Wednesday, September 21, 2011

So long and thanks for all the fish

I recently came across this summary of the state of the world's marine life after decades of industrial scale pollution, warming, acidification, trawling, nutrient runoff and overfishing. It is from this paper.

17 comments:

byron smith said...

DD: Sharks in GBR in 'quite rapid' decline.

byron smith said...

Guardian: We must suffer short-term economic pain to make our seas sustainable. Why the UK really ought to be protecting at least 25% of its marine area.

byron smith said...

Age: Another threat from rising CO2 in the oceans. Apart from ocean acidification (and ocean warming caused by rising CO2 in the atmosphere), more dissolved CO2 in the oceans appears to be negatively affecting the central nervous system of fish.

byron smith said...

NYT: A case study in overfishing.

byron smith said...

New study says tuna numbers are down 60% over last 50 years.

byron smith said...

nef: Lost at sea: £2.7 billion and 100,000 jobs. The economic costs of overfishing in the EU.

byron smith said...

Scottish fishing industry among culprits. Yet they get away with fines a fraction of the value of their illegal take.

byron smith said...

The unnatural history of the sea. This book argues, based on historical records, that even many contemporary marine biologists suffer from shifting baselines and so are unaware of just how productive the oceans used to be. No one alive has seen them in anything like a pristine state, since industrial-scale human suppression of marine life began hundreds of years ago in many places and more than a thousand years ago in some.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Plenty more fish in the sea? The NEF has calculated that the UK has just exhausted the annual productivity of its domestic fisheries and effectively relies on imports of cod and haddock for the rest of the year.

byron smith said...

Monbiot: The great riches of our seas have been depleted and forgotten.

Basically, it's hard to know exactly what the oceans were like before human activities became dominant, but the historical evidence we have seems to indicate a much, much greater abundance than anything dreamed of in our living memory.

byron smith said...

CAP: The end of overfishing in America. Some progress being made in US fishing regulations in the last couple of years.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Climate change linked to declining Caribbean fish stocks.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Mackerel off MSC eat list.

byron smith said...

Monbiot: UK fisheries madness continues.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Cod stocks in recovery. Some good news.

byron smith said...

TreeHugger: DNA testing finds that 33% of all fish sold in the US is mislabelled as a more commercially desirable kind. This includes 59% of all fish sold as "tuna" and 74% of all fish sold at Sushi restaurants.

byron smith said...

PhysOrg: Report supports shut down of all high seas fisheries. Fish in the high seas may be worth more as a carbon sink than as food.