There is no need for an end to fish, or to fishing for that matter. But there is an urgent need for governments to free themselves from the fishing-industrial complex, to stop subsidizing them and awarding them fishing rights, and make then pay for the privilege to fish. If we can do this, then we will have fish forever.

The conclusion of an article by Daniel Pauly which argues our oceans have been the victims of a giant scheme waged callously by the world’s commercial fishery sector.

Beginning in the 1950s, as their operations became increasingly industrialized–with onboard refrigeration, acoustic fish-finders, and, later, GPS–they first depleted stocks of cod, hake, flounder, sole, and halibut in the Northern Hemisphere then moved southwards to the coasts of developing nations and, ultimately, all the way to the shores of Antarctica, searching for icefishes and rockcods, and, more recently, for small, shrimplike krill.

Fishing down the foodchain.

As the bounty of coastal waters dropped, fisheries moved further offshore to deeper waters and as the larger fish begin to disappear, boats targeted fish that were smaller and uglier–fish never before considered fit for human consumption — many of which were renamed so that they could be marketed: The slimehead became the orange roughy, the Patagonian toothfish the Chilean seabass. Others, like the homely hoki, sold sight-unseen as fish sticks in fast-food restaurants and the frozen-food aisle.

The scheme was carried out by nothing less than a fishing-industrial complex–an alliance of corporate fishing fleets, lobbyists, parliamentary representatives, and fisheries economists. By hiding behind the romantic image of the small-scale, independent fisherman, they secured political influence and government subsidies far in excess of what would be expected, given their minuscule contribution to the GDP of advanced economies.

Today, governments provide nearly $30 billion in subsidies each year–about one-third of the value of the global catch — to keep fisheries going, even when they have overexploited their resource base. As a result, there are between two and four times as many boats as the annual catch requires, and yet, the funds to “build capacity” keep coming.

Unfortunately, it is not just the future of the fishing industry that is at stake, but also the continued health of the world’s largest ecosystem. While the climate crisis gathers front-page attention on a regular basis, people–even those who profess great environmental consciousness–continue to eat fish as if it were a sustainable practice.

Eating a tuna roll at a sushi restaurant is no more environmentally benign than driving a Hummer or harpooning a manatee. In the past 50 years, we have reduced the populations of large commercial fish, such as bluefin tuna, cod, and other favourites, by a staggering 90 percent.

One thing is clear: Fish are in dire peril, and, if they are, then so are we.

The extent of the peril has eluded the general population for many years, what they have failed to notice is that as one species has faded their attention has been shifted to a replacement species ie: suggesting pollock instead of cod.

At any given moment, scientists might acknowledge that one-half or two-thirds of fisheries are being overfished, but, when the stock of a particular fish is used up it is removed from the list and simply becames an anecdote in the historical record.

The baselines just kept shifting, allowing us to continue blithely damaging marine ecosystems.

It was not until the 1990s that a series of high-profile scientific papers demonstrated that we needed to study, and mitigate, fish depletions at the global level. It was a realization akin to understanding that the financial meltdown was due not to the failure of a single bank, but, rather, to the failure of the entire banking system.

The difficulty lies in forcing the fishing-industrial complex to catch fewer fish so that populations can rebuild.

It is essential that we do so as quickly as possible because the consequences of an end to fish are frightful. To some Western nations, an end to fish might simply seem like a culinary catastrophe, but for 400 million people in developing nations, particularly in poor African and South Asian countries, fish are the main source of animal protein and a prime source of foreign-exchange earnings to support their imports of staples such as rice.

And, of course, the end of fish would disrupt marine ecosystems to an extent that we are only now beginning to appreciate. Thus, the removal of small fish in the Mediterranean to fatten bluefin tuna in pens is causing the “common” dolphin to become exceedingly rare in some areas, with local extinction probable.

Moreover, the removal of top predators from marine ecosystems has effects that cascade down, leading to the increase of jellyfish and other gelatinous zooplankton and to the gradual erosion of the food web within which fish populations are embedded. This is what happened off the coast of southwestern Africa, where an upwelling ecosystem similar to that off California, previously dominated by fish such as hake and sardines, has become overrun by millions of tons of jellyfish.

To halt this slide toward a marine dystopia, government intervention is required either through some form of quota system or a limit on the number of fishermen.

Unfortunately, most governments and commercial fishermen are fixated solely on corporate short-term profits and argue that for a system to work, access privileges must (a) be handed out for free, (b) be held in perpetuity, and (c) be transferrable (i.e., sellable and buyable like any other commodity).

Some believe that aquaculture, or fish farming, can ensure the health of stocks without government action but most aquaculture is based around predominately carnivorous marine fish, like salmon, which are fed fishmeal obtained by grinding up herring, mackerel, and sardines caught by “reduction fisheries” and requires three to four pounds of smaller fish to produce one pound of a larger one.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Others believe that fish populations can be rebuilt through consumer awareness campaigns that encourage buyers to make prudent choices. In Europe, for example, consumers can look for the logo of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a nonprofit started by the World Wildlife Fund and Unilever.

The truth is that governments are the only entities that can prevent the end of fish.

If they were to be freed from their allegiance to the fishing-industrial complex, they are the ones with the research infrastructure capable of prudently managing fisheries which could be paid for using the billions of dollars in annual subsidies that allow the fisheries to persist despite the lousy economics of the industry.

Finally, only governments can zone the marine environment, identifying certain areas where fishing will be tolerated and others where it will not. Creating, or re-creating, un-fished areas within which fish populations can regenerate is the only opportunity we have to repair the damage done to them.

Condensed from this article.

Related posts:

1. Commercial interests block Tuna ban