Studies currently being carried out, namely a respected 10-year census called “Census of Marine Life” by Professor Daniel Pauly from the University of British Columbia in Canada, clearly demonstrate the true scale of mankind’s devastation of the oceans. The study shows that mankind has consumed as much as 95 percent of the large fish in many seas and hence some of these species are threatened with extinction. It is believed that the global annual fish catch is fast approaching 150 million tons.
Some of the studies strongly indicate that unless a way is found to adopt sustainable fishing practices, fish, from shark to tuna and cod, will clearly suffer declines that point to crashing events. A stark reminder must surely be the state of many shark populations that now stand at five per cent of their natural numbers.
For many years over fishing become the menace to the fishing authority. Industrialised fishing came much later with the invention of the steam-powered vessels that culminated in the birth of factory fishing vessels in the 1950s. All these technologies have made the regeneration of fish stocks an uphill, if not impossible, struggle.
A fine example is the world’s richest cod fishery off Newfoundland came to an abrupt end in the 1990s when the cod population was systematically wiped out after a century of frenzied fishing. All this had already happened in the 1960s when the herring fishery collapsed in the North Sea. Sadly, the bluefin tuna could be the next well-known victim to face this end.
WWF, Green Peace, along with countries such as Monaco, have been the most vociferous, going so far as suggesting a complete ban on tuna fishing, especially on an industrial scale. The European Union entered the fray and prohibition was creeping evermore up the agenda. Interested countries such as Spain, Italy, France, and of course Malta, fought tooth and nail to resist such a ban for obvious commercial reasons. If the fishing industry is not strictly regulated both internally and externally, we will destroy this final frontier and end up with the likes of jellyfish and algae on our plate.
