People in
the developed world live in a post-industrial period, primarily working in
service or knowledge sectors. Sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence, and
machine learning are rapidly being used by manufacturers to replace or improve
the efficiency of human work. Farmers may use drones to spray pesticides and
fertilisers while also monitoring crop health through satellite.
Commercial
fishing, one of the world's oldest enterprises, is a notable exception. In much
of the world, industrial fishing, with factory ships and deep-sea trawlers
landing hundreds of tonnes of fish at a time, remains the dominating hunting
style.
This
technique has resulted in overfishing, stock depletion, habitat devastation,
the mindless slaughter of undesired bycatch, and the waste of up to 30% to 40%
of landed fish. Industrial fishing has decimated artisanal and pre-industrial
fleets throughout Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.
Rather as
fresh homegrown food from the sea, the end result is mostly a commodity that
moves across the world like a manufactured item or digital money. According to
sustainable-fishing activists, the average fish travels 5,000 kilometres before
reaching a plate. Some is frozen and sent to Asia for processing before being
refrozen and returned to the United States.
However,
these tendencies are beginning to shift. "The Blue Revolution: Hunting,
Harvesting, and Farming Seafood in the Information Age," my latest book,
describes how commercial fishing has began a hopeful move toward a less
destructive, more transparent post-industrial age. This is true in the United
States, Scandinavia, the majority of Europe, Iceland, New Zealand, Australia,
South Korea, the Philippines, and much of South America.
Using
data to fish
·
Throughout
the fishing sector, changes in behaviour, technology, and regulation are taking
place. Here are a couple such examples:
·
An
worldwide NGO, Global Fishing Watch, analyses and provides open-access
visualisations of global fishing activity on the internet with a 72-hour delay.
This breakthrough in openness has resulted in the arrest and conviction of
owners and commanders of illegally fishing vessels.
·
An
multinational business-to-business effort, the Global Dialogue on Seafood
Traceability, develops voluntary industry standards for seafood traceability.
These guidelines are intended to assist unify the numerous systems that monitor
seafood along the supply chain so that they all gather the same important
information and use the same data sources. This information informs consumers
about the origins of their seafood and if it was produced in a sustainable
manner.
·
Fishing
boats in New Bedford, Massachusetts - the top U.S. fishing port in terms of
overall catch value – are outfitted with sensors in order to create a Marine
Data Bank, which will provide fishermen with information on ocean temperature,
salinity, and oxygen levels. By linking this data to real stock behaviour and
capture levels, fishermen will be able to target specific species while
avoiding inadvertent bycatch.
·
Annual
catch restrictions, distributed through individual quotas for each fisherman,
have assisted in reducing overfishing. Imposing catch shares may be very
contentious, yet since 2000, 47 overfished and closed U.S. stocks have been
repaired and reopened for fishing, owing to policy decisions based on the best
available science. Examples include Bering Sea snow crab, North Atlantic swordfish,
and Gulf of Mexico red grouper.
·
For
more than a decade, a developing "fishie" locavore movement has been
gaining traction, mirroring the ubiquitous "foodie" locavore
movement. Taking a cue from agriculture, community-supported fisheries
subscribers pay in advance for regular delivery from local fishermen. Such
interaction between customers and producers is beginning to change purchasing
habits and introduce consumers to new varieties of fish that are plentiful but
not iconic, such as cod.
Land-based
fish farming
Aquaculture
is the world's fastest-growing method of food production, headed by China. The
United States, which has exclusive jurisdiction over 3.4 million square miles
of ocean, controls just 1% of the world market.
However,
behind lobsters and scallops, aquaculture (mostly shellfish and kelp) is the
third-largest fisheries industry in the Greater Atlantic area. Entrepreneurs
are also raising finfish – including salmon, branzino, barramundi, steelhead,
eels and kingfish – mostly in large, land-based recirculating systems that
reuse 95% or more of their water.
In the
1990s, industrial-scale ocean salmon farming in Norway was primarily
responsible for the idea that farmed fish were harmful to wild fish and ocean
environments. This sector has since shifted to less dense deep-water offshore
pens or land-based recirculating systems.
Almost all
new salmon farms in the United States – in Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana, and
many in Maine and California – are on land. Aquaponics is a method in which
water from fish tanks runs through greenhouses to grow vegetables or hemp.
Proposals to
allow ocean farming in US federal seas between 3 and 200 miles offshore have
sparked fierce discussion. Whatever the conclusion, it is apparent that the
United States will be unable to decrease, and may possibly increase, its $17
billion seafood trade imbalance without a growing mariculture business.
China is
a ravenous consumer.
This type of
advancement is not widespread in the fishing sector. Notably, China is the
world's leading seafood producer, accounting for 15% of worldwide wild capture
and 60% of aquaculture production. Chinese fishing has a significant impact on
the waters. Observers believe that China's fishing fleet might number up to
800,000 vessels, with a distant-water fleet of up to 17,000 vessels, compared
to 300 for the United States.
According to
a research conducted by the nonprofit advocacy group Oceana utilising Global
Fishing Watch data, Chinese vessels fished for 47 million hours between 2019
and 2021. More than 20% of this activity occurred on the high seas or within
the 200-mile exclusive economic zones of more than 80 additional countries. It
is prohibited for Chinese vessels to fish in the waterways of other nations
without authorisation. Chinese ships frequently visit West African, South
American, Mexican, and Korean ports.
Most Chinese
long-distance ships are so enormous that they can capture as much fish in a
week as small boats from Senegal or Mexico can in a year. Without government
subsidies, most of this fishing would be unprofitable. Maintaining healthy
global fisheries clearly requires forcing China to greater standards.
The
healing power of the ocean
There is no
shortage of depressing evidence on how overfishing, combined with other
stressors such as climate change, is hurting the world's seas. Nonetheless,
according to the United Nations, more than 78 percent of current marine fish
landings originate from ecologically viable sources. And, with careful
management, overfished fisheries may typically recover.
For example,
the US east coast scallop fishery, which was almost non-existent in the
mid-1990s, is now a US$570 million-per-year sector.
Cabo Pulmo,
a five-mile stretch of beachfront on Mexico's Baja Peninsula, is another
success story. Cabo Pulmo, formerly a popular fishing spot, was depleted of
fish in the early 1990s due to overfishing. The local communities then
convinced the Mexican government to designate the region as a marine park, with
fishing prohibited.
"Cabo
Pulmo was an underwater desert in 1999." "It was a kaleidoscope of
life and colour ten years later," biologist Enric Sala, head of National
Geographic's Pristine Seas Project, remarked in 2018.
According to
scientists, marine life at Cabo Pulmo has rebounded to the point where it is
equivalent to remote, pristine places that have never been fished. Fishing
outside of the preserve has also recovered, demonstrating that conservation and
fishing are not mutually exclusive. That, in my opinion, is an excellent starting
point for a post-industrial ocean future.
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