DECLINES IN FISH STOCKS WORLDWIDE_the ecology of exinction

And, effectively, they've succeeded.

A lot of women I know are happy to be dusting the ornaments, and cleaning the downstrairs windows stood on a chair and going to the shops to wallow in the cornucopia of coloured lights and reflections and gossip with the neighbours and put the evening meal, tea where I come from, "dinner" is so provincial I think, in the microwave and blow on it before serving it up to a chap with his braces down, washing up and settling down to another night of ITV with doze, brew,and weeing inserts. You can tell how many there are from the TV ratings.

Overfishing

A large yellow fin tuna being cut up. Yellow fin and big eye tuna may be commercially extinct in 3-5 years if fishing is not controlled, experts warn.

Many marine ecologists think that the biggest single threat to marine ecosystems today is overfishing. Our appetite for fish is exceeding the oceans' ecological limits with devastating impacts on marine ecosystems. Scientists are warning that overfishing results in profound changes in our oceans, perhaps changing them forever. Not to mention our dinner plates, which in future may only feature fish and chips as a rare and expensive delicacy.

More often than not, the fishing industry is given access to fish stocks before the impact of their fishing can be assessed, and regulation of the fishing industry is, in any case, woefully inadequate.

The reality of modern fishing is that the industry is dominated by fishing vessels that far out-match nature's ability to replenish fish. Giant ships using state-of-the-art fish-finding sonar can pinpoint schools of fish quickly and accurately. The ships are fitted out like giant floating factories - containing fish processing and packing plants, huge freezing systems, and powerful engines to drag enormous fishing gear through the ocean. Put simply: the fish don't stand a chance. ...<cont>

Fish fight crucial to survival of islanders
November 30, 2009/Sydney Morning Herald

Yes we can... a crew member on the Taiwanese long-liner Kai Jie 1 pulls in a tuna in the Pacific. Taiwan, which has the biggest tuna fleet on the high seas, is accused of overfishing. Photo: Greenpeace

Some Pacific nations need a future beyond climate change, and protecting their tuna may be the answer, writes Andrew Darby.

For island nations such as Kiribati, the Pacific Ocean, their enemy, is also their friend. The people are losing precious land to a rising sea level. But through the wide waters of the Kiribati exclusive economic zone swim the world's last great tuna shoals on long migrations across the central Pacific.

Sleek yellowfin and muscled bigeye, little skipjack and albacore in numbers so great there once seemed no limit.

If this great blue ocean has a heart, a place where people can grasp its dimension and riches, it should be Kiribati. The pinpoints of Kiribati's land amount to 810 square kilometres, or exactly Canberra's city area.

Yet the tropical exclusive economic zone is nearly half the size of mainland Australia.

As these people plan to live on less island, or even elsewhere, they cling to tuna for their economic future.

''It is very crucial for Kiribati to see … the development of tuna resources is sustainable in the long term,'' its fisheries director, Kintoba Tearo, says.

The problem for Kiribati, and its Pacific neighbours, is holding on to this treasure. Too much tuna is falling prey to illegal or unsustainable fishing by fleets from distant lands, and sought-after species are being fished down to danger levels.

Among the distant fishing countries, Taiwan has been uncovered as a culprit in the pillage of the Pacific.

Its dynamic economy supports the biggest tuna fleet on the high seas. A recent Greenpeace investigation found many of its fishers used the grey side of the law and, dealing with a powerful industry, the government in Taipei has been unable to halt it.

When you buy a can of tuna in the supermarket, it is likely to come from waters such as those of Kiribati, caught by Taiwanese fishers, even if it is labelled ''Product of Thailand'' because it was canned there. The challenge of sustaining tuna is vital to small Pacific islands, but involves us all.

Already in our experience of overfishing, the stand-out lesson is the case of bluefin tuna. These fish used to be canned too when they were numerous - but that was decades ago. Now they are much more valuable as raw sashimi fish, and stocks of the two species, southern and northern bluefin, have plunged to small fractions of their original size.

In the southern hemisphere, the Australian Government and industry in 2006 uncovered an over-catch scandal in which, Canberra said, Japanese fishers over many years in effect stole fish calculated to be worth up to $8 billion.

This year legal catches were slashed again, but still the Australian delegation leader, John Kalish, told the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna that the Government ''remains deeply concerned about compliance with national allocations of SBT''. The actual catch was still well above currently agreed limits, he said.

In the northern hemisphere, an attempt is being mounted to list bluefin under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Official quotas were halved this month, but they are systematically exceeded.

''Only a zero catch limit could have maximised the chances that Atlantic bluefin could recover to the point where the fishery could exist in the future,'' said Susan Lieberman, a deputy director of international policy for the Pew Foundation.

It is this kind of industrial-scale pressure that faces Pacific tuna species. ...<cont>

So some of us will save the whale, some of us will save the blue fin, and some of us will continue to polute and damage the basis that these species exist on. Or not. Perhaps our ability to run around like headless chooks and tackle everything at once has been exceeded.

Have a look at the map. Identify the parts that are water. Now explain to me how thinking locally will help. The title of this topic is "DECLINES IN FISH STOCKS WORLD WIDE" not what shall we do to improve the fishing for our countrymen in a localised area.

If more people thought & acted locally, you know, this might eventually amount to something resembling a "grand plan".

Yay, back on topic!

You're a hero, dp!

There doesn't even need to be a "grand plan." It's a canard to suggest that either we cover all the bases and solve all the problems at once, or our efforts are wasted.

Spendius's motive, on the other hand, appeared to be further indulging his obsessive stalking of farmerman, on any thread going. Pretty tiresome to anyone but spendius. Personally I find this sort of forum stalking really offensive.