Study urges broad ban on fishing to restock oceans

[CShine]

Protecting the world's oceans will cost governments far less than the amount they spend on subsidies for fishing fleets and will lead to bigger catches in the long run, says a study by the conservation group WWF International and Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. They estimate that a network of marine protected areas covering 30 per cent of the oceans would cost as much as $20 billion annually - about as much as humans spend on ocean cruises.

It says this falls far short of the more than $40 billion already spent each year on subsidies to commercial fisheries. The study was published on Monday in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers say that the world's oceans are in trouble: global fish catches are in decline, populations of whales, dolphins, sea otters and other marine mammals have collapsed and habitats - reefs, estuaries and other submarine landscapes vital for breeding - have been damaged or destroyed. Coastal states pledged at a world summit in 2002 to create national networks of marine parks, and a congress in Durban last year recommended that at least 20 per cent to 30 per cent of every marine habitat should be protected from fishing. This would mean closing parts of traditional fishing grounds.

"If you put areas off limits to fishing, there is no more effective way of allowing things to live longer, grow larger and produce more offspring," said Callum Roberts, one of the study's authors.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/15/1087244919921.html

[maxsolomon]

1. out of sight, out of mind

this planet is so screwed.

do you think a subsistence fisherman in indonesia is going to stop bringing in as much as he can? he won't, just like the japanese won't give up sushi, or like americans won't stop burning oil until the last drop is gone.

misanthropy is merely realism.

[Massacure]

2. This is what we have governments for

To force people.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. A subsistence fisherman will only bring in as much

as he and his family can eat. A commercial fisherman will fish for more if he can.

[Boomer]

4. Size matters

>> do you think a subsistence fisherman in indonesia is going to stop bringing in as much as he can? <<

I'm not worried about the subsistence fishermen of the world. It's the commercial enterprises that trawl the ocean with mile-wide nets that are causing the worst damage.

[Barrett808]

5. Take *that*, Lomborg n/t

[cally]

6. The world should ban commercial fishing soon

so that the biodiversity of the oceans will be preserved. I'm well aware that many will break the law, but selling fish illegally will increase the cost and decrease demand.

[Lefty48197]

7. They'll have to pry my cod from my cold dead hands...

and don't even START talking about roughy.

[Bamboo]

8. When You Pry Freon From My Hot Sweaty Hands

It is hypocritical to lecture others about extinction due to hunting of African bushmeat when seafood is ocean bushmeat.I remember when R-12 was 99 cents a can and was used in the Ronco glass froster.A tax on bushmeat like a tax on freon will lower consumption and get people to switch to an alternative.I remember when orange juice was served in tiny glasses and I did not feel deprived.Maybe large corporations want us to buy huge amounts so their profits are high.