapidly increasing. One of the reasons for this is that the regulation of fishing vessels and the fishing industry is universally inadequate. Roughly two-thirds of the ocean is free of laws and fishing vessels only follow the laws ratified by their country of origin. However, most fishing countries have not ratified any international convention to protect the sea or marine life. Moreover, fishing factory ships and companies are given access to fisheries before the long–term impact of their fishing practices is understood…¶ While it is often overlooked for other environmental issues, overfishing has historically caused more ecological extinction than any other human influence on coastal ecosystems, including water pollution. Unfortunately, due to a lack of data, the extent of this damage has only recently been recognized.¶ Given that fishing is a food source for millions of people, attempting to solve the problem of overfishing not easy, especially for developing countries. Nevertheless, scientists and the UN Committee for Sustainable Development have called for a restoration of depleted fisheries and continue to stress the importance of stricter fishing regulations in oceans and inland waters. Sustainable fishing will be a necessary goal in counterbalancing depletion in fisheries and re–stabilizing coastal ecosystems.

Overfishing risks full ecological catastrophe and the end of fish supplies

Renton ’08 (Alex, ecologist and writer for the Observer, 5/10/08, How the world's oceans are running out of fish, The Observer, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/may/11/fishing.food, accessed: 7/1/14 GA)

The future of our seas has never been more precarious. Ninety years of industrial-scale overfishing has brought us to the brink of an ecological catastrophe and deprived millions of their livelihoods. As scientific guidelines are ignored and catches become ever bigger, Alex Renton tells why the international community has failed to act It is early morning in Barcelona's La Boqueria market and the fish stallholders are setting out their wares. Mounds of pink and grey glisten down the dim alleys - shoppers and tourists peering at the fins and tentacles. It is not like any fish shop in Britain - some stalls sell five different species of squid and cuttlefish, half a dozen types of shrimp and prawn, 10 different cuts of salt cod. It is a fish eater's haven in the heart of a city that eats and sells more fish than anywhere else in Europe. Anyone who cares about where their fish come from - and this should mean anyone who wants to go on eating them - should take two tools when they visit the fishmonger. One is the handy guidance provided by the Marine Conservation Society, Fish to Avoid and Fish to Eat (the latter is still the longer); the other is a ruler. My ruler is the type handed out to commercial fishermen by the international advisory body, Incofish, and has pictures of key species with marks indicating when they can be considered mature (and, thus, OK to catch). So I set about lining up my ruler against the La Boqueria fish, starting with the mackerel (should be 34cm), the plaice (39cm) and the redfish (45cm). All turn out to be mere babies. The mackerel is half the designated length. A glance around the stalls shows 10 or more species on the MCS's Avoid list, including hake, swordfish, monkfish, bluefin tuna and, of course, cod. I don't spend much time doing this because the Catalan fishmongers don't like my ruler - or me. They don't want to talk about why they are selling tiny hake (one of Europe's most endangered species) and why not a single fish in the market has any 'sustainable' labelling. One old lady asks me what I'm after. 'I want to know why the Spanish are eating so many undersized fish from populations that are running out,' I say. 'It's simple,' she says. 'We like fish and small fish taste better.' Is anyone not aware that wild fish are in deep trouble? That three-quarters of commercially caught species are over-exploited or exploited to their maximum? Do they not know that industrial fishing is so inefficient that a third of the catch, some 32 million tonnes a year, is thrown away? For every ocean prawn you eat, fish weighing 10-20 times as much have been thrown overboard. These figures all come from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which also claims that, of all the world's natural resources, fish are being depleted the fastest. With even the most abundant commercial species, we eat smaller and smaller fish every year - we eat the babies before they can breed. Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at York University, predicts that by 2050 we will only be able to meet the fish protein needs of half the world population: all that will be left for the unlucky half may be, as he puts it, 'jellyfish and slime'. Ninety years of industrial-scale exploitation of fish has, he and most scientists agree, led to 'ecological meltdown'. Whole biological food chains have been destroyed. Many of those fish you can see in such glorious abundance in Spanish markets - and on our own supermarket shelves - come not from European seas but from the coasts of the continents of the poor: Africa, South America and parts of Asia

Timeframe- 2048/2050

Overfishing is on the rise, threatening ecological collapse of ocean resources by 2050

BAI Yang and WANG Ling in 2014 College of Law, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, China, Legal Substance and Prospects of a Fishery Quota, Management System, J. Resour. Ecol. 2014 5 (1) 091-096, EBSCO

