Slashdot Mirror
A Global Fish War is Coming, Warns US Coast Guard (usni.org)
schwit1 shares an article from the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine. It includes this warning from the Coast Guard's chief of fisheries law enforcement:
Nearly two decades into the 21st Century, it has become clear the world has limited resources and the last area of expansion is the oceans. Battles over politics and ideologies may be supplanted by fights over resources as nations struggle for economic and food security. These new conflicts already have begun -- over fish... In 1996, Canada and Spain almost went to war over the Greenland turbot. Canada seized Spanish vessels it felt were fishing illegally, but Spain did not have the same interpretation of the law and sent gunboats to escort its ships. In 1999, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter intercepted a Russian trawler fishing in the U.S. exclusive economic zone. The lone cutter was promptly surrounded by 19 Russian trawlers. Fortunately, the Russian Border Guard and the Coast Guard drew on an existing relationship and were able to defuse the situation...
Japan protested 230 fishing vessels escorted by seven China Coast Guard ships entering the waters of the disputed Senkaku Islands. Incidents in the South China Sea between the Indonesian Navy and Chinese fishing vessels and China Coast Guard have escalated to arrests, ramming, and warning shots leading experts to suggest only navies and use of force can stop the IUU fishing... The United States needs to show it is serious about protecting sustainable fisheries and international rule of law. It needs a fleet that not only will provide a multilateral cooperation platform, but also take action against vessels and fleets that are unwilling to cooperate... If cooperation cannot be achieved, the United States should prepare for a global fish war.
When I read "fish war," I was imagining it more like this.
Japan protested 230 fishing vessels escorted by seven China Coast Guard ships entering the waters of the disputed Senkaku Islands. Incidents in the South China Sea between the Indonesian Navy and Chinese fishing vessels and China Coast Guard have escalated to arrests, ramming, and warning shots leading experts to suggest only navies and use of force can stop the IUU fishing... The United States needs to show it is serious about protecting sustainable fisheries and international rule of law. It needs a fleet that not only will provide a multilateral cooperation platform, but also take action against vessels and fleets that are unwilling to cooperate... If cooperation cannot be achieved, the United States should prepare for a global fish war.
When I read "fish war," I was imagining it more like this.
This is a literal example of the case example known in economics as "tragedy of the commons."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Why do people pull something out of the past and just say, "See it happened before so we have nothing to worry about."
Things are different now. The World's fisheries are teetering on the brink of collapse. As one species gets fished out, another one is fished. There are fish in my super market's case that I've never seen before.
And the prices of what is still being fished is obscene. $30/lb for wild caught CoHo Salmon.
And farmed fish - they feed farmed salmon with wild caught fish. There is no such thing as sustainable fish farming in reality - just in the industry's PR.
And with government subsidies around the industrialized World for fisherman to haul more in, it's just accelerating the problem.
Also, show us where in the past there was over 7.2 BILLION people on Earth? And you're gonna point and say this happened before?
It's not Doom and Gloom yet, but we're getting there real fast. And people get hungry and thirsty, they go where the food is and fight for it.
The idea that you can beat the differential equations describing large population dynamics with trying to convince individuals is preposterous to begin with.
No, but conservation efforts do work. Deer and Turkey in the USA are a perfect example. At one point they were practically extinct but regulating seasons has helped them come back in record numbers. On the extreme side, outlawing fish consumption in the USA would certainly reduce the global fish demand. Much more moderate options like outlawing wild caught fish, certain species, certain species from certain countries, etc... would also likely work to some extent.
But I agree that trusting consumers to always do the right thing is likely not going to work. Although everyone thinks they want to save the environment, it's much harder for an individual to pay $10/pound for sustainable fish each week when they can get unsustainable fish for $5/pound.
No, it isn't. It is sensationalist headline bullshit.
The article -- which is very good -- is referring to enforcing international agreements about fishing in U.S. exclusive economic zones (EEZ). According to the various international agreements on the seas, fishing, etc. -- it is up to the boundary nation to take care of these things.
It points out the China not only frequently fishes near U.S. borders (among other locations), they haven't ratified key U.N. agreements on international fishing. They are also aggressively using their military to protect illegal fishing in other nation's territorial waters (Indonesia & the Philippines comes to mind). Let's not forget manufacturing artificial islands so they can use them as a basis for territorial claims. (South China Sea)
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Solution: Don't eat fish.
There are plenty of fish species that are harvested responsibly. Learn which they are. As a general rule, eating small fish is better than eating big fish.
Good choices:
Catfish
Tilapia
Wild Pacific salmon
Pacific cod
Trout
Bad choices:
Atlantic cod
Bluefin Tuna
Rockfish
Atlantic halibut
Swordfish
Shark
Many of the big bad fish also have a lot of mercury, and should be avoided even if you don't care about overfishing.
Seafood Watch Consumer Guide
Seriously, what is going on, is that Chinese boats come across the pacific filling up, and then sells in America. This is what allows them to then sell fish DIRT CHEAP at home. The worst part is, that not only do they do their legal limits on the way over, but then fill up again, with fish from American waters that they do not have a license for.
The only way to stop this is to prohibit their selling in America, or importing from Canada/Mexico if China sells there. Then no more licenses for CHinese boats to be in American economic zone.
As it is, they are fishing our waters and destroying these faster than their own.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The free market may create a self-rectifying problem. The more expensive it becomes to fish (because there are less fish) the quicker people will develop sustainable fish repositories to raise fish.
This does work to a certain extent. When commercial fishing becomes unprofitable or more expensive than farmed fishing then it will stop. The problem with this approach is that it requires a depletion of fish to a level where they may go extinct. It's not enough to stop when there are no more fish. You need to stop *BEFORE* there are no more fish unless you really think that having an ocean devoid of fish is a good thing. Passenger pigeons were once so plentiful that they darkened the sky. Humans didn't kill every last one of them but they killed enough that the numbers couldn't recover. Another example would be corn. A single stalk of corn can't survive on its own. It needs enough other corn stalks around so that it overpowers its predators. Every species has a minimal viable number that is required for the species to survive. If you cross below that level, even if you stop killing them, they will still die out.