Appetite for fishing depleting oceans’ stock

At the moment the world’s focus is on pollution of the oceans and that is an admirable focus, but what if there was no fish in the ocean that we had been busy saving! While we are busy saving the oceans from plastic pollution the fishing companies are plundering the fishing stocks at a rate which is way beyond sustainable. So in 40 years time we could be congratulating ourselves on a pristine ocean but it may having little or no fish living in it and that has consequences that go way beyond just not being able to eat them. An ocean with little fish would have nothing to disperse water around and would heat up much faster having a major effect on planet warming.

Much of the facts below come from the film Seaspiracy, a documentary on the world fishing industry. I can’t prove or disprove the information or the theories given but they include the opinions of many leading fish experts.

Our appetite for fish is driving a fishing industry that seems hell bent on fishing the oceans’ stocks until there is nothing left.

The current fish take is 2.7 trillion fish per year or 5 million every minute. Fish stock experts say that at this rate the oceans will be virtually empty of fish by as close as 2048. Not only will we not be able to buy fish but we won’t be able to catch one either.

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This will not only have consequences for eating fish but it will also have a major effect on the earth’s warming as the oceans currently hold 20 times more carbon than the worlds rain forests. To put it another way 93 per cent of the carbon dioxide we need to survive is stored in the ocean. But this is dependent on fish to move the move the CO2 around and keep the oceans healthy. Without fish it will not work. Losing 1 per cent of CO2 from the ocean is the same as adding the emissions from 97 million more cars.

The fishing industry is continuing to use huge trawl nets that destroy the seafloor at the rate of 3.9 billion acres per year, the equivalent of bulldozing 25 million acres of rainforest every year.

Nothing the world is doing in the way of conservation can touch the problem. Scientists say to stop the degration of sea life we would need to totally protect 30 per cent of the ocean. Currently less than 3 per cent is protected.

The fishing industry is fooling us into the myth that parts of the industry is fishing sustainably and some environmental groups give out labels claiming the fish product is caught using “sustainable fishing methods”. But there is no agreement on what is sustainable fishing. There is no such thing as sustainable fishing due to the huge by-catch which cannot be controlled.

Any talk of conserving parts of the ocean or using sustainable methods are not the answer as it allows the multibillion dollar fishing industry to carry on plundering the ocean.

There is no way to stop the plunder but at least we do have it in our hands to slow it down. If every person reduced their consumption of bought fish by 50 per cent the industry would have to cut its fishing or end up with huge stocks forcing prices to plummet.

We ignored the warnings about global warming until it was almost too late, can we afford to ignore the warnings about the health of the oceans and their precious fish stock? We have wiped out many species from this planet god forbid that we could allow the same to happen to something so huge but yet delicately balanced. Already

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many popular fish stocks such halibut, cod, haddock and blue fin tuna have been reduced by 80-99 per cent. Our children could be telling stories to their grandchildren about the day when we could eat a fish from the ocean. (abridged)

Geoff Minchin

Kawakawa