Overfishing means that fishing effort is beyond a reasonable level so as to cause fish degradation, catch quality decline, cost increases, poverty and other consequences. It can be reflected by over-investment on fishing boats, fishing nets and other fishing equipment and extension of fishing operation time, that is, too many fishing boats catch too few fishes (Li and Chen 2009). In accordance with statistics, fishing effort has climbed for decades due to competitive overfishing worldwide. Marine fishery catch output increased from 18.5 million tons in 1952 to 89 million tons in 1989, up more than 400%. Annual fish catch has fallen year by year and shows no sign of recovery. According to the latest FAO report, global marine fishing output reached 81.9 million tons in 2006, the third lowest output since 1994 (FAO 2008). As pointed out by the Global Environment Outlook Report, global fishery resources available for commercial fishing may be depleted before 2050 if no practical means of protection are taken (UNEP 2008). Humans must take a practical management approach to deal with such a severe ecological and overfishing crisis and this has indeed become a top priority.

Must stop overfishing now or we face a global fishery collapse by 2050

Si 14 (Geoffrey, undergraduate student at Northeastern University, currently working for the United Nations, First Committee (Disarmament). As a research fellow at the Geneva office of the United Nations he researched and wrote an article on the current state of oceans, “THE PLAGUE OF OVERFISHING: GLOBAL FISHERIES PREDICTED TO COLLAPSE BY 2050”, Diplomatic Courier, June 27, 2014, http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/topics/environment/2248-the-plague-of-overfishing-global-fisheries-predicted-to-collapse-by-2050)

The fishing industry is a billion dollar enterprise that provides livelihood and survival for billions of people. According to a 2012 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the fishing industry is worth over $200 billion and products of this industry provide 3 billion people over 20 percent of their total protein consumed. Without question, this is an invaluable industry that affects people worldwide. However, trends do not look favorable for the longevity of the industry, with some experts warning that fisheries globally can collapse as early as 2050. With so many problems plaguing our oceans, overfishing threatens to destroy many species and has already done irreparable damage to species like the Bluefin Tuna, Swordfish, and Sturgeon. These species fall under the “large predatory fish” (LPF) category, a group that has been over 90 percent overfished. Large predatory fish are highly sought after, given the high price they fetch; the prospect of making large profit led to nonstop fishing of these species, robbing them the time necessary to breed and repopulate. It is not only the LPF that are being overfished. Fishing fleets per country greatly outnumber the demand. For example, the UK, with over 6000 ships, has one of the largest fishing fleets in the European Union (EU). However, 2012 data shows the UK having a 5 percent increase in the total amount of product landed, yet with a 7 percent decrease in value. This proves that an increase in the number of fishing vessels does not translate to an increase in the catch they wish to land. Furthermore, the increase in fishing fleets means another unfortunate consequence: by-catch. By-catch is simply defined as “the unwanted fish and other marine creatures caught during commercial fishing for a different species,” and is a major problem plaguing the current fishing industry. Fishing fleets go out to sea with specific goals in mind, aware that only certain species will return them a profit. Thus, they only keep the fish that will net them the greatest profit and dispose of any other species that might be caught by accident. By-catch, according to experts, can comprise of anywhere from 8 to 25 percent of global catch. These animals tossed overboard can range from turtles to sharks and inedible fish, though some edible fish that do not fit the catch criteria are also tossed back. This practice is not only extremely wasteful, but destroys certain species that have long reproductive cycles. Along with overfishing, fishing practices, like bottom trawling, have destroyed the sea beds. The UN Secretary General has already warned about the implications of this practice, citing that over 95 percent of the damage done to ocean ecosystems is a result of bottom trawling. Changing the practices and mentalities of those involved in the fishing industry must happen if humanity is to have any hope of securing thriving life in the oceans, since current trends reveal a future where the fishing industry has collapsed. The future of our oceans depends on new international treaties, overseen by relevant agencies like the UNEP and FAO, to reverse the decline of our oceans. These treaties can place limits on catches, mandate lower by-catch and ban to bottom trawling.

