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"The oceans and seas cover 71% (almost three quarters) of the surface of this
planet.
That's an area of 140,000,000 (one hundred and forty million) square
miles.
If you think that's an awesome amount of water remember that, below the surface, the average depth worldwide is
1600 (one thousand six hundred) feet, give or take an inch.
No, its not necessary to reach for your calculator, I can tell you that
it's a volume of 322,300,000 (three hundred and twenty two million three hundred thousand) cubic miles of water.
For hundreds of millions of years, the oceans evolved into an underwater world, inhabited to capacity by sea life, from huge mammals like the great
whales, through turtles, sharks and a myriad of different species of fish,
squid, lobster, crab and other crustaceans, to the plankton and krill at the bottom of the food
chain.
The vast area of this wonderful water world remained
virtually untouched by man until only five hundred or so years ago, a mere blink of the eye in evolutionary terms.
Like a spoiled child with a newly-discovered toy box, man has rampaged through
it indiscriminately and broken just about everything in it.
Not content with depleting fish stocks to levels where it is not uncommon to see fishing boats in the
Mediterranean, for example, return from ten days of fishing with three or four baskets of under-sized fish and an
empty Coke tin, he also brought to near-extinction the largest creatures that have ever existed on Earth, the
whales.
As this crisis, and don't let anyone tell you it isn't a
crisis, continues, one can still walk into many restaurants in the Mediterranean and order
what purports to be Whitebait and is, in fact, the fry (babies) of larger
species of fish that, if left to grow, would each provide a meal. Instead, hundreds are needed to produce a small
'starter'. Without the addition of a batter laced with garlic, these fry
are entirely devoid of any flavour and have a texture akin to tiny strips
of latex.
Just as insanely, one can order shark's-fin soup that involves the catching of sharks,
the removal of just the fins and the abandonment of the rest of the
creature's carcass.
In England, until as recently as 1980, fish were used as fertiliser
and ploughed into the soil, simply because fish were so abundant that only
the better species found a food market. All the other species
indiscriminately caught in the nets were thus available cheaply for use by
the fertiliser industry. It never occurred to us to leave them in the
ocean.
We over-fished the Cod family, including Pollock and Haddock, to the extent that a Cod War developed between England and
Iceland. The most popular fish like Swordfish, Tuna, Red Snapper, Flatfish and
the Cod are known to be in severe decline, and so fishing fleets have turned to
catching 'lesser' fish for the table, like whiting, mackerel and
squid, which are the very part of the food chain that the Tuna, Cod and Swordfish need
if their stocks are to recover. There are communities whose traditional fishing has declined to the extent that dolphin and porpoise are now being hunted.
We have developed fishing techniques that enable us to scrape up whatever is left in the
'toy box' at the rate of 82,000,000 (eighty-two million) metric tons of fish
each year. Scientists, oceanographers, wildlife experts and probably anyone with more than
half a brain, are agreed that the oceans cannot support such harvesting.
I think it strange that, in spite of man's
ever-increasing obsession with cleanliness and hygiene, we continue to use the ocean that we wish to eat from as a
dumping ground not just for excrement which is, at least, organic and
biodegradable, but for deadly toxins and chemicals. The people that handle
these substances have to use breathing apparatus and acid-proof suits. We
are well aware of the effects of these materials and yet we throw them
into the water that connects all our lands.
The ever-increasing need for food, as populations live
longer and decrease their infant mortality rates, inspires farmers to use chemicals to inhibit insects and other
'pests' and weed killing chemicals, all of which run off the land into
lakes, brooks, streams and rivers and finally into our fish basket, the ocean.
Add to this the recent discovery of mineral resources at the bottom of the almost empty
'toy box', consisting of huge deposits of Iron, Copper, Nickel, Cobalt,
Phosphorous and Manganese and it is clear that, soon, there will be extensive attempts to capitalise on these resources, to add to the extraction of oil and gas taken from the sea bed that, at the
moment, accounts for 17% (just under one fifth) of total world production.
This will also contribute to yet more under-sea contamination and destruction of
habitat. Sorting the fish on trawlers used to
reveal a few damaged and unhealthy fish that had to be discarded. Today there are areas that are
no longer fished because of the amount of mutated and diseased fish to be
found there, many with cancerous growths as a result of living in contaminated
waters.
I also find it strange that governments, world wide, who enjoy nothing more than
tinkering, meddling and interfering with individual lives, won't address the most awesome problem that has ever confronted
mankind. It is almost as though to become a politician requires a college degree in
stupidity. It seems as though the tale of Nero fiddling while Rome burned
has taught us nothing.
I was once told, by my local Parliamentarian, who
considered himself to be something of a sage, that I should consider the
world's need for protein before expostulating on the merits of a temporary
ban on fishing. This prompted me to engage in a little research and I
discovered that, in fact, the ocean provides 5.6% of the world's
protein needs. If the man in the street ran his business or life as our governments runs
our countries he would soon be bankrupt or in prison or, possibly, both.
I believe that Draconian measures are required to
confront this problem before there is no longer a problem to confront,
just wet barren wastes and nostalgic memories of how fish looked and
tasted.
I believe that we should have a worldwide ban on placing
anything in the ocean that we would not be willing to have above the
surface of the land before the seas descend into
being the biggest open sewer in the universe.
It may be more expensive to properly secure the by-products of our modern
existence and bury them ashore but I believe the governments of the world
should allocate the necessary funds to doing so.
In spite of the fact that it would put me out of work,
preventing me from doing the only thing I know how, to earn my living, I
also say we should ban all fishing, globally, for a period of five years, including the harvesting of crustacean and all other marine
life,
to enable the inhabitants of the oceans to have a chance to recover.
Others have suggested shorter periods but it is my belief that this would
result in a return to the current situation all too soon.
It would be feasible to lay up the world's fishing fleets and set up a world fund to
fully compensate the fishing industry for the resulting loss of revenue.
The money to do this is there, it's just that it is being directed towards
a multitude of projects like the search for where we came from which, it seems to me,
does not matter very much because, by the time they find out, we will all be
gone. Extinct.
After a five year fishing ban, in order to prevent a slide back to the
current level of crisis, a world fishery consortium could oversee all catches.
Governments manage to oversee the income of
their citizens in order to levy taxation, never complaining at the vast
costs involved in so doing.
The overseeing of catches could probably be arranged at a fraction of the
cost. Fishing techniques would be monitored and fine nets confiscated from those who insist on using
them.
Quotas should be established and observed and it should
be ensured that vast quantities of fish are not caught just because they are there, as
always happened when there were freak gluts in the past and still does in
those few remaining places where fishing is still a viable industry.
Most politicians will say it would be impossible to carry out
these measures, just as my father told me man would never stand on the
moon.
Although politicians would disagree, having claimed it for themselves, this is
your world that is being abused to a point from which it may not
recover.
We need to stop the politicians of the world, and a media that is
manipulated by industry and commercial interests, from massaging us into
indifference and stop them, and ourselves, from doing the three monkey
routine - seeing nothing, hearing nothing and saying nothing.
Being just a fisherman, I have no idea how to put
pressure on all the governments of the world to get together,
agree to act and do so before it is too late. If you are in a position to
do something about it, I beg you to do it, even if it puts me on the
employment scrap-heap, while there is still something that can be done." Well
said, sir, and clearly stated. How we'd like to think the world would
listen to those who know what they are talking about. Perhaps they will,
during the 'post-mortem' that, it seems, will not be long in coming if we
don't all wake up and respond to calls like this pretty soon.
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