The World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calculate the losses at $50bn per year. Half the world's fishing fleet could be scrapped with no change in catch. The report was launched at World Bank headquarters in New York and has been debated here at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
Entitled The Sunken Billions: Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform, it argues that reforming the way fisheries are managed could restore stocks and build profits. "There are two reasons why we are experiencing the huge loss," said Rolf Willman, a senior fisheries planning officer at FAO and one of the report's authors.
"One is that global fish stocks are much lower than they could be, so it is harder to catch the amount of fish that we could. "If stocks were higher we could catch the same amount at lower cost.
"The second reason is that where fishing is poorly regulated, we have much greater harvesting capacity than we need," he told BBC News. In fact, he said, the world's fleets could catch the same amount of fish with half the capacity, which would increase profits as well as putting less pressure on fragile stocks. The UN agency puts the current value of the global fisheries industry at about $80bn per year.
(continues at link)
-
- recommended by:
- Vierotchka
- added October 09, 2008
- flag
-
Fisheries have also wasted billions of fish and destroyed much of their habitat. No pity for fisheries from me - I have long boycotted their products, and the only fish I eat is the fish from Lake Geneva (perch and a few other species whose English names I don't know) which is fished by individual professional fishermen - they are not all that many and they fully respect the environment and do not deplete the lake nor ruin it. :)
-
-
-
-
- Vierotchka
- 9 months ago
-
-
Vierotchka you must visit Scotland sometime and try a freshly caught salmon caught simply with a rod and line
I was there a couple of weeks ago for three days and caught six around the eight pound mark which was my quota. Four reside in my freezer for special occaisions.However do not travel up to the west coast around september when they fish for herring as you will see lorry loads going for animal feed and tons being delivered to Russian processing ships
-
-
-
-
- themanwithadog
- 9 months ago
-
-
That sounds great, except for the fact that since salmon spend most of their lives in the sea, they have a high level of mercury and dioxin in their flesh. I enjoy fly-fishing for trout, and have also caught trout by hand - that's the most challenging method of fishing of all. :)
-
-
-
-
- Vierotchka
- 9 months ago
-