2048 is the Brink – fish species are collapsing because of terrible fishing habits

Eilperin 6, Eilperin, Juliet. Washington Post Staff Writer "World's Fish Supply Running Out, Researchers Warn."Washington Post. The Washington Post, 03 Nov. 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/02/AR2006110200913.html Web. 01 July 2014. CS

An international group of ecologists and economists warned yesterday that the world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, based on a four-year study of catch data and the effects of fisheries collapses. The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species around the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients and resist the spread of disease. "We really see the end of the line now," said lead author Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Canada's Dalhousie University. "It's within our lifetime. Our children will see a world without seafood if we don't change things." The 14 researchers from Canada, Panama, Sweden, Britain and the United States spent four years analyzing fish populations, catch records and ocean ecosystems to reach their conclusion. They found that by 2003 -- the last year for which data on global commercial fish catches are available -- 29 percent of all fished species had collapsed, meaning they are now at least 90 percent below their historic maximum catch levels. The rate of population collapses has accelerated in recent years. As of 1980, just 13.5 percent of fished species had collapsed, even though fishing vessels were pursuing 1,736 fewer species then. Today, the fishing industry harvests 7,784 species commercially. "It's like hitting the gas pedal and holding it down at a constant level," Worm said in a telephone interview. "The rate accelerates over time."

The world is less than 40 years away from being fishless – putting over 1 billion people at risk of losing their only source of protein

Stryker 10, Stryker, X. X Stryker is also the proprietor of the currently-dormant poll analysis. "The Oceans Will Run Out Of Fish In 40 Years." Delaware Liberal. AFP, 18 May 2010. http://www.delawareliberal.net/2010/05/18/the-oceans-will-run-out-of-fish-in-40-years/ Web. 01 July 2014. CS

The world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 unless fishing fleets are slashed and stocks allowed to recover, UN experts warned. “If the various estimates we have received… come true, then we are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, are out of fish,” Pavan Sukhdev, head of the UN Environment Program’s green economy initiative, told journalists in New York. Keep in mind, this report is based solely on overfishing estimates. They are not calculating the affect of man-made pollution such as the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, which was the size of Massachusetts in 2008, before the BP spill, which by the way is vomiting 3000 barrels of oxygen-depleting natural gas for every 1 barrel of oil. Or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is larger than Texas and will soon be larger than the continental US. There’s an Atlantic Garbage Patch, too. And let’s not forget the looming threat of Ocean Acidification. Environmental experts are mindful of the failure this March to push through a worldwide ban on trade in bluefin tuna, one of the many species said to be headed for extinction. Powerful lobbying from Japan and other tuna-consuming countries defeated the proposal at the CITES conference on endangered species in Doha. Without leadership, we will hurdle over the cliff. The United States must become a global leader on the environment, because no one else will do it for us. According to the UN, 30 percent of fish stocks have already collapsed, meaning they yield less than 10 percent of their former potential, while virtually all fisheries risk running out of commercially viable catches by 2050. Currently only a quarter of fish stocks — mostly the cheaper, less desirable species — are considered to be in healthy numbers. 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,” Sukhdev said, since the entire value of fish caught is only 85 billion dollars. As a result, fishing fleet capacity is “50 to 60 percent” higher than it should be, Sukhdev said. Now there’s a solution even conservatives could love – cutting government subsidies to private industries. Of course, the article also notes that approximately 1 billion people, mostly poor, eat fish as their primary source of protein, and hundreds of millions of jobs are at stake. This is why the solution to our environmental problems must necessarily be intertwined with addressing poverty and unemployment. Clearly, though, allocating 27 billion dollars to produce 85 billion dollars worth of fish that are teetering on the brink is a waste of resources. Creating marine preservation areas to allow female fish to grow to full size, thereby hugely increasing their fertility, is one vital solution, the report says. Another is restructuring the fishing fleets to favor smaller boats that — once fish stocks recover — would be able to land bigger catches. “What is scarce here is fish,” Sukhdev said, “not the stock of fishing capacity.” I should mention that the article also does not cover what would happen to marine ecosystems if commercial fishing stocks disappear. Presumably it would also threaten sharks and whales, as well as marine birds, mammals, and reptiles. Do you want to live in a world without fish? “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Overfishing is a severe problem, projections show depletion by 2048

Painter 2014 (Sally Painter, Published author and freelance writer, Environmental Issues with Fishing, 2014, http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/environmental-issues/environmental-issues-fishing, SM)

