Fishing Industry Annihilating
Sharks, Big Ocean Fish
By George Monbiot
The Guardian - UK
4-13-7

Marine predators are on the verge of extinction, yet the fishing
industry is ripping the environment to shreds - and with impunity

If these animals lived on land there would be a global outcry.
But the great beasts roaming the savannahs of the open seas
summon no such support. Big sharks, giant tuna, marlin and
swordfish should have the conservation status of the giant
panda or the snow leopard. Yet still we believe it is acceptable
for fishmongers to sell them and celebrity chefs to teach us
how to cook them.

A study in this week's edition of the journal Science reveals the
disastrous collapse of the ocean's megafauna. The great sharks
are now wobbling on the edge of extinction. Since 1972 the
number of blacktip sharks has fallen by 93 percent, tiger sharks
by 97 percent and bull sharks, dusky sharks and smooth
hammerheads by 99 percent. Just about every population of
major predators is now in freefall.

Another paper, published in Nature four years ago, shows
that more than 90 percent of large predatory fish throughout
the global oceans have gone.

You respond with horror when you hear of Chinese feasts
of bear paws and tiger meat. But this is no different, as far
as conservation is concerned, from eating shark's fin soup
or swordfish or steaks from rare species of tuna. One
practice is considered barbaric in Europe and North America.
The other is promoted in restaurant reviews and recipes in the
color supplements of respectable newspapers.

In terms of its impact on ecology and animal welfare, shark
fishing could be the planet's most brutal industry. While some
sharks are taken whole, around 70 million are caught every year
for their fins. In many cases, the fins are cut off and the shark
is dumped, alive, back into the sea. It can take several weeks
to die. The longlines and gillnets used to catch them snare whales,
dolphins, turtles and albatrosses.

The new paper shows that shark catching also causes a cascade
of disasters through the foodchain. Since the large sharks were
removed from coastal waters in the western Atlantic, the rays
they preyed on have multiplied tenfold and have wiped out all
the main commercial species of shellfish.

Much of this trade originates in east Asia, where shark's fin
soup -- which sells for up to US$200 a bowl -- is a sign of
great wealth and rank, like caviar in Europe. The global
demand for shark's fin is rising by about 5 percent a year.

THE SPANISH CONNECTION

But if you believe that this is yet another problem for which the
Chinese can be blamed and the Europeans absolved, consider
this: The world's major importer -- and presumably re-exporter
-- of sharks is Spain. Its catches have increased ninefold since
the 1990s and it has resisted -- in most cases successfully --
every European and global effort to conserve its prey.

The Spanish defend their right to kill rare sharks as fiercely as
the Japanese defend their right to kill rare whales. The fishing
industry, traditionally dominated by Galician fascists, exerts an
extraordinary degree of leverage over the socialist government.

The Spanish government, in turn, usually gets its way in Europe.
The EU, for example, claims to have banned the finning of sharks.
But the ratio it sets for the weight of fins to the weight of bodies
landed by fishermen is 5 percent. As edible fins make up only 2
percent of the shark's bodyweight, this means that two-and-a-half
finless sharks can be returned to the water for every one that
comes ashore.

Even this is not enough for the Spanish, whose members of the
European Parliament have been demanding that the percentage
is raised.

Northern European civilization doesn't come out of this very
well, either. In 2001, the British government promised to protect
a critically endangered species called the angel shark, whose
population in British waters was collapsing. It ducked and