Fishing is an ancient human tradition -- one that satisfies vital food needs of hundreds of millions of people and is economically, socially and culturally important. Today, however, tradition has been transformed into a resource extraction industry spanning the globe. In its wake, fish populations are being dangerously depleted; nature's balance is being altered across vast areas of the world's oceanic ecosystems in ways that may be irreversible, and key species in the complex, diverse web of marine life are threatened.
Several decades of overfishing in most of the world's major fisheries has pushed many commercially important fish populations into steep declines. Catches are falling, despite the fact that expanding fleets are fishing harder, spending more time, effort and money than ever before in trying to maintain them. Some commercially important stocks are in such a critical state that all fishing has been shut down. Hundreds of millions of people traditionally dependent on fishing for food and livelihoods face resource depletion, competition from industrial and distant water fleets, and loss of access to traditional marine food supplies.
The most glaring manifestations of the global fisheries crisis include:
* over-capitalization of the industry which has led to the buildup of excessive fishing fleets, particularly of the larger-scale vessels catching too many fish. This has led to widespread overfishing (with many fish stocks at historic lows and fishing effort at unprecedented highs);
* massive subsidies are being handed out by governments to fishing fleet operators, which enables vessels to continue operating in conditions that are uneconomic and environmentally unsound. Industrial fleets migrate all over the world on prospecting missions to find more lucrative fishing opportunities elsewhere. Subsidies have also supported a spree in new vessel construction in recent years.
* the increased fishing pressure and the competition amongst fishing nations and their fleets severely stresses fish stocks and the marine environment. The widespread use of unselective fishing gear and indiscriminate practices result in tens of millions of tons of unwanted bycatch being dumped overboard annually. Along with these, millions of other marine animals are being incidentally captured and killed in fishing operations.
* Unsustainable fishing is rapidly undermining the food security of hundreds of millions of people who rely almost exclusively on local fisheries for food. The dynamic of too many boats catching too many fish has also seen rival fleets engage in violent confrontations at sea, and the deployment of naval vessels to arrest and detain foreign fishing boats.
* uncertain or incomplete reporting of fish catches and associated bycatch, unreliable statistics and fisheries databases, inadequate assessments of the impact of fishing on marine ecosystems, and inadequate cooperation among nations to manage fishing activities and protect fish populations;
* Coastal and marine habitats that provide essential
breeding and rearing grounds for fish populations are being
damaged or destroyed by a wide range of development
activities. This includes damage caused by fishing
operations that use destructive gear and fishing practices
like bottom trawling that physically disturbs marine habitats
such as the ocean floor, sea grass beds or coral reefs.
Quite simply, nature's limits have been breached by too many fishing vessels catching too many fish, very often in wasteful and destructive ways. The full utilization of available fish stocks and profit maximization for industry have been the key goals of fisheries development, with protection for the environment taking a back seat. This has proven to be the formula for disaster, and the consequences for marine ecosystems and humanity are already plainly visible around the world.
There is a rapacious tendency to the global business of producing
protein from the sea, driven by the twin business imperatives of
profit maximization and continuous growth. We ignore at our peril
the need to look beyond narrowly defined interests. The business
of fishing must be redefined so that they might continue to provide
nutritional and employment benefits to dependent communities in
ways that do not risk the health and natural integrity of the ocean
environment. In fact, there is no alternative.
