And now on to Part 2
THE FISHING INDUSTRY KILLS MORE ANIMALS IN A DAY THAN THE DEEP WATER HORIZON OIL SPILL DID IN MONTHS
Professor Callum Roberts: "I've looked at various papers, and it seems like as many as 600,000 seabirds might have been killed by the oil spill and 5000 marine mammals. Fish are more resilient as they are not air breathers, but oil is toxic to them so there was a potential downturn in some populations. However, fishing is a massive source of mortality. The total landings of all fish from the Gulf for 2009, the last full year before the blowout, was 651,000 tonnes. That is 1783 tonnes per day. If the average weight of a fish killed in that catch was a conservative 0.5 kg (and lots of it is shrimp, which are much smaller), then that would make 1,783,000 x 2 = 3,566,000 animals caught per day. Shrimp fisheries kill about 5 times more catch by weight than they land, so the figure for animals killed but not landed is very much higher. Trawls also kill many animals on the seabed that don't make it to the boat, so you could double that higher figure again, conservatively. So we are looking at a number of animals killed by fishing every day which has got to be far far in excess of the numbers killed by oil."
SCIENTISTS PREDICT THAT 90% OF THE WORLDS CORAL REEFS WILL DIE BY 2050
FISH ARE VITAL IN KEEPING CORAL REEFS ALIVE
WHEN FISH EXCRETE INTO THE WATER THEY FEED THE REEFS
FISHING HAS BECOME A MAJOR THREAT TO CORAL REEFS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO THE CARIBBEAN, WHERE 90%
OF LARGE FISH HAVE DISAPPEARED
IN THE 1830'S A TYPICAL FISHING BOAT CAUGHT 1-2 TONS OF HALIBUT PER DAY, BUT TODAY THE ENTIRE FISHING FLEET CATCHES 1-2 TONS ACROSS THE ENTIRE YEAR
2.7 TRILLION FISH ARE CAUGHT EVERY YEAR, OR UP TO 5 MILLION CAUGHT EVERY MINUTE
FISH POPULATIONS ARE IN DECLINE TO NEAR EXTINCTION
VIRTUALLY EMPTY OCEANS BY 2048
The claim that we could see virtually empty oceans by 2048 was sourced from a projection contained in the paper: ‘Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services’ author Boris Worm (a marine conservation biologist) et al (reference below). This projected that all the world’s commercially exploited fish species would have experienced collapse by 2048 (based on the extrapolation of regression in Fig. 3A to 100% in the year 2048), i.e., that to continue to commercially exploit these populations would become impossible by 2048.
Critics of the film have said that this projection date was corrected in the 2009 paper ‘Rebuilding Global Fisheries’ (reference below), authored by Worm and others, including fisheries scientists (who analyse marine populations from a business perspective using measurements such as maximum yield from fisheries rather than markers of species conservation by marine conservationists). The 2009 paper does not correct, but rather cites the earlier paper, showing that some rates of decline had slowed since 2006 (in ‘5 out of 10 ecosystems‘) but that 63% of assessed fish ‘stocks’ worldwide ‘required rebuilding’. Furthermore, fish populations in places with little management capacity – mainly the developing world and constituting a majority of fish landed – are faring much worse than those with better resources for management.
In summary, the 2006 study has not been corrected or retracted, and has been cited over 3,000 times. Many of its critics are industry-funded, including the most quoted author Professor Ray Hilborn, who, according to his own website, receives funding from the fishing industry. (according to Greenpeace) over $3.5 million:
In 2016 Boris Worm in his paper ‘Averting a Global Fisheries Disaster’ again found the outlook very poor, summarising that population health had in fact declined since his original study, and that 88% of ‘stocks’ would be overfished and well below their target biomass by 2050.
Further, in 2018, the Secretary-General of UNCTAD (Mukhisa Kituyi) and the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean and Co-Chair, Peter Thomson reported that nearly 90% of typical fish stocks in the oceans will be gone by 2050 (link below), saying global subsidies for large commercial fishing must stop.
Lastly, in 2020, an FAO report used figures up to 2018 which show that 59.6% of fish stocks are "maximally sustainably fished" and 34.2% of stocks are "fished at biologically unsustainable levels". In summary, 93.8% of fish stocks are either biologically unsustainable or at their maximum level of exploitation.
There is a problem of moving goalposts that is unacknowledged in most of the above assessments: the target stock size at which a fishery is considered to be sustainable has been lowered over the last couple of decades by fisheries scientists. This means that without any improvement in management, more fish stocks are considered sustainable today than they were three decades ago
The outcome of this altered approach –which lacks a sound basis in ecological science – is that fishing is more risky, with a greater probability of causing population collapse, has more impacts on the environment and ocean health, and reduces resilience of ocean ecosystems to global change.
THE POWER OF ANIMALS MOVING UP AND DOWN THE WATER COLUMN IN TERMS OF MIXING IS AS GREAT AS THE WIND, WAVES, TIDES AND CURRENTS COMBINED
OCEANS ABSORB ALMOST ALL OF THE EARTHS EXCESS HEAT
FISH CARBON STABILISES OUR CLIMATE
THE OCEAN IS THE BIGGEST CARBON SINK ON THE PLANET
PER ACRE, MARINE PLANTS CAN STORE UP TO 20x MORE CARBON THAN FORESTS ON LAND
93% OF ALL CO2 IS STORED IN THE OCEAN
LOSING JUST 1% OF THE OCEANS CARBON STORES IS THE EQUIVALENT TO RELEASING THE EMISSIONS OF 97 MILLION CARS
Keep an eye out for the last part over the next few days, afterwards I will give some information and feedback from Greenpeace and other environmental groups.
Professor Callum Roberts: "I've looked at various papers, and it seems like as many as 600,000 seabirds might have been killed by the oil spill and 5000 marine mammals. Fish are more resilient as they are not air breathers, but oil is toxic to them so there was a potential downturn in some populations. However, fishing is a massive source of mortality. The total landings of all fish from the Gulf for 2009, the last full year before the blowout, was 651,000 tonnes. That is 1783 tonnes per day. If the average weight of a fish killed in that catch was a conservative 0.5 kg (and lots of it is shrimp, which are much smaller), then that would make 1,783,000 x 2 = 3,566,000 animals caught per day. Shrimp fisheries kill about 5 times more catch by weight than they land, so the figure for animals killed but not landed is very much higher. Trawls also kill many animals on the seabed that don't make it to the boat, so you could double that higher figure again, conservatively. So we are looking at a number of animals killed by fishing every day which has got to be far far in excess of the numbers killed by oil."
SCIENTISTS PREDICT THAT 90% OF THE WORLDS CORAL REEFS WILL DIE BY 2050
FISH ARE VITAL IN KEEPING CORAL REEFS ALIVE
WHEN FISH EXCRETE INTO THE WATER THEY FEED THE REEFS
FISHING HAS BECOME A MAJOR THREAT TO CORAL REEFS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO THE CARIBBEAN, WHERE 90%
OF LARGE FISH HAVE DISAPPEARED
IN THE 1830'S A TYPICAL FISHING BOAT CAUGHT 1-2 TONS OF HALIBUT PER DAY, BUT TODAY THE ENTIRE FISHING FLEET CATCHES 1-2 TONS ACROSS THE ENTIRE YEAR
2.7 TRILLION FISH ARE CAUGHT EVERY YEAR, OR UP TO 5 MILLION CAUGHT EVERY MINUTE
FISH POPULATIONS ARE IN DECLINE TO NEAR EXTINCTION
VIRTUALLY EMPTY OCEANS BY 2048
The claim that we could see virtually empty oceans by 2048 was sourced from a projection contained in the paper: ‘Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services’ author Boris Worm (a marine conservation biologist) et al (reference below). This projected that all the world’s commercially exploited fish species would have experienced collapse by 2048 (based on the extrapolation of regression in Fig. 3A to 100% in the year 2048), i.e., that to continue to commercially exploit these populations would become impossible by 2048.
Critics of the film have said that this projection date was corrected in the 2009 paper ‘Rebuilding Global Fisheries’ (reference below), authored by Worm and others, including fisheries scientists (who analyse marine populations from a business perspective using measurements such as maximum yield from fisheries rather than markers of species conservation by marine conservationists). The 2009 paper does not correct, but rather cites the earlier paper, showing that some rates of decline had slowed since 2006 (in ‘5 out of 10 ecosystems‘) but that 63% of assessed fish ‘stocks’ worldwide ‘required rebuilding’. Furthermore, fish populations in places with little management capacity – mainly the developing world and constituting a majority of fish landed – are faring much worse than those with better resources for management.
In summary, the 2006 study has not been corrected or retracted, and has been cited over 3,000 times. Many of its critics are industry-funded, including the most quoted author Professor Ray Hilborn, who, according to his own website, receives funding from the fishing industry. (according to Greenpeace) over $3.5 million:
In 2016 Boris Worm in his paper ‘Averting a Global Fisheries Disaster’ again found the outlook very poor, summarising that population health had in fact declined since his original study, and that 88% of ‘stocks’ would be overfished and well below their target biomass by 2050.
Further, in 2018, the Secretary-General of UNCTAD (Mukhisa Kituyi) and the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean and Co-Chair, Peter Thomson reported that nearly 90% of typical fish stocks in the oceans will be gone by 2050 (link below), saying global subsidies for large commercial fishing must stop.
Lastly, in 2020, an FAO report used figures up to 2018 which show that 59.6% of fish stocks are "maximally sustainably fished" and 34.2% of stocks are "fished at biologically unsustainable levels". In summary, 93.8% of fish stocks are either biologically unsustainable or at their maximum level of exploitation.
There is a problem of moving goalposts that is unacknowledged in most of the above assessments: the target stock size at which a fishery is considered to be sustainable has been lowered over the last couple of decades by fisheries scientists. This means that without any improvement in management, more fish stocks are considered sustainable today than they were three decades ago
The outcome of this altered approach –which lacks a sound basis in ecological science – is that fishing is more risky, with a greater probability of causing population collapse, has more impacts on the environment and ocean health, and reduces resilience of ocean ecosystems to global change.
THE POWER OF ANIMALS MOVING UP AND DOWN THE WATER COLUMN IN TERMS OF MIXING IS AS GREAT AS THE WIND, WAVES, TIDES AND CURRENTS COMBINED
OCEANS ABSORB ALMOST ALL OF THE EARTHS EXCESS HEAT
FISH CARBON STABILISES OUR CLIMATE
THE OCEAN IS THE BIGGEST CARBON SINK ON THE PLANET
PER ACRE, MARINE PLANTS CAN STORE UP TO 20x MORE CARBON THAN FORESTS ON LAND
93% OF ALL CO2 IS STORED IN THE OCEAN
LOSING JUST 1% OF THE OCEANS CARBON STORES IS THE EQUIVALENT TO RELEASING THE EMISSIONS OF 97 MILLION CARS
Keep an eye out for the last part over the next few days, afterwards I will give some information and feedback from Greenpeace and other environmental groups.
The blog song for today is: "Wild West Hero" by ELO
TTFN
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