ou may have heard a thing or two recently about declines in seafood stocks. A well
-covered example of declining fish populations in the media uses data from the latest stock assessment, published in April, showing that Pacific Bluefin tuna, a popular sushi fish, has declined 97.4% from historic levels. Some estimates point to a 0.1% chance of restoring the Pacific Bluefin tuna population to a healthy level, with as high as a 3% chance of restoration if we reduced fishing of Pacific Bluefin tuna by a fifth right away. Even if you don’t understand exactly what this all means, you can make sense of it all with one simple quote from James Cameron’s Avatar: “This is sad. Very sad only.” Luckily there are choices we can all make with the assistance of seafood labelling and smartphone apps to create a demand for seafood that is sustainable, or at least not in immediate danger of extinction. So how did we get into this mess and is there a way out?
According to an analysis by the Pew Charitable Trust’s Global Tuna Conservation program, Pacific Bluefin tuna were fished without any restrictions for nearly a century. This unregulated practice caused young fish that had not reached maturity to be removed from the population before being able to reproduce. Even with regulations introduced, new technologies have helped us to take more fish without giving those populations the time to adapt and learn to avoid our new methods. Not given time to reproduce and adapt, it is not surprising that the population is at risk of extinction.
In 2012, the first stock assessment of Pacific Bluefin tuna was published and the reality of the situation became clear: we decimated the population to a mere 3.6 percent of its unfished population. The 2012 study did put some pressure on fisheries managers and policy makers to find solutions to the problem, but there is no quick fix for the complex conservation challenge of managing fisheries. Because the needs of human society don’t always align with ideal, scientifically backed actions needed to reverse population decline, the implementation of management policies that satisfy conservationists and businesses are few and far between. Furthermore, a “one-size-fits-all” approach cannot be expected to work with a world full of varying values, fishing methods, and consumption needs. In short, this means Pacific Bluefin tuna isn’t the only species in danger from human overconsumption and inaction and we need to acknowledge the fact that consumption and conservation are not completely separate.
All hope isn’t lost for fisheries worldwide, even with the fact that we have to face
the consequences of our past actions sooner than later. A journal article, titled “Global Fishery Prospects Under Contrasting Management Regimes”, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in February, 2016, analyzed and interpreted data from over 4,500 individual fisheries worldwide to suggest practical ways in which fisheries management could be adjusted to recover depleted fisheries and maintain better data on fish populations. This study is incredibly significant because fish is a leading source of protein worldwide, so recovering fisheries would increase profits, biomass, and food provisions for almost every country on earth. The challenge though, is using mathematical and economic principles to craft sound policy that works in the real-world where goals are different for every fishery. For example, the authors of the aforementioned study note that China, the world’s largest consumer of seafood, wants to increase its total consumption of seafood by 50% over the next six years while other fisheries simply focus on the profits of fishing fleets. Hopefully this journal publication and other calls for action do lead policymakers all over the world to do something—and fast. With proof that putting in just a little bit more effort to analyze our actions and factoring in the individualized needs of a particular fishery or region, we can save fish stocks as a natural commodity and a food source for generations to come.
In May, 29 countries plus the European Union agreed to take unprecedented steps to deter, prevent, and eliminate illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing practices. Illegal fishing removes billions of dollars of valuable resources from the world’s oceans each year and hurts us all in the long run. Efforts against these harmful actions will be implemented on June 5, though it will certainly take time before any significant progress is made. In the meantime, there are actions we as consumers and as voters can choose to put sustainable fishing initiatives into the fast lane.
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