Fish stocks to collapse within 50 yrs

[Blackened]

G'day
Just a point of interest....

Just listening to the radio here and on the news it said we may not be able to eat any commercially caught seafood in about 40 years.

They said according to a study, the commercial industry will collapse in about 40 years because of mis management, overfishing and everything else.

I know the reco's view on trawlers and commercial fishing in general but wouldn't it be interesting, especially for the wider community.

What are your bets..... is this a possibility?

Dave

[jim_farrell]

I know a couple of prawn and scallop guys, and the biggest threat is competition with cheap overseas product and fuel prices. Running costs have skyrocketed in the last couple of years, but retailers aren't paying them anymore for their product.

No business can absorb 30-40% cost increase with no increase in revenue.

Not a nice thought that we may only be able to buy asian prawns in the not so distant future.

Jim

Jim

[bidkev]

<snip>
Not a nice thought that we may only be able to buy asian prawns in the not so distant future.

Jim

Jim

You won't even be able to buy them Jim. The Aussie report was taken from a world-wide study which stated that *ALL* commercial fisheries will be barren within 40 to 50 yrs. I heard it this morning on the world (BBC) news.

Off Topic but for those interested there is a programme on SBS on Sundays at 6.00 pm called Thalassa (Which I think, translates as "the sea") It is a sister programme to global village and is very interesting as it is mainly about fishing communities or people making their living from the seas. Last week it was about the Newfoundland halibut fishery. These guys fish only by long-lining and considering some of the halibut are pushing 100 kilos it was fascnating to see how they are brought on board with only a couple of guys wielding gaffs. The lines can be 10 km long and those guys must be buggered by the time they are pulled in

Anyway, I digress...........the fishery has been managed so well via quotas, lower size limits and closed seasons, that they are now catching more fish than they were at it's peak 70 yrs ago. Something nice to hear considering all the doom and gloom we are subjected to nowadays

kev

[were-trout]

here's a link to the story

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...1/s1780209.htm

[Duyz72]

Thankfully it is a lot easier to allow the ocean to self-regenerate (being just so darn populous) than it is to regenerate the clear stripped land we once had as fertile bushland which is now salt encrusted useless land or eroded desert.

Kingtin - that story is a perfect example of managing an industry, not just enforce restrictions on a resource.

[pjw200371]

"An international team of scientists says global fish stocks may be wiped out within 50 years if ocean species continue to be lost at their present rate.

The research, published in the journal Science, says if nothing is done to reverse the trend, the world's fisheries will be empty by 2048.

One of the scientists who carried out the research, Dr Boris Worm, says more action is needed to save fish stocks.
"For our own sake and for the sake of fishing communities, for the whole culture that's involved with this, we need to conserve these extremely valuable resources and do that soon and we know how to do that," he said.

"People are taking the right steps in the right directions, that just needs to be done on a much grander scale."
Dramatic decline

In an analysis of scientific data going back to the 1960s and historical records over 1,000 years, the researchers found that marine biodiversity - the variety of ocean fish, shellfish, birds, plants and micro-organisms - has declined dramatically, with 29 per cent of species already in collapse.

Extending this pattern into the future, the scientists calculated that by 2048 all species would be in collapse, which the researchers defined as having catches decline 90 per cent from the maximum catch.

This applies to all species, from mussels and clams to tuna and swordfish, said Dr Worm, lead author of the study.

Ocean mammals, including seals, killer whales and dolphins, are also affected.

"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging," he said in a statement.

"In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are - beyond anything we suspected."

When ocean species collapse, it makes the ocean itself weaker and less able to recover from shocks like global climate change, he said.

The decline in marine biodiversity is largely due to over-fishing and destruction of habitat, he said in a telephone interview from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Exploitation

He likened a diverse ocean environment to a diversified investment portfolio.

With lots of different species in the oceans, just as with lots of different kinds of investments, "You spread the risk around," he said.

"In the ocean ecosystem, we're losing a lot of the species in our stock portfolio, and by that we're losing productivity and stability. By losing stability, we're losing the ability of the system to self-repair."

