Pure
Fiel a Verdad
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2001
- Posts
- 15,135
See the study below, for example.
HTTP://WWW.STATESMANJOURNAL.COM/APPS/PBCS.DLL/ARTICLE?AID=/20061103/NEWS/611030333
OCEAN ECOSYSTEM
Supply of seafood could be gone by 2048, international study says
Experts say it's not too late to reverse decline of species
Statesman Journal, news services
November 3, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, according to a study released Thursday by an international group of ecologists and economists.
The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species around the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients and resist the spread of disease.
"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species, we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems," said lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -- beyond anything we suspected."
The 14 researchers from Canada, Panama, Sweden and the United States spent four years analyzing all the available data about fish populations and ocean ecosystems to reach their conclusion -- including a 1,000-year time series for 12 coastal regions, drawing on data from archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archaeological data.
They found that by 2003 -- the last year for which data about global commercial fish catches is available -- 29 percent of all fished species had collapsed, and that the rate of population collapses has accelerated in recent years.
"At this point, 29 percent of fish and seafood species have collapsed -- that is, their catch has declined by 90 percent. It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating," Worm said. "If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime, by 2048."
As of 1980, just 13.5 percent of fished species had collapsed, even though fishing vessels were pursuing 1,736 fewer species back then. Today, the fishing industry harvests 7,784 species commercially.
"It looks grim, and the projection of the trend into the future looks even grimmer," Worm said. "But it's not too late to turn this around. It can be done, but it must be done soon. We need a shift from single-species management to ecosystem management. It just requires a big chunk of political will to do it."
The researchers called for new marine reserves, better management to prevent overfishing and tighter controls on pollution.
In the 48 areas worldwide that have been protected to improve marine biodiversity, they found, "diversity of species recovered dramatically, and with it the ecosystem's productivity and stability."
Although seafood forms a crucial concern in their study, the researchers were analyzing overall biodiversity of the oceans. The more species in the oceans, the better each can handle exploitation.
"Even bugs and weeds make clear, measurable contributions to ecosystems," said co-author J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.
Some U.S. fishery-management officials, industry representatives and academics questioned the team's dire predictions, however, saying that countries such as the U.S. and New Zealand have taken steps in recent years to halt the depletion of their commercial fisheries.
"The projection is way too pessimistic, at least for the United States," said Steven Murawski, the chief scientist for the National Marine Fisheries Service. "We've got the message. We will continue to reverse this trend."
The National Fisheries Institute, a trade group representing seafood producers as well as suppliers, restaurants and grocery chains, said in a statement that most wild marine stocks remain sustainable. It added that its members could meet the rising global demand for seafood in part by relying on farmed fish: "To meet the gap between what wild capture can provide sustainably and the growing demand for seafood, aquaculture is filling that need."
But several scientists challenged that prediction and questioned why humanity should pay for a resource that the ocean had long provided for free.
"It's like turning on the air conditioning rather than opening the window," said Stanford University marine sciences professor Stephen Palumbi, one of the paper's authors.
Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco said the new study makes clear that fish stocks are in trouble even though consumers appear to have a cornucopia of seafood choices.
"I think people don't get it," Lubchenco said. "They think, 'If there is a problem with the oceans, how come the case in my grocery store is so full?' There is a disconnect."
Seafood has become a growing part of Americans' diet in recent years. Consumption totaled 16.6 pounds per person in 2004, the most recent data available, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That compares with 15.2 pounds in 2000.
Joshua Reichert, the chief of the private Pew Charitable Trusts' environment program, pointed out that worldwide fishing provides $80 billion in revenue and 200 million people depend on it for their livelihoods. For more than 1 billion people, many of whom are poor, fish is their main source of protein, he said.
Fish and seafood are key protein sources for a world that's expected to add another 3 billion people by 2050. But the projected decline is also a problem for people who don't eat fish. Sixty percent of Americans live within 60 miles of a coast. Declines in marine biodiversity can:
· Increase coastal flooding because of loss of floodplains and erosion control provided by the wetlands, reefs and underwater vegetation that have a symbiotic relationship with marine life.
