Seafood in peril

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An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Solemn reports predicting an imminent shortage of some human essential _ oil, firewood, farmland, etc. _ come often enough to seem a naturally recurring phenomenon.

But even though its gloomy prediction is in some dispute, a new report saying that, at current rates of overfishing and pollution, the world will run out of seafood in 2048 bears serious consideration.

For a start, the report has a serious pedigree; a four-year study funded by the National Science Foundation and published in the journal Science of all the currently available catch data by a team of ecologists and economists.

The lead author of the report, Boris Work of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, told the AP, "At this point 29 percent of fish and seafood species have collapsed _ that is, their catch has declined by 90 percent. It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating. If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime _ by 2048."

Even if you dispute the timeline, anecdotal evidences indicates that world stocks of seafood are being severely stressed by growing demand _ Americans eat almost 17 pounds per person a year_ and by fishing fleets that strip mine the oceans and coastal pollution that destroys habitat, already leading to warnings about over consumption of some contaminated species.

Weekend anglers know, too, there seem to be a growing number of places where they are told, in essence, it's OK to fish here, just don't eat them.

Dire predictions of shortages and extinctions tend to be confounded by the planet's wonderful resilience and the fact that mankind can manage, not always well, to be sure, its resources.

Given the political will, better management, pollution controls and marine reserves for threatened species, the seafood industry will survive and thrive. The report's authors noted that in the 48 marine reserves worldwide that were protected, "diversity of species recovered dramatically, and with it the ecosystem's productivity and stability."

It won't be easy. Web sites that carried the dire forecast of a worldwide collapse in seafood also carried ads touting bargains in lobsters and fresh and saltwater fish. Clearly, the scientists' work is cut out for them.