THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407240039
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
The world's oceans have been fished nearly to their limits after decades of fishermen using bigger boats and more advanced technologies, according to a report released Saturday.
``Although worldwide environmental degradation of the oceans contributes to the decline of marine life, overfishing is the primary cause of dwindling fish populations,'' said the report by the nonprofit Worldwatch Institute. ``The oceans are not the unlimited reservoir of low-cost food they were once considered.''
A 5 percent decline in the worldwide catch since 1989 is due largely to more people fishing in large-scale, industrial operations, often in waters that are becoming more polluted, the report said.
Meanwhile, world population is growing at 1.6 percent annually, equivalent to the population of Mexico being added to the world each year, the report said.
``This is a global problem that has already caused armed confrontations between fishing nations, gunfire between fishers and hunger in the developing world,'' said Peter Weber, author of the report, ``Net Loss: Fish, Jobs and the Marine Environment.''
``If current mismanagement continues, we can expect a future in which millions of fishers are out of work. . . . A future in which traditional fishing cultures from Nova Scotia to Malaysia disappear,'' he said.
After decades of rapid growth, all the planet's major fishing grounds are at or beyond their limits, and many have already suffered serious declines, the report said.
All fishing grounds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as the Mediterranean and Black seas, are declining after peaking between 1973 and 1991, the institute said.
Only the Indian Ocean fisheries are still increasing total output, although they are unlikely to expand much more and could be poised for serious declines, the institute said.
The total catch has shrunk by more than 30 percent in four of the hardest-hit areas - the Pacific's east-central region and the Atlantic's northwest, west-central and southeast sectors.
The supply of fishery products grew at three times the rate of human population growth during the 1950s and '60s. But the once abundant North Atlantic cod now may be commercially extinct; western Atlantic bluefin tuna are down to only 10 percent of their former abundance; several North Pacific salmon species are on the brink of extinction; and oysters in the Chesapeake Bay are at only 4 percent of former levels, the report said.
Declining catches have already cost more than 100,000 jobs in the last few years among the world's 15 million to 21 million fishermen, the report said.
``It is not just the number of fishers that counts, but also the size of their nets, the number of their hooks, the girth of their boats - in short, their capacity to fish,'' Weber said.
From 1970 to 1990, the world's fishing fleet doubled, from 585,000 to 1.2 million large boats, the report said.
``Government policies have for the most part promoted over-expansion of the fishing industry'' and primarily benefited industrial fishing, the institute said.
If countries are to end overfishing, the report said, they must choose whether to favor large-scale, industrial fishers; medium-scale fishers; or small-scale, community-based fishers. Each sector has roughly the same capacity to bring in fish, but the employment and other social implications are very different.
KEYWORDS: FISHING INDUSTRY OCEANS by CNB