For GSS Losing Biodiversity chapter 7. Excerpt: 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. ...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?
...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. ...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.... http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/29/just-how-badly-are-we-overfishing-the-ocean/. Brad Plumer, The Washington Post. |
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