Overfishing?

[MarxSchmarx]

What are people's opinions on overfishing? Should "the masses" stop eating their tuna sandwiches and tempura? Is aquaculture a desirable/viable alternative? How do we ensure a cod in every pot the world-over without running out?

[chimx]

My opinion is that animal husbandry driven by a free market maximizes short term profits, but with high prices farther down the road. Fishing included. Currently off the coast of Australia and New Zealand, fish habitats are being destroyed by a practice that involves dragging heavy metal nets across the ocean floor. While this quickly catches the fish currently alive, it destroys the environment that fish live in, resulting in a significant decline in numerous species that rely on coral reef to survive. Fish, sharks, and plant life are all being threatened by these practices.

I'll let Vanguard1917 come in now to argue the capitalist perspective.

[socialistfuture]

my cousin is a head chef at a restaurant and cooks a lot of fish, he likes real good quality food and is worried about fish stocks. he said something about a lot of species (fish) being wiped out by 2050 at current fishing rates.

I know the govt here doesnt enforce a lof of fishing quotas. large companies dominate the market and overfish, so the populations cant stabilize. then once they are depleted a new one is chosen (u would almost think this is a reacuring pattern...). Reserves allow stock to repopulate - there is a new one being proposed by forest & bird in New Zealand - real cool if it happens - don't know if it would protect the area from seabed mining tho.... :(

Fish and aquaculture is an important source of food for a lod of communities, if a lot of fish get wiped out thats bad news (not going to go into the effects of global warming on the oceans..).

Bottom trawling massively needs to be regulated or banned.
In nz campaigners mainly focus on overseas bottom trawling - but it happens here too!

A lot of it is done and then the good fish are exported to Asia and the shit fish and scraps end up at local takeaways shops.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

We just need to build more fish farms to solve the problem. Its a matter of poor planning not over consumption.

[which doctor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 08:39 am
We just need to build more fish farms to solve the problem. Its a matter of poor planning not over consumption.
Fish farms have a lot of problems as well. For instance in my area a certain type of non-native carp species escaped aquaculture ponds during flooding and has invaded many rivers. Now the fish are a plague in many waterways around me and it's been nearly impossible to get rid of the fish. They've ruined many previously good rivers and streams.

Fish escaping ponds and finding their ways into waterways where they're not welcome is only one problem with farmed fish.

Another has to deal with keeping thousands of fish in a very small area. Disease spreads much quicker in these ponds. If you were to ever visit a pond and check it's water quality, I doubt you would ever want to eat a fish out of there. Fish caught wild just taste better too.

I think we should declare a moratorium on commercial fishing in certain regions where the fish are nearly extinct. In many areas there is already a de facto moratorium due to it being so hard to actually catch the fish that it's not commercially viable.

[socialistfuture]

funny that capitalist sham who quotes chavez and looks like blair said its nothing to do with overconsumption without knowing anything about the issue.
sounds like neo liberalism to me.

[redcannon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 05:39 am
We just need to build more fish farms to solve the problem. Its a matter of poor planning not over consumption.
the thing is that many fish farmers feed their fish other fish, thus making more problems of declining population.

it was because of "trawling" (dragging of heavy metal nets across the ocean floor) that i stopped eating fish. Fish are very important to the balance of the delicate ocean ecosystem, and we are destroying that balance. stricter laws on fishing must be placed.

Goddamn free market economy... *mumbles curses*

[Bilan]

It's a matter of both over consumption, and poor planning. Not one or the other, but both.
We dont need the amount of seafood that is taken. We should only take what we need, not so much that it can't replace what is taken. We also throw out massive amounts of food (seafood included, of course).
Either way, it's most important that the species are able to repopulation, which comes down to planning.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 12:02 am
My opinion is that animal husbandry driven by a free market maximizes short term profits, but with high prices farther down the road. Fishing included. Currently off the coast of Australia and New Zealand, fish habitats are being destroyed by a practice that involves dragging heavy metal nets across the ocean floor.
That's the basic thing here. It's not a matter of telling people to eat less fish; the most destructive profit-driven practices have to be regulated.

For the sake of keeping working people in the fishing industry employed, among other things. A lot of workers and self-employed working producers have been put out of work when fisheries are depleted to the point where they have to be shut down, or fishing cut way back.

