The Fisheries Effect

...the crisis

fish in netThe worldwide fishing crisis is causing one of the great changes in public consciousness of the 20th century. Just as we have already revised our view of the farmer from the bucolic partner of nature to subsidised despoiler of the landscape, user of chemicals and dubious food additives, we are beginning to revise our view of the fisherman. He has come to be seen as the last hunter-gatherer, heedless of the long-term survival of the wild species he exploits. The trawlerman has come to resemble the last buffalo hunter in pursuit of the last buffalo.

There are obvious human reasons why we need to find new political solutions to address overfishing. The first is conflict. "Fish wars" are currently in progress in every ocean of the world, from the disputed international waters around the United States, Canada, and Norway to the Irish Sea and the coast of Namibia. The ownership of almost all of the worlds commercial fish species in international waters Greenland halibut, pilchard, hake, cod, tuna, swordfish or salmon is in dispute. Disputes also breed acrimony within political structures such as the European Union and are a source of potential flashpoints between nations and within nations.

The second human reason is food. One billion people in developing countries depend on fish as their main source of protein. Fish supplies two-fifths of all the protein consumed in the Third World. Yet the decline in fish stocks comes as the human population is expected to double in the next century. Partly as a result of fashion, partly as a result of scarcity, in smart restaurants the world over the food of the poor has become the food of the rich. Even now that all nations are able to enforce 200-mile offshore limits, poor countries are under pressure to fish for export to pay interest on their foreign debts. Or their leaders license fish stocks to first-world fleets for cash. In west Africa, fish that were once commonly eaten by all the people are now exported or eaten by the wealthy.

The developed nations of the north have their losers, too. Around 50,000 people, according to some estimates, lost their jobs in eastern Canada when the Newfoundland cod fishery became so depleted that it had to be closed. The Grand Banks remain closed, raising fears that recovery may be a long time coming, if it comes at all.

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Copyright 1997, The World Wide Fund For Nature