So I finally finished my essay and only about 8 hours before the due date. It’s about the 4th essay I’ve written about fisheries, an area which I never want to work in despite how important it is simply because it seems like a never ending cycle of disaster.

Cue fisheries economics rant

So I think fishing is important, fish are a vital protein source (constitutes about 15-16% of total global per-capita protein intake) and it hugely important economically on a number of scales from nations to communities so I’m in no way wanting people to stop fishing, the total catch is worth over a 100 billion US dollars and 8% of the worlds population are economically dependent on fisheries and related industries.

Sustainability is all about the triple balance of environment, economics and society but when it comes to fishing where the environment drives the economic and social benefits if you lose the fish you lose everything.

To be completely fair it’s not always our fault as humans, the combination of environmental changes with exploitation can lead to interesting results which unfortunately can be unpredictable and in some cases it seems irreversible.

Fisheries models can only go so far and fishing has a bit of a try until catastrophe then change the model routine which isn’t exactly perfect.

The benefits of change now may not be seen for twenty, fifty, 100 years and to the fisherman now who has bills and mortgages and a crew to pay, 100 years until you see benefits just isn’t going to be a profitable prospect.

And then it’s a just a circle of battles to protect the stocks so they can be fished but not put the fisherman out of business and it all just becomes so circular.

Here ends the rant

But fish are important, as a food source and as an industry but know what you’re eating and know what’s going on. There are a lot of other issues environmental as well as economic than what I’ve mentioned here but as a consumer you do have an ability to change these things. Dolphin safe tuna was spearheaded by consumer action and although most canned tuna bought today with a dolphin safe label isn’t the species that schools under dolphins and therefore dolphins are not at disk due to their capture but the point is if they didn’t have that label you wouldn’t buy it. Capture methods and indeed laws were changed because of consumer action. These needs to happen for other species in order to protect biodiversity and health of our oceans as well as the social and economic viability of the fishing industry.

If you’re interested in the nitty gritty or where I got my numbers the FAO State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture reports are a great place to start. You can find the newly (this month) published 2010 report here.

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