The Militant's had some good stuff on this, based on learning from working people in the fishing industry.
On the causes of Canada's fishing crisis: (http://www.themilitant.com/2003/6724/672410.html)"“One factory ship takes in a month what the whole fleet of small fishers take in one year. If the government had eliminated them before, small fishers would still be fishing cod today,” said Albert Diotte, a former cod fisher on the dock at Grande Rivière, Québec."

Many times, government action in the name of overfishing has favored the fishing bosses over working people, as usual: For example, in Scotland (http://www.themilitant.com/2004/6829/682912.html)

In contrast, Venezuela's passed laws restricting capitalist fishing operations in favor of exploited producers. (http://www.themilitant.com/2002/6632/663254.html)

[Vanguard1917]

What are people's opinions on overfishing? Should "the masses" stop eating their tuna sandwiches and tempura? Is aquaculture a desirable/viable alternative?

Overfishing is a serious problem. The oceans make up around 70% of the earth's surface, and yet they only supply us with around 1% of our calorie requirements and about 5% of our protein. We need to be able to better exploit and expand the oceans' resources.

The solution to dwindling fish supplies is the development of aquaculture. At present, the fishing industry is backward - in some ways comparable to the hunter-gatherer methods used on the land thousands of years ago before the development of agriculture. Agriculture radically increased productivity on the land. Aquaculture could do the same with the oceans. It would also reduce the pressure on the land due to the fact that the need to harvest the land would be reduced.

The developing countries of the East are leading the way in this field. In 2002 around 70% of the world's aquacultural production took place in China, and around 13% came from India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand and Vietnam. It is, however, still a largely underdeveloped area of food production. Far greater investment and innovation is needed. Mainstream Western environmentalists (including animal rights lunatics (http://www.fishinghurts.com/FishFarms.asp), who are largely marginal) are some of the main political opponents of such development.

[socialistfuture]

can you back up your last statement.

and provide examples of aquaculture you support.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The overfishing of the world's oceans is a criminal state of affairs, more often than not propped up by government subsidies. Aquaculture is definitely something we should look into if we want to continue eating seafood.


Originally posted by FoB
Fish farms have a lot of problems as well. For instance in my area a certain type of non-native carp species escaped aquaculture ponds during flooding and has invaded many rivers. Now the fish are a plague in many waterways around me and it's been nearly impossible to get rid of the fish. They've ruined many previously good rivers and streams.

That's simply another example of poor planning, like trying to breed lions in the countryside of a temperate country - sooner or later, they are going to escape and eat as many farm animals as they can.

Aquaculture is very much in it's infancy compared to agriculture. I get the feeling we're still learning, so there's doubtless going to be a mistakes along the way. It's part of of the learning process.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 04:21 am
funny that capitalist sham who quotes chavez and looks like blair said its nothing to do with overconsumption without knowing anything about the issue.
sounds like neo liberalism to me.
:lol:

Please go and live in that cave and stop being annoying you stupid little green.

Do you think it is over consumption then? I dont know why im even asking you, you are just a primitivist anyway.

[socialistfuture]

i am a green anarchist or eco socialist - not a neo liberal like u.
i might movie into a cave later in the year and put a solar panel on the roof if i can save up enough in the year.

i am not a primitist, tho i do read about it. i am also into unionism, socialism, conservation, ecology, climate action and so on.

bloody capitalist sham - are you middle class and white? what is your job?
do you work in the fisheries? or not much about them? have you been fishing much of ever lived on a boat?

[socialistfuture]

could you please explain to me what is 1) ecology, 2) overfishing, 3)resource depletion and 4)species loss.

no i am not ask your your religious dogma, insults or anything else. just 4 questions.

[Janus]

What are people's opinions on overfishing?
It's a problem which we need to deal with through sustainable fishing and better management while at the same time promoting alternative technological methods such as some of the aquaculture methods which others have pointed out.

[MarxSchmarx]

could you please explain to me what is 1) ecology, 2) overfishing, 3)resource depletion and 4)species loss.


1) Ecology: The scientific study of organisms and the relations they have with other organisms or nonbiotic stuff in their environment.
2) Overfishing: A sufficiently large capture/acquisition by humans of a quantity of an aquatic biotic resource (usually restricted molluscs, crustaceans, fish, and marine vertebrates) that prevents the natural reproductive rate of the aquatic resource from recovering to previous densities.
3) resource depletion: A sufficiently large capture/acquisition by humans of a quantity of any (generally naturally occurring) resource that leads to it no longer being naturally available.
4) Species loss: Extinction of a species from an ecosystem.

[socialistfuture]

3 and 4 happen as a result of 2. overfishing is not something that can be defended.