"This research shows we'll have few viable fisheries by 2050," Andrew Sugden, international managing editor of Science, told reporters at a telephone news briefing. "This work also shows that it's not too late to act."

To help depleted areas rebuild, marine-life reserves and no-fishing zones need to be set up, Mr Worm and other authors of the study said. This has proven effective in places including the Georges Bank off the US Atlantic coast, he said.

With marine reserves in place, fishing near the reserves can improve as much as four-fold, he said.

Beyond the economic benefits to coastal communities where fishing is a critical industry, there are environmental benefits to rebuilding marine biodiversity, the scientists said.

Depleted coastal ecosystems are vulnerable to invasive species, disease outbreaks, coastal flooding and noxious algae blooms, they reported.

Certain kinds of aquaculture, like the traditional Chinese cultivation of carp using vegetable waste, can also be beneficial, according to the scientists. However, farms that aim to raise carnivorous fish are less effective."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...1/s1780209.htm

I feel all recreational fishermen should be in favour of reasonable (up to 30%) exclusion zones in areas like Moreton Bay and GBR. Even at 30%, there is still 70% fishable area (which, let's face it, is still heaps of room) with the added benefits of increasing fish stocks. It's really a win-win for recreational fishermen and we all should support such measures. Hell, if the above article is even remotely likely we *need* to support such measures.

[staddie_local]

i know some netters that they are getting so low on fish that, they are nettinf small dart and needless fish on the beaches.

[billfisher]

pjw,

What has a report from the northern hemisphere got to do with Australia? We have the lightest fished waters in the world. We have 1/30th the fishing pressure of the world average. The USA has 20 times the fishing pressure we do and they regard this as sustainable. NZ has twice the fishery we have. We a currently reducing our commercial fishing pressure through the buyout of licences eg the Commonwealth fleet is being halved from 1200 to 600 vessels. The GBR green zones were not needed due to the extremely light fishing pressure. The reef was being harvested at the rate of 9kg per square km per year, about 1% of what is regarded as sustainable for reefs overseas.

Furthermore the study is specifically related to the raping and pillaging conducted by International fishing fleets in completely unmanaged international waters where stocks of Gemfish, Orange Roughies, Toothfish, Tuna and other bill fish have been severely depleted by completely unregulated fishing practices. This is in contrast to our own strictly managed fisheries which control fishing areas, catch sizes and practices and include continuous monitoring of fish stocks.
Our own inshore fish species are in no danger or under no threat whatsoever using NSW chief fisheries scientist's own words:

"no NSW inshore fish species are in danger or under threat and all stocks are being managed sustainably".

Boris Worm the author has also said that international authorities need to ban fishing in ecologically valuable sites. But he was NOT referring to inshore waters or recreational fishing because he also said immediately following this (and which was not reported) was:

"We need protected areas in the open ocean," he said. "The open ocean is still open access."

And he has further qualified this with the following comment about what he is referring to when he wrote about:

"the roving banditry of commercial fishing fleets, which rely on modern technology to just fish a population to collapse and then move onto the next target. This is not to say all commercial fishermen are irresponsible: many care about sustaining their livelihoods over the long term."

Locking away huge areas of our inshore waters from all fishing is a purile philoliosphy. Our lightly fish waters do not require such an extremely blunt and harsh tool.

[pjw200371]

"What has a report from the northern hemisphere got to do with Australia? We have the lightest fished waters in the world. We have 1/30th the fishing pressure of the world average.... The reef was being harvested at the rate of 9kg per square km per year, about 1% of what is regarded as sustainable for reefs overseas.

Have you got references for these figures? I'm not doubting you, i'd just like to read some of the research as it interests me. At any rate, the seas around Australia are far less productive than those of South America or the northern hemsphere. It's believed iron is the limiting nutrient here (and there have been suggestions to improve productivity by seeding the EAC and other areas with iron).