· Reduce water quality by destroying the plankton, plants and shellfish that are the ocean's biological filtering ability. A single oyster, for example, can filter 50 gallons of water per day.
· Increase beach closure because of harmful algae blooms, such as red tide, facilitated by the diminished filtering.
====
fish farming article
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1974103
another review study is at
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/007/y5600e/y5600e08.htm
The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (2004)
[...]
Prospects for fish production
Total world fish production would increase from 129 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 159 million tonnes by the year 2010 and to 172 million tonnes by the year 2015.93 This means that growth in global world fish production is projected to decline from the annual rate of 2.7 percent of the past decade to 2.1 percent per year between 1999/2001 and 2010 and to 1.6 percent per year between 2010 and 2015. World capture production is projected to stagnate, while world aquaculture production is projected to increase substantially, albeit at a slower rate than in the past.
Out of the expected increase of 43 million tonnes in global fish production from 1999/2001 to 2015, 73 percent would come from aquaculture, which is projected to account for 39 percent of global fish production in 2015 (up from 27.5 percent in 1999/2001).
The share of pelagic species in total fish output would decline from 30.8 percent in 1999/2001 to 24.5 percent by 2015. Similarly, the share of demersal fish would shrink from 16.2 percent to 12.7 percent. By contrast, the share of freshwater and diadromous fish would increase from 23.7 percent in 1999/2001 to 29.3 percent by 2015, and that of crustaceans, molluscs and cephalopods would rise from 20.5 to 25.6 percent during the same period.
Prospects for trade and implications for prices
A comparison of the supply and demand projections for fish and fishery products shows that demand would tend to exceed potential supply. The deficit for all types of fish combined would amount to 9.4 million tonnes by 2010 and to 10.9 million tonnes by 2015. The deficit will not materialize as the market will be re-equilibrated, on the one hand through relative price rises and shifts in demand among different types of fish and fish products and, on the other, through shifts in demand towards alternative protein foods.
[...]
HTTP://WWW.STATESMANJOURNAL.COM/APPS/PBCS.DLL/ARTICLE?AID=/20061103/NEWS/611030333
OCEAN ECOSYSTEM
Supply of seafood could be gone by 2048, international study says
Experts say it's not too late to reverse decline of species
Statesman Journal, news services
November 3, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, according to a study released Thursday by an international group of ecologists and economists.
The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species around the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients and resist the spread of disease.
"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species, we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems," said lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -- beyond anything we suspected."
The 14 researchers from Canada, Panama, Sweden and the United States spent four years analyzing all the available data about fish populations and ocean ecosystems to reach their conclusion -- including a 1,000-year time series for 12 coastal regions, drawing on data from archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archaeological data.
They found that by 2003 -- the last year for which data about global commercial fish catches is available -- 29 percent of all fished species had collapsed, and that the rate of population collapses has accelerated in recent years.
"At this point, 29 percent of fish and seafood species have collapsed -- that is, their catch has declined by 90 percent. It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating," Worm said. "If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime, by 2048."
As of 1980, just 13.5 percent of fished species had collapsed, even though fishing vessels were pursuing 1,736 fewer species back then. Today, the fishing industry harvests 7,784 species commercially.
"It looks grim, and the projection of the trend into the future looks even grimmer," Worm said. "But it's not too late to turn this around. It can be done, but it must be done soon. We need a shift from single-species management to ecosystem management. It just requires a big chunk of political will to do it."
The researchers called for new marine reserves, better management to prevent overfishing and tighter controls on pollution.
In the 48 areas worldwide that have been protected to improve marine biodiversity, they found, "diversity of species recovered dramatically, and with it the ecosystem's productivity and stability."
Although seafood forms a crucial concern in their study, the researchers were analyzing overall biodiversity of the oceans. The more species in the oceans, the better each can handle exploitation.
"Even bugs and weeds make clear, measurable contributions to ecosystems," said co-author J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.
