Fish market. Photo by 3dman_eu Pixabay.
Closing the high seas to all fishing and curtailing industrial fleets’ operations by eliminating the subsidies they receive, would increase the amount of fish available to small-scale fishers, boost the quality of the fish and make it more valuable, finds a new paper by the Sea Around Us Principal Investigator Daniel Pauly.
Shareholders in the world’s major publically-listed fishing companies are exposed to risk from overfished fish stocks, with many of these stocks underperforming or at risk of collapse, a new study reveals.
The report, produced by the Fish Tracker Initiative in collaboration with the Sea Around Us, states that 32 per cent of the 97 stocks targeted by fishing giants such as South Korea’s Dongwon Industries and Silla Co., Norway’s Austevoll Seafood, and Canada’s Clearwater Seafoods are overfished.
“This is an important finding because it matches the global average. Globally, at least 31 per cent of fish stocks are overfished and we would have thought that large publicly listed fishing companies like the largest 19 identified here, whose combined annual revenues exceed $4 billion, as well as institutional investors would not be exposed to this, but they are,” says Tim Cashion, a scientist with the Sea Around Us who led the fisheries research in the report.
Leading insurers from around the world have committed to take action on pirate fishing, an unlawful practice that costs the global economy tens of billions of dollars in losses every year and contributes to overfishing and the destruction of vital marine habitats and ecosystems.
According to a press release by Oceana, two dozen companies including Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, AXA, Generali, Hanseatic Underwriters and The Shipowners’ Club have co-sponsored the world’s first insurance industry statement on sustainable marine insurance.
Nature published, both in its print and online editions, a brief feature on the Sea Around Us’ paper “Global marine fisheries discards: a synthesis of reconstructed data,” which appeared in Fish & Fisheries last June.
According to the research, conducted by Dirk Zeller, Tim Cashion, Deng Palomares and Daniel Pauly, industrial fishing fleets have been dumping nearly 10 million tonnes of good fish back into the ocean every year for the past 10 years.
Alaska Pollock. Photo by NOAA FishWatch, Wikimedia Commons.
Industrial fishing fleets dump nearly 10 million tonnes of good fish back into the ocean every year, according to new research.
The study by researchers with the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean at the University of Western Australia, and the Sea Around Us, an initiative at the University of British Columbia, reveals that almost 10 per cent of the world’s total catch in the last decade was discarded due to poor fishing practices and inadequate management. This is equivalent to throwing back enough fish to fill about 4,500 Olympic sized swimming pools every year.