Fishing for an answer

Updated As much as we may hate to face it, the oceans have been vastly overfished for years on end, so much so that stocks of many kinds of fish are dwindling to, even past, the danger point.

That is hard thing to hear, particularly here in New England, because necessary restrictions on catches now will result in measurable harm to a local industry and the people who work it, people already operating under restrictions - and that's without even considering the ripple effect on associated trades and businesses. But the truth is, if we don't act, in a few decades there may be no fishing industry at all because there won't be enough fish to catch.

How bad is it? On December 8 the Christian Science Monitor noted that

[l]ast month the National Marine Fisheries Service and ocean conservation group Oceana listed species that have declined as much as 90 percent from their estimated original populations. And earlier in the fall, the US Commission on Ocean Policy, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by President Bush, released a study warning that too many marine species are being extracted from the oceans faster than they can reproduce. ...

Americans ate a record 16.3 pounds of fish and shellfish per person in 2003, up from 15.6 pounds in 2002, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Now, say ocean activists, these seafood lovers will also have to learn to be stewards of the seas' bounty - or risk seeing their favorite fish disappear forever.

And just the day before, the BBC reported that

[c]ommercial fishing should be banned in 30% of UK waters to save threatened species, an influential report says.

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution said the capacity of the UK fishing fleet should be cut "to an environmentally sustainable level".

The report - Turning The Tide, Addressing The Impact Of Fisheries On The Marine Environment - says the sea should be treated in the same way as endangered land habitats.

It said: "Currently, the marine environment is regulated on the basis of a presumption in favour of fishing... we recommend that the presumption should be reversed."

Not surprisingly, the report was rejected by the usual suspects - politicians and the fishing industry - as "scare-mongering" by "so-called experts" who "would put the whole of the Scottish white-fishing industry out of business." But the report rejoined by warning

that doing "too little, too late" would leave many sectors of the industry without a future. ...

[RCEP chairman] Sir Tom [Blundell] said that without such measures, "many of the fish populations will just collapse".

He added: "We have almost all of the industrially fished populations down to between 15 and 20% throughout the world. This is a catastrophe." ...

It cited a report by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas which says the proportion of north-east Atlantic fish stocks within safe biological limits fell from 26% to 16% between 1996 and 2001.

Are harsh measures necessary? There is no question. The Seafood Watch Project, run out of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, says that

[b]etween 1950 and 1994, ocean fishermen increased their catch 400% by doubling the number of boats and using more effective fishing gear. In 1989, the world's catch leveled off at just over 82 million metric tons of fish per year. That's all the ocean can produce. Sending more boats won't help us catch more fish. ...

Many fisheries have already collapsed, throwing thousands of people out of work. All over the world, fishery after fishery booms as we send in more boats, then busts as the fish population crashes.

Off New England, cod were once so plentiful that boats had trouble pushing through them. Now the cod are nearly gone, and a centuries-old fishing tradition is ending. Other overfished species include sharks, bluefin tuna and many kinds of West Coast rockfish. When one kind of fish is no longer plentiful, fishermen must move on to new species. Monkfish and sharks were once discarded as "trash fish," but now they're valuable - and are themselves overfished!

Restrictions will mean short-term pain for the industry - meaning the people and the communities in which they live - but it will also mean long-term survival for that same industry and those same communities.

But will harsh measures work? The record says they can.

Similar reserves established on Georges Bank, off the north-east coast of North America, [the BBC says,] have seen species recoveries, with the density of scallops increasing up to 14-fold within five years.

There is something else that can be done right now, something we as consumers can do: Choose the fish we eat with the ecology of the ocean in mind. Seafood Watch produces a line of wallet-sized cards (available for download at the above link) that can guide consumer choices based on the health of fish populations. And as CSM points out, even some restaurants are paying attention.

When Paul Catania was trying to decide what kind of fish to serve at the Hearth and Kettle, a chain of seven Cape Cod restaurants he co-owns, he went to local fishermen to get their opinion. "We talked to the guys who catch the fish," he says, referring to members of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association. ...

Last year, some of the fishermen approached Mr. Catania, asking him to consider rethinking one of his most popular dishes: fish and chips. They told him that while cod stocks were dangerously overfished, the supply of haddock was on the rebound.

"When they told me that this was the future, I put haddock on the menu," says Catania.

This summer, Hearth and Kettle began serving fish and chips made from haddock rather than cod.

A small thing, yes, but still a thing. It's just another, even if seemingly tiny, example of doing what we can where we can when we can. I think the next time I go to a restaurant I'll have the card with me - and if there's a kind of fish on the menu I won't have, I'll tell the waitstaff why. Maybe the manager, too.

Updated to add links to the US Commission on Ocean Policy and its final report and to fix a broken link to the Seafood Watch Project.