Some U.S. fishery-management officials, industry representatives and academics questioned the team's dire predictions, however, saying that countries such as the U.S. and New Zealand have taken steps in recent years to halt the depletion of their commercial fisheries.
"The projection is way too pessimistic, at least for the United States," said Steven Murawski, the chief scientist for the National Marine Fisheries Service. "We've got the message. We will continue to reverse this trend."
The National Fisheries Institute, a trade group representing seafood producers as well as suppliers, restaurants and grocery chains, said in a statement that most wild marine stocks remain sustainable. It added that its members could meet the rising global demand for seafood in part by relying on farmed fish: "To meet the gap between what wild capture can provide sustainably and the growing demand for seafood, aquaculture is filling that need."
But several scientists challenged that prediction and questioned why humanity should pay for a resource that the ocean had long provided for free.
"It's like turning on the air conditioning rather than opening the window," said Stanford University marine sciences professor Stephen Palumbi, one of the paper's authors.
Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco said the new study makes clear that fish stocks are in trouble even though consumers appear to have a cornucopia of seafood choices.
"I think people don't get it," Lubchenco said. "They think, 'If there is a problem with the oceans, how come the case in my grocery store is so full?' There is a disconnect."
Seafood has become a growing part of Americans' diet in recent years. Consumption totaled 16.6 pounds per person in 2004, the most recent data available, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That compares with 15.2 pounds in 2000.
Joshua Reichert, the chief of the private Pew Charitable Trusts' environment program, pointed out that worldwide fishing provides $80 billion in revenue and 200 million people depend on it for their livelihoods. For more than 1 billion people, many of whom are poor, fish is their main source of protein, he said.
Fish and seafood are key protein sources for a world that's expected to add another 3 billion people by 2050. But the projected decline is also a problem for people who don't eat fish. Sixty percent of Americans live within 60 miles of a coast. Declines in marine biodiversity can:
· Increase coastal flooding because of loss of floodplains and erosion control provided by the wetlands, reefs and underwater vegetation that have a symbiotic relationship with marine life.
· Reduce water quality by destroying the plankton, plants and shellfish that are the ocean's biological filtering ability. A single oyster, for example, can filter 50 gallons of water per day.
· Increase beach closure because of harmful algae blooms, such as red tide, facilitated by the diminished filtering.
====
fish farming article
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1974103
another review study is at
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/007/y5600e/y5600e08.htm
The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (2004)
[...]
Prospects for fish production
Total world fish production would increase from 129 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 159 million tonnes by the year 2010 and to 172 million tonnes by the year 2015.93 This means that growth in global world fish production is projected to decline from the annual rate of 2.7 percent of the past decade to 2.1 percent per year between 1999/2001 and 2010 and to 1.6 percent per year between 2010 and 2015. World capture production is projected to stagnate, while world aquaculture production is projected to increase substantially, albeit at a slower rate than in the past.
Out of the expected increase of 43 million tonnes in global fish production from 1999/2001 to 2015, 73 percent would come from aquaculture, which is projected to account for 39 percent of global fish production in 2015 (up from 27.5 percent in 1999/2001).
The share of pelagic species in total fish output would decline from 30.8 percent in 1999/2001 to 24.5 percent by 2015. Similarly, the share of demersal fish would shrink from 16.2 percent to 12.7 percent. By contrast, the share of freshwater and diadromous fish would increase from 23.7 percent in 1999/2001 to 29.3 percent by 2015, and that of crustaceans, molluscs and cephalopods would rise from 20.5 to 25.6 percent during the same period.
Prospects for trade and implications for prices
A comparison of the supply and demand projections for fish and fishery products shows that demand would tend to exceed potential supply. The deficit for all types of fish combined would amount to 9.4 million tonnes by 2010 and to 10.9 million tonnes by 2015. The deficit will not materialize as the market will be re-equilibrated, on the one hand through relative price rises and shifts in demand among different types of fish and fish products and, on the other, through shifts in demand towards alternative protein foods.
[...]
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