International fish catches are falling three times faster than official UN figures suggest, a landmark new study showed, with overfishing to blame.
Seafood is the critical source of protein for more than 2.5 billion people, but over-exploitation is cutting the catch by more than 1 million tonnes per year.
The official catch data, provided by nations to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), rarely includes small-scale, sport or illegal fishing and does not count fish discarded at sea. To provide a better estimate, more than 400 researchers worldwide spent a decade finding other data to fill in the gaps.
The results, published in the journal Nature Communications, show the annual catches between 1950 and 2010 were much larger than thought, but that the decline after the peak year of 1996 was much faster than official figures.
The FAO data indicated a catch of 86 million tonnes in 1996, then a decline of 0.4 million tonnes per year. In contrast, the new research estimates the peak catch was 130 million tonnes, but declined at 1.2 million tonnes per year there after.
“Our results differ very strongly from those of the FAO,” said University of British Columbia professor Daniel Pauly, who led the work. “Our results indicate that the decline is very strong and is not due to countries fishing less. It is due to countries having fished too much and having exhausted one fishery after another.”
Estimating subsistence, small-scale and illegal fishing is difficult, but Pauly said his team was confident in its results which — unlike the FAO data — includes estimates of the uncertainty.
“This research is not based on a few studies here and there and then extrapolation,” he said. “It is based on the results of 200 studies we have conducted for about a decade by a network of 400 people in all countries of the world.”
The researchers used many different approaches to fill in the missing data, from hotel invoices for locally bought fish in the Bahamas to information on local fish consumption.
“This work has been carefully conducted by painstaking research into the hidden underbelly of global fishing, country by country, region by region” said Dalhousie University professor Boris Worm, who was not involved in the new research. “This was a Herculean task that no one else has ever attempted. While the results necessarily remain uncertain, they undoubtedly represent our most complete picture yet of the global state of fish catches.”
Worm said the world’s fisheries were being over-exploited, but that some stocks were being sustainably managed: “Where such measures have been taken, we find that both fish and fishermen are more likely to persist into the future.”
International fish catches rose from the 1950s to 1996 as fishing fleets expanded and discovered new fish stocks to exploit, but after 1996, few undiscovered fisheries were left and catches started to decline.
“It was never really sustainable,” said Pauly. The decline since 1996 has largely been in fish caught by industrial fleets and to a lesser extent a cut in the number of unwanted fish discarded at sea.
“The fact that we catch far more than we thought is, if you like, a more positive thing,” he said. “Because if we rebuild stocks, we can rebuild to more than we thought before.”
There has been success in some places where fishing has been restricted for a few years, for example in the Norwegian herring and cod fisheries. On resumption, catches were bigger than ever.
However, Pauly said: “I expect a continued decline because I don’t expect countries to realize the need to rebuild stocks. I don’t see African countries, for example, rebuilding their stocks, or being allowed to by the foreign fleets that are working there, because the pressure to continue to fish is very strong. We know how to fix this problem, but whether we do it or not depends on conditions that are difficult.”
A study last year showed nearly 500 Chinese fishing vessels operating off west Africa, with scores of cases of illegal fishing, environmental group Greenpeace said. Large European vessels also operate in the region. In April last year, the EU threatened Thailand with a trade ban over illegal fishing, while in September, Greenpeace said it had identified significant pirate fishing for tuna in the Pacific.
University of York professor Callum Roberts, who was not part of Pauly’s team, said: “This is a superb piece of research. Greater knowledge of what we have done and are still doing will help us to change for the better.”
“We can see more clearly now, for example, the immense value of fish to poor people in developing countries,” he said.
“We can see how industrial fisheries from developing countries are robbing these people of livelihoods and food. We can also see, that in efforts to stem declines, we have been using more and more bycatch that was once thrown away,” he added.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.