Overfishing: The beginning of the ‘aquapalypse’?
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| The fish population in the ocean is dwindling |
Our world is one of water, for up to 70% of the
world’s surface is covered with oceans, seas and other bodies of water. Though
these water bodies may look like a calm empty void, below the surface they hold
life and mysteries one can barely imagine. However, the lives of these fishes
and other marine animals are being rapidly depleted by the earth’s top
predator; man. Mankind has evolved over the years and developed many survival
skills but it seems as if the very skillsets that we have learned could lead to
our destruction. This can be seen in the way that we overfish our oceans.
For centuries, millions have turned to the ocean as a source
of income and livelihood through fishing, while billions use the ocean as a
source of food. Think about it, isn’t the ocean’s ability to provide food for
the billions of people alive today simply amazing? However, in consequence to
providing food for the world’s growing population, extensive commercial fishing
has rapidly depleted the ocean’s fish population, opening up the concern that
we are wreaking havoc on the ocean’s ecosystem through overfishing (Shakouri.
B. etal. 2010). Overfishing can be defined as the catching of fish more than
the population can replace through natural reproduction (WWF, n.d.). Simply,
overfishing causes fishes to be unable to sustain their own life cycles.
Though environmentalists are now emphasizing the
impacts of overfishing, the beginning of modern era of exploiting the ocean’s
fishes dated back to the 11th century (Fagan, B. 2017). This period
in our history brought about many developments in fishing technology which
allowed fishermen to fish in new areas for longer times for larger hauls. The
development of this time allowed the fishermen to decimate the fish population
of one area until it had dwindled then move on to newer and more prosperous
areas and this continues unto this day as the technology has been further
developed. (Greenpeace. 2011.)
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| Environmentalists and fishermen clash over the lives of the endangered Blue Fin Tuna |
Centuries later, after the rapid rise of large scale
industrial fishing operation, it was widely acknowledged that globally fish
stocks were being overexploited and on a decline but industry makers continued
to fish anyway (Worms and Myers, 2003). Today, data shows that up to 32% of the
world’s fish stocks had been exploited beyond the sustainable limit; triple the
amount during the 1970s, and is still continually rising! (FAO, 2013)
Consequently, mankind’s necessity for fish as part of
their diet, led the World Conservation Union to add species such as the
Southern Bluefin Tuna and Northern Cod to the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ‘red list’ as critically endangered species
(Sumaila et al. 2006). But even despite the endangerment of not just a few
species of fish but fish population in its entirety, and the collapse of many
major world fisheries, the expansion of fishing efforts have continued without
a sign of abatement. With the global decrease of the fish populations being apparent,
it sparks the question, can we continue to exploit the ocean for food without
changing it forever?
REFERENCES
Fisheries, F.A.O. (2013). Aquaculture Department. 2011. Global Aquaculture Production Statistics for the year.
Greenpeace. (2011). A brief history of overfishing.
Available: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/safood/understanding-the-problem/overfishing-history. Last accessed: 20th September, 2018.
Myers, R.A. & Worm, B. (2003). Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities. Nature 423(6937), 280.
Shakouri, B, khoshnevis Yazdi, S. & Fashandi, A. (2010, November). Overfishing. In Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineerimg (ICBEE), 2010 2nd International Conference on (pp. 229-234). IEEE.
Sumaila, U.R., & Pauly D. (2006). Catching more bait: A bottom-up re-estimation of global fisheries subsidies (2nd version).
WWF (n.d.) Threats of Overfishing
Available: https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing.
Last accessed: 20th September, 2018
Informative read, the history behind the problem really shows how long this has been going on.
ReplyDeleteVery informative post. I liked how you provided examples of species on the "Red List"; the Southern Bluefin Tuna and Northern Cod.(Tne' P.)
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