PLENTY MORE FISH IN THE SEA?
Tragically, the old adage used by countless mothers on broken-hearted daughters is no longer true. Fish stocks globally are in rapid decline, and whilst we know about it and governments recognise it, we seem singularly unable to do anything about what is nothing less than patent lunacy.
So when is an endangered species not an endangered species? The answer seems to be: when it’s a fish. The Japanese, for example, have a voracious appetite for Bluefin Tuna, and the fact that it is predicted to be functionally extinct within three years seems only to increase their efforts to catch yet more. A single large fish sold for £250,000 (that’s right - a quarter of a million sterling) in a central Tokyo market in early January. The country that finds it necessary to slaughter 1,000 whales each year for ‘scientific purposes’ is pursuing the magnificent Bluefin to extinction. It is estimated that there are less than 10,000 Bluefin Tuna left in the Atlantic, and the effects of the BP oil spill right in their spawning ground in the Gulf has yet to be assessed.
There were concerted moves to restrict fishing for Bluefin at last year’s UN Conference on wildlife trade. The Japanese responded by mounting a massive campaign and sending missions to developing countries - effectively ‘bullying’ them into supporting their ludicrous position that “a fish cannot be classified as an endangered species”. Vote against, and Japanese aid and trade will dry up faster than sushi in the sunshine. All moves to protect what remains of the Bluefin Tuna were successfully rebuffed and the galactically stupid position was adopted. This means that according to the UN, a fish cannot be classified as endangered. I’m sitting here typing the words, still unable to comprehend the utter and abject madness they represent.
Japan’s ‘success’ spells trouble for all fish of course. Sharks are another species in fast decline due to the Chinese appetite for soup made from its fins, and they too can no longer be classified as endangered. Over 70 million slow-breeding sharks are taken each year, and moves to ban shark fishing in certain areas were thoroughly quashed. Indeed, the Japanese campaign resulted in a vote against even monitoring the trade. And so the decline in the global population of sharks doesn’t just continue, but accelerates unseen.
We’re in very real danger of consigning entire species of fish to the history books. We’re catching sharks at approximately four times the rate at which they breed, and fishermen are now hauling in infant fish with fins only an inch or so across – fish that were thrown back alive only a few years ago.
Whilst it’s easy to point the finger at Japan and China, it has to be said that their brand of lunacy is eclipsed only by ours. We British – always amongst the first to start bleating about wildlife and the environment – regularly commit an even greater crime. We go out to sea in modern, industrial fishing vessels armed with the very latest fish-finding and catching gear technology has to offer, and through calm and storm, high seas and doldrum, we catch fish by the tonne. Having done that, we then throw a large proportion back into the sea. Half of all fish caught in the North Sea is thrown back dead or dying. That’s around a million tonnes a year.
We do it because of the Common Fisheries Policy – European Law. In other words, we, as a sovereign nation, force our fishermen to commit crimes against the environment because of an over-ruling law. It’s the Nuremberg Defence – something that was rejected outright by the Tribunal Judges in 1946, and something we should reject once more as an act of environmental protection and plain common sense, in advance of the re-drafting of this diabolical policy. For my money, we have a clear moral duty to do so, just as the UN General Assembly stated when it demanded individual responsibility despite the laws of a given nation.
In purely practical terms, we as individuals can take a simple step and show our support for a change to this policy. Please go to
www.fishfight.net and add your name to an open letter to be sent to the Common Fisheries Policy Reform Group and all MEPs. Over 600,000 people have already done so, and so you’ll be in good company. It takes but a minute or two, although I hope you’ll stay and read some of the useful information on the site.
Remember that nobody – but nobody - can afford to ignore a million or more people from one nation.
steve@stephenmgrant.com
|32| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
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