Environmental Warning Issued¶ According to the November 2006 journal issue of Science, the single biggest threat to seafood and fish species around the world is bad fishing practices. The journal reports that, according to leading marine biologists, if fishing practices are changed, the world's fish and seafood resources will be depleted by the year 2048.¶ Fishing practices have come under scrutiny and determined to be responsible for much of the fish species depletion and degradation of ocean beds. These harmful fishing techniques and practices include:¶ Bottom Trawling: Trawling along the ocean floor is done with a net. According to a 2005 report submitted to the United Nations Millennium Project, one run of bottom trawling is responsible for the destruction of five to 25 percent of the seabed life.¶ By-Catch: Unintended fish get snared in fishing nets. This fishing byproduct is best illustrated by the tuna fishing industry and the by-catching of dolphins. Those concerned by this method of fishing protest by purchasing only dolphin-free tuna, meaning that no dolphins were caught, killed and discarded in the tuna fishing process.¶ Coral Reef Destruction: Coral reefs, the highest biodiversity examples of marine ecosystems, have been destroyed through overfishing methods.¶ Destruction of Food Webs: One of the worst environmental impacts is when a specific fish species is targeted for harvesting due to high demand. Harvesting large populations of certain species creates an imbalance in the natural prey/predator food chain of marine life. Dynamite and cyanide fishing: These two techniques are illegal in much of the world, but some countries still practice these methods. It's obvious that these techniques leave irreparable damage to the ocean floor and marine eco-systems.¶ Fishing Gear: The use of environmentally-harmful fishing gear destroys countless ocean beds.¶ Overfishing: The unregulated amount of fish caught during a season created a fishing industry that was determined to catch as many fish as possible as quickly as possible. This resulted in overfishing and a tremendous amount of dead fish waste.¶ One possible solution to the environmental issues created by fishing is marine conservation. There are several steps being taken in an effort to protect and preserve the marine eco-systems through good fishing practices and methods.¶ Catch Shares¶ LAPP (Limited Access Privilege Programs) and ITQ (Individual Transferable Quotas) also known as catch shares is a fishing system designed to ensure each fisherman has a share of the season's catch. This regional allotment is known as TAC (Total Allowable Catch). LAPP attempts to control how much fish is harvested in the hope of conservation of the fish population.¶ Like all allotment systems, most fishermen can sell or buy shares to increase their profits beyond their original allotment. The LAPP systems attempt to eliminate excessive waste, create better fishing practices and allow fishermen to see a higher profit. The LAPP systems removed the competitive nature of seasonal fishing and the urgency for catching as many fish as possible, often resulting in large amounts of dead fish that had to be disposed. Another benefit has been the reduction in the number of fishing boats and destructive gear. By putting the LAPPs in place, the fishing industry believes it has found a way to make fishing a sustainable industry. While there are decided industry issues surrounding the implementation of LAPPs among the fishermen, the side benefit of an improvement in the ocean and sea environs remains controversial.

Ocean fish stocks could collapse by mid-century, the time to act is now

Plumer in 2013(Just how badly are we overfishing the oceans? By Brad Plumer October 29, 2013 The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/29/just-how-badly-are-we-overfishing-the-ocean/0/)

Humans now have the technology to find and catch every last fish on the planet. Trawl nets, drift nets, longlines, GPS, sonar... As a result, fishing operations have expanded to virtually all corners of the ocean over the past century. Atlantic coast fisheries are still trying to limit overfishing of menhaden with traditional catch limits. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Atlantic coast fisheries are still trying to limit overfishing of menhaden with traditional catch limits. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) That, in turn, has put a strain on fish populations. The world's marine fisheries peaked in the 1990s, when the global catch was higher than it is today.* And the populations of key commercial species like bluefin tuna and cod have dwindled, in some cases falling more than 90 percent. So just how badly are we overfishing the oceans? Are fish populations going to keep shrinking each year — or could they recover? Those are surprisingly contentious questions, and there seem to be a couple of schools of thought here. The pessimistic view, famously expressed by fisheries expert Daniel Pauly, is that we may be facing "The End of Fish." One especially dire 2006 study in Science warned that many commercial ocean fish stocks were on pace to “collapse” by mid-century — at which point they would produce less than 10 percent of their peak catch. Then it's time to eat jellyfish. Other experts have countered that this view is far too alarmist.** A number of countries have worked hard to improve their fisheries management over the years, including Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. "The U.S. is actually a big success story in rebuilding fish stocks," Ray Hilborn, a marine biologist at the University of Washington, told me last year. Overfishing isn't inevitable. We can fix it. Both sides make valid points — but the gloomy view is hard to dismiss. That's the argument of a new paper in Marine Pollution Bulletin by Tony Pitcher and William Cheung of the University of British Columbia that weighs in on this broader debate. They conclude that some fisheries around the world are indeed improving, though these appear to be a minority for now. "Several deeper analyses of the status of the majority of world fisheries confirm the previous dismal picture," they conclude. "Serious depletions are the norm world-wide, management quality is poor, catch per effort is still declining." The decline of fisheries One reason the debate about overfishing is so contentious is that it's hard to get a precise read on the state of the world's marine fisheries. (The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization tries its best in this annual report.) Ideally, we'd have in-depth stock assessments for the entire world, but those are difficult, expensive, and fairly rare. So, in their paper, Pitcher and Cheung review a number of recent studies that use indirect measurements instead. For example, they note that recent analyses of fish catches suggest that about 58 percent of the world's fish stocks have now collapsed or are overexploited: History of the status of world fish stocks from the FAO catch database 1950–2008, using a catch-only algorithm revised to meet earlier objections (Martell and Froese, 2012). Collapsed and overfished populations comprise almost 60% of world’s fisheries. The proportion of developing stocks is decreasing and the fraction of rebuilding stocks is constant and small (about 1%), both signals that, in converse, might be a beacon of hope (Redrawn from Martell and Froese (2012)). History of the status of world fish stocks from the FAO catch database 1950–2008, using a catch-only algorithm revised to meet earlier objections. It's important to note that this is only one estimate — and a disputed one at that. A 2011 study in Conservation Biology by Trevor Branch et. al., by contrast, estimated that only 7 to 13 percent of stocks were collapsed and 28 to 33 percent "overexploited."*** Focusing on catches can be a tricky metric for judging the state of fisheries (it can be hard, for instance, to track changes in fishing practices over time that might bias the results). So the authors consider a variety of other metrics, too. One example: The amount of effort that fishermen have put into catching fish has increased significantly in the past three decades, as measured by engine power and days that fishermen spend at sea. But the amount of fish actually caught has nevertheless stagnated since the 1990s: Global changes in reported fisheries catch (Sea Around US Project), nominal effort (from Anticamara et al. (2011)) and estimated effective effort (assuming an annual increase in fishing efficiency, based on Pauly and Palomares (2010)). Global changes in reported fisheries catch (Sea Around US Project), nominal effort (from Anticamara et al. (2011)) and estimated effective effort (assuming an annual increase in fishing efficiency, based on Pauly and Palomares (2010)). "Given the increase in global fishing effort, the lack of increase in global fisheries catch in the last decade and the fact that most productive areas have now been exploited by fisheries," Pitcher and Cheung note, it's quite possible that "global exploited fish stocks are likely to be in a decreasing trend." Could fisheries recover? That all said, there are also some reasons for optimism. In 2009, ecologist Boris Worm and his colleagues took a look at more than 350 detailed fish stock assessments and found that many fisheries in North America and Europe were actually recovering. In the United States, annual catch limits and market-based permit programs have helped some fish populations rebound. The real question is whether these success stories are the exception rather than the rule. Pitcher and Cheung argue that the fish stocks analyzed in that 2009 paper make up just 16 percent of the global catch — and are mostly confined to well-managed fisheries in richer countries. By contrast, more than 80 percent of the world's fish are caught in the rest of the world, in places like Asia and Africa. While data here is patchier, many of the nations in these regions are far less likely to follow the U.N.'s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, and evidence suggests that "serious depletions are the norm" here: Correlation of compliance with the FAO (UN) Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (on a scale of zero to ten) with the UN Human Development Index for 53 countries, representing 95% of the world fish catch. Correlation of compliance with the FAO (UN) Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (on a scale of zero to ten) with the UN Human Development Index for 53 countries, representing 95% of the world fish catch. "It all depends where you look," Pitcher said in an interview. "There are a few places where fisheries are doing better: The U.S., Australia, Canada, Norway. But those are relatively rare. In most places, the evidence suggests that things are getting worse." Given that the United States imports 91 percent of its seafood, that's an important caveat. In theory, the rest of the world could adopt stricter measures to make their fisheries more sustainable, such as catch limits, careful marine planning, and a crackdown on illicit fishing. Boris Worm and Trevor Branch have suggested that particular attention should be paid to "fishing-conservation hotspots" around the world — regions that depend heavily on fishing livelihoods and have lots of biodiversity but are nonetheless badly managed. Yet many low-income countries still lack the resources to monitor their fisheries. And even richer nations struggle to enforce the laws they have: In Europe, regulators have consistently set lax fishing quotas — in part due to lobbying from the fishing industry. ("Europe is not one of the places that's doing well," says Pitcher, "with a few exceptions like Norway.") Meanwhile, as climate change and ocean acidification disrupt ecosystems in unpredictable ways, regulating fisheries properly may become even more difficult. "Attempts to remedy the situation need to be urgent, focused, innovative, and global," the paper concludes. But that's harder than it sounds.

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