"Locking away huge areas from all fishing is a purile philoliosphy. Our lightly fish waters do not require such an extremely blunt and harsh tool.""

'Huge area' is a relative concept. If we lock up, say, 20% of Moreton bay we still have 4/5 to fish in. If 20% is a huge area, then we still have 4 times that huge area to fish in. Is having the vast majority available to us not enough? Surely wanting to have it *all* is a peurile philosophy as well.

Productivity and fishing pressures aside, the oceans perhaps should to have some completely protected 'wild areas' as exist on land. Nothing wrong with that, and plenty of room for both recreation, commercial and conservation, I feel.

[threadfin_jim]

I recently attended a local meeting about the inshore finfish management plan..lots of people with lots of ideas...unfortunately a few hardened recs would like to see the commercial fleet outlawed altogether...i disagree...we have to have a balance for all of the community...what does everyone else think??

[JasonT]

It's a big sea, and I find it hard to believe that rec and commercial fishers can't exist together.

The key to making this work is good management, the lack of which IMO is one of the major contributers to the problems we see today.

As a salt water rec fisher I would happily pay a similar levy to what is paid for permits to fish impoundments, providing the revenue was used to improve the fisheries only.

Throwing money at the problem won't solve it however. We all need to do our part by abiding by regulations and making every effort to ensure fish we release have the best chance of survival.

A few other fisho's on this site collect rubbish from where they fish and in general try to leave the area better than when they found it.

If everyone was doing similar in both adopting enviro friendly fishing measures as much as possible, and cleaning up the areas they fish, I think the outlook would be a bit more optimistic!

My 2 cents!

JT

[billfisher]

"At any rate, the seas around Australia are far less productive than those of South America or the northern hemsphere. It's believed iron is the limiting nutrient here (and there have been suggestions to improve productivity by seeding the EAC and other areas with iron). "

This not true. We are about average in productivity for warm temperate and tropical areas. There are a few areas of super productivity due to the upwelling of nutrients which we do not match.

The figures of relative fishing pressure are readily available from government figures. I got them from some of Dr Walter Starcks articles. Also note that we have a population of only 20 million, one of the largest economic exclusion zones and we import 70% of our seafood! Also that we now have 30% of the worlds marine parks.

You say that 20 or 30% no-take zones are not an excessive burden. Well it is if you happen to live in one of these areas. Also given that they are usually designed to ban fishing in areas of value for anglers, eg inshore reefs. In the Byron Bay MP 30% SZ's means that 98% of the accessible inshore reefs are locked away! The 70% left open is mainly unproductive sandy stretches. 70% of nothing is still nothing.

[Derek_Bullock]

Here we go again ................ back to the 30% closure debate. This all reminds me of a story I used to read to my kids when they were little.

It was Henney Penny the chicken who was always crying ............. the sky's falling down, the sky's falling down.


Derek

[were-trout]

this'll make you laugh - or cry

news.com is running an opinion piece inferring that the problem is down to rec fishos and their use of cheap echo locators.

http://blogs.news.com.au/news/news/i...ch_overfishing

The piece says that rec fishing catches have gone through the roof ... but when I've talked to old-timers who used to fish the bay most of them have said the catches are nothing compared to what they were

and we all know rec fishermen are to blame for the collapse of the north sea cod fishery, sailfish in the atlantic, hammering the orange roughy to the brink of extinction, etc etc

what a joke

on a brighter note the original report acknolwedges that there has to be a balance and that putting conservation measures in place will also help fishing communities survive. can't fish for what's not there

[_Dan_]

I know this will sound uneducated and simple, but why dont they invest money into international fisheries patrols for oceans. They have the satelites for it and they can track illegal or unregsitered boats anywhere?

All vessls caught should be towed back to closest mainland and criminals detained and prosecuted under international laws.. Boats sunk owners jailed and associates tracked and their assets seized. After a while people will soon get the message.

Sustainable fishing is going on around the world but alot of our neighbours couldnt spell it let alone understand the meaning.

Possible but probably not plausible....

Cheers

Dan