Overfishing- An Introduction

When writing the article on the Yangtze Finless Porpoise, I briefly touched on the topic of overfishing. Many of you have probably heard about it, and know it is a massive problem threatening our seas and their inhabitants. Overfishing is so destructive, it can kill all life in the ocean, and many of you might be part of it every day. So I read through many articles from international organisations, and they all say pretty much the same things. It's a highly complex topic, with so many things to say and do, so this is just an introduction to the broadest points. It's very interesting (and sad) but when you look into it further you realize there is actually a lot you can do! This is very important, especially for ocean lovers and seafood people.

What is overfishing?

By definition, overfishing is so intense fishing, people catch fish quicker than the stocks can reproduce. Leading to a massive decrease in stocks that can peak in the extinction of a species. Overfishing is closely related to bycatch and Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU). The thing is, when an entire species of fish are wiped out, an ecosystem can collapse and that in return can collapse fisheries. However, billions of people rely on fish as their main source of protein, and if the seas can not provide our demand for fish and collapse, we'd face a food crisis. That is not the case just now though, as it looks like people catch way more than the demand for fish there actually is. That simply is an unnecessary waste of billions of fish lives.

Bycatch

Bycatch is the unwanted animals caught along with the fish that was initially targeted. Often bycatch is sea turtles, other fish species or seals that are caught along in the gigantic nets. Due to the sheer masses of bycatch, many of these species are now endangered. But for the big companies, that is no reason to stop. All they care about is having enough fish for the demand. Only that many provide way too much and so many lives are ended for nothing. Bycatch is a huge threat to marine species, especially as huge quantities are always caught and lots of animals die. If you do not consider how many fishing boats go out to sea every day, the amount of deaths is extremely sad!

IUU

IUU stands for illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing and is also a major factor in overfishing. The problem with IUU is that people just randomly catch fish, often high-value species of which the fishing is illegal, only partly legal etc. and sell it illegally. The problem is that those people are not tracked down in some places due to a lack of traceability and make lots of money with the fish they sell which harms them so much on the way! And because it's unreported and illegal it's unregulated fishing and those people can more or less do what they want.

Impacts

Now the impacts of overfishing are grave. It's not like a species just disappears and things go on as normal. Everything has a consequence and every time a species disappears or extremely declines in numbers a small hole is ripped into the food chain. The result can be that another species dies out which results in another one going extinct...It's a huge chain reaction that can lead to a collapse of an entire ecosystem! But if the marine ecosystems collapse it will definitely have an effect on us, especially on the billions of people relying on fish. Fisheries will obviously collapse because there is nothing to make money with and many, many people would go hungry. It could elapse into a full-size food crisis!

Your Turn!

Because you love the ocean, the animals and plants living there and eating seafood you really want to do something! And there is so much you can do! First of all, know what you eat and where it comes from. There is the MSC-labelled fish that is said to be sustainable. They're a pretty big organisation that checks fisheries and approve them if they're sustainable. The approved fish will have this blue tick on it with this fish of sorts and it says MSC. When you want to eat different kinds of fish, just check if they're endangered and how they were caught if you can. Make sure you don't eat endangered species. And as always, don't eat too much. Doing almost everything in reasonable amounts is the best for you and everything and everyone around you. So eat fish, just not tonnes of it, not super overfished species and sustainably fished seafood and you've done your part. See you on Sunday guys!

Your Greenworld Team💚

Sources:

https://www.globalgoals.org/14-life-below-water
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/oceans/
https://www.msc.org/en-au/what-you-can-do/eat-sustainable-seafood/sustainable-seafood-guide
https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing
https://www.edf.org/oceans/overfishing-most-serious-threat-our-oceans
https://www.britannica.com/technology/commercial-fishing
https://www.msc.org/en-au/what-we-are-doing/oceans-at-risk/overfishing
https://www.britannica.com/technology/commercial-fishing
https://www.msc.org/en-au/what-you-can-do/eat-sustainable-seafood/sustainable-seafood-guide

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This image, owned by Gareth Christopher (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)

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