Overfishing: When Humans Exhaust the Oceans Essay

The ocean is one of the major sources of food for human beings. This is non surprising, considering that oceans cover 75% of the Earths surface. The peaceable Ocean, for one, is home to kn witness edible tip species such as salmon, herring, snapper, sardines and tuna. Furthermore, or so 250 new species of look for ar described e really year (Heemstra, South African make for Aquatic Biodiversity and South Africa Marine & Coastal Management, 1). However, over leaning is currently regarded as the biggest holy terror to the oceans ecosystem.Fishing at a much smart pace than natures ability to replenish tilt has resulted in long-term economic and ecological consequences. Major look foring industries in various(a) parts of the population have collapsed, resulting in massive unemployment (Iudicello, weber and Wieland, 11). In addition, the extinction of a certain tilt species would certainly spell the blemish of sepa ordinate marine tone that feed on it. Indeed, if left un checked, over seek could put to work fish into a rare and expensive delicacy.Before World fight II, search was associated with cotton nets, hand lines and coastal vessels with short ranges. Fishing substance was often determined by factors such as the individual fishers eyesight, experience and fish-finding capability. Despite the rudimentary technology, most fish populations survived. The proportionality between the number of fish populations and peoples ability to childs play fish was maintained (Iudicello, weber and Wieland, 11). But later on the war, military innovations were utilize to fishing equipment.Fiberglass was utilize to create flatboat and cheaper hulls, larger and lighter nets were woven out of synthetic line and diesel engines and other electronic gear were appended to fishing boats to increase their speed and efficiency in mending productive fishing grounds. These were soon followed with advances in processing, transport and marketing of fish. As a resul t, the availability of fish change magnitude in some countries (Iudicello, Weber and Wieland, 11). Rising human populations and affluence, especially in the United States, Japan and western Europe, was another factor behind the boom of the fishing industry after World War II.During this period, fish was viewed as a cheap and unlimited source of protein. Thus, governments and entrepreneurs invested heavily in fishing vessels and infrastructure. Warnings of environmentalists regarding the dangers of overfishing went unheeded the ocean was purportedly too vast and too deep for its resources to be limited (Iudicello, Weber and Wieland, 12). At present, it appears that nature is already exacting its revenge. Many fisheries around the instauration now require larger fleets to be able to come up with their usual overwhelm (Iudicello, Weber and Wieland, 12).In addition, some species of fish and other marine life have already become extinct, resulting in the outrage of livelihood for many fishermen. Overfishing, once largely-ignored, is now recognized as a grave threat. Fishing is no longer the local affair that it go ford to be. It is currently a global enterprise that not only generates billions of dollars in private income, but as well as serves as the economic lifeblood of several countries. accord to the 1997 statistics of the Food and Agriethnical Organization (FAO), fish and shellfish landings worldwide increased from 16. 3 million calculated tons in 1950 to 91. million metric tons in 1995.Meanwhile, the United States and several other countries extended the jurisdiction of their respective fishing industries by active 200 nautical miles shoreward between 1950 and 1976 (Iudicello, Weber and Wieland, 12). This resulted in landings having an annual average growth rate of 5%, peaking at 86. 4 million metric tons in 1989 (Iudicello, Weber and Wieland, 13). World landings since 1950 were composed mostly of pelagic (open ocean) species such as tuna, mac kerel and sardines. In 1994, they accounted for at least 60% of the worlds intact catch.Pelagic species constitute about 59% of the catch in the Pacific Ocean. In the Indian Ocean, on the other hand, they make up at least 50% (Iudicello, Weber and Wieland, 13). Demersal fishes (species that live in the ocean bottom) are also an important part of the worlds fishing industry. In 1993, it accounted for about 50% of the worlds total landings pelagic species make up only 40%. Given the enormous amount of catch from the worlds oceans between the 1950s and the 1990s, it is inevitable that the percentage of fish landings that are traded internationally rose from 20% to 33% from 1980 to 1993.Much of this film editing is from Third World countries, which earned $15 billion in 1990 from fish exports alone (Iudicello, Weber and Wieland, 14). Humans consume about 60% of the worlds total fish landings in the form of processed fish meal and fish oil. This is because the percentage of catch dist ributed fresh decreased from near 50% to 20% from 1950 to 1982. Freezing innovations, however, increased fourfold the percentage of fish marketed frozen from 5% to 22% (Iudicello, Weber and Wieland, 14).Environmental experts argued that the unsustainable nature of fishing since the end of World War II proved to be tributary to the emergence of overfishing. The oceans are said to be among the worlds greatest commonss (owned) by everyone and by no one (Hollander, 56). Ships and sailors, for instance, are traditionally regarded as the bearers of the privilege to enjoy the freedom of the seas (Hollander, 56). Meanwhile, fish a natural and mobile ocean resource was always considered as common station that can be taken freely (Hollander, 56).Thus, those who are engaged in commercial fishing will not think twice about overexploiting the oceans fish stocks, as long as their own catch is maximized. As long as the catch was plentiful, people always assumed that the fishes in the oce an were unlimited. Furthermore, fishing was an industry that has been thriving for centuries in that location was therefore no apparent need to think about its sustainability. The inhabitants of the newfangled England coast, for example, were traditionally known for living off fisheries that caught cod, flounder and haddock.As of 2004, about 200 million people around the world are at one time employed in fisheries (Hollander, 56). Poor government planning exacerbates the problem of overfishing. In First World countries, fishing is a state-subsidized industry. Tens of billions of dollars worth of state helper has prompted those in the fishing industry to further expand their fleet preferably than devise sustainable means of catching fish. In addition, economic and cultural differences among competitors in large international fisheries almost always result in the race as to who ends up with the biggest catch (Hollander, 57).Fishers in the worlds poorest countries are also respon sible for the worsening of overfishing. Coastal dwellers in the poorest growth countries often have to compete with each other for the small stocks of fish available in their locality. In order to increase their catch, some fishers use cyanide or blow up chromatic reefs with dynamite. As coral reefs are the habitats of fishes, dynamite fishing diminishes and eventually destroys fish stocks (Hollander, 61). Being on the edge of starvation, fishers in the poorest nations cannot be blamed if they happened to disregard long-term management.The conterminous need to catch fish for food and livelihood often traps them in the vicious cycle of resource overexploitation. But once the sea is already humbled, so is their source of food and livelihood. Thus, something must be done to about overfishing (Hollander, 62). Overfishing is not without serious economic and ecological costs. It has resulted in the near-extinction of the worlds most important fish species, including the Atlantic halib ut, Atlantic bluefin tuna, Atlantic swordfish, North Sea herring, Grand Banks cod, Argentinean hake and the Australian Murray River cod.Overfishing has ilkwise severely depleted the number of other forms of marine life, such as seals, dolphins, whales, sharks and sea turtles. Furthermore, catches in the overfished areas of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans have declined since attaining their peak in 1989 (Diamond, 480). In the northwesterly Mediterranean, a study revealed that the removal of fish increases the population of sea urchins. A rise in the sea urchin population, in turn, reduces edible fleshy alga and produces crusts of inedible, coral-like algae.This may result in death to other marine life due to starvation. This experiment just goes to show that overfishing has indirect but very detrimental ecosystem effects (Hollander, 59). Another very negative effect of overfishing is the death of livelihoods that are based on fishing. It must be noted that the fishing industry is also composed of other supporting and distributing services like fish handlers and boat builders. Thus, overfishing will push countless fishing families into poverty (Environmental Cares Organization, 250).The collapse of the cod industry in Newfoundland, Canada in 1992 led to the red ink of about 40,000 jobs (Greenpeace International, n. pag. ). Because the ocean is one of the major sources of food for human beings, common sense dictates that it must be taken cared of. While there is secret code wrong with fishing, it must allow nature to fully replenish the fish that has been caught. It must not be forgotten that the loss of fish is also the loss of survival for humankind. Thus, steps must be done in order to immediately address the problem of overfishing.