subtitled "Imagine a world without fish" is a Docurama production, after the book of Charles Clover, about the overfishing of wild fish in all of our oceans.
The awareness that something is going wrong in out oceans was raised when everywhere around the world local fishermen reported less and less fish catches while at the same time the global fish industry registered higher and higher catches each year. Turned out that the Chinese have been making up numbers, reporting amounts of fish that they did not actually catch - because it was not there any more. In 2002 it was sure that fish quantities have been falling since 1988. In fact, all fish stocks in the world have declined dramatically, that means by 70% and more. It seems to me the ocean is about to be emptied from wild fish and filled with plastic, other garbage and yes, dead fish instead. A tenth of the worldwide catch is thrown back into the water - dead- because those fishes do not sell well enough.
Commercial fishing has transformed entire eco-systems at a huge scale. The current fishing fleet has the capacity that could catch the world's catch 4 times over. With current technology not a single hunted animal on this Earth has a chance of survival - this includes fish that can not hide or escape the radar of the fishing boats. The world's long-lining industry sets 1.4 billion hooks each year, estimated to be set on lines that could encircle the globe more than 550 times! Even more destructive, most destructive of all are bottom trawlers, huge nets dragged along the ocean floor as if ploughing it and not leaving behind a single creature. The mouth of the largest trawling net in the world can accommodate 13 747 air planes.
A considerable part of the film was about the blue fin tuna. Blue fin tuna is an icon fish, very beautiful, fast, and considered the king of the tuna,- ìt is just a delicious fish that`s it has been hunted to near extinction. All fish are caught by quota today but the quota, set by politicians in the rich countries of the world, is often unrealistic. The quota for the blue fin tuna is 3 times higher than needed for the species to recover, and two times higher than needed to prevent the species from collapse. Recommendations from scientists are frequently ignored under the pressure of the fishing industry and the prevention of unemployment. In the Mediterranean (mostly Italians) catch twice as much as the quota, which represents 1/3 of the blue fin tuna population. The Italian government does not care.
Breaking the rules by fishermen is (one of) the biggest problem and worth $25 billions per year. It is hard to stop a bad behaviour when a few people make millions of dollars by decimating fish species. In Japan Mitsubishi is in control of over 50% of the blue fin tuna production. Rumours have it that they try to build up a frozen reserve which will be worth lots of money (and this tuna is already expensive) once stocks are depleted. Mitsubishi has sent out bigger fishing ships with more freezing & transportation capacity, while saying it agrees to reducing the quota and preserving the species for the future.
Consequences from overfishing are multiple and lots of them unforeseen. Jellyfish infestations are increasing because all the big fish, the predators are gone. There`s also more algae, plankton, and worms. Newfoundland overfished its cod population back in the 80s. Since then lobster that udes to be eaten by cod has increased. Sure, you can make good money of lobster too but what will happen when the lobster is gone? With the domino effects generated by losing one species after the other the stability of the ocean systems declines - to become a road of no return? Scientists warn that by the mid of the century all fish will be gone, if things remain the same, but things don`t get necessarily better, they could get worse too. ``In Jan 2009 a paper in science reports that fish droppings help the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide: a first link between over fishing and global warming.`` With fish disappearing climate change may accelerate! Besides, losing wild fish will have immense impacts on the ability to feed the world`s population: 1.2 billion people call fish a key part of their diet, for many more it`s an important part of their diet.
Fish farms are not the answer. Fish farms use wild fish to feed farm fish; they destroy more fish than they harvest which means that the more fish farming there is the less fish will be in the ocean. Essentially, you convert one fish into another but you don't increase the amount of fish. Therefore it`s much better to eat small fish like anchovies instead of grinding it up to feed it to salmon - anchovies are better for us any way than salmon.
First steps to protect fish have been taken and marine reserves were established where commercial fishing is completely prohibited. This fishing ban may need police enforcement but the positive effects of fish repopulating gone already be seen. So far 4000 marine reserves exist worldwide but they only cover 0.6% of the ocean! Industry is allowed to fish in 99.4% of the ocean. This has to stop. If even only a part of the annual fishery subsidies, estimated $15-30 billions, were spend on marine reserve this would help to start turning the situation at sea around.
As the three key ingredients to guarantee the survival of fish in the oceans were named:
- Political will to implement change - the future of our fish is very much in their hands
- Consumers need to change eating behaviour and question where their fish comes from and how it`s been fished
- Fisheries need to follow the rules (they would have to accept huge job losses because the commercial fleet is way too big)
All the speakers in the film agree that we don't need more knowledge to act, we can start change right now but before all, one question has to be answered, and without the right answer there will be no change: Does society want to see the sea recover?
The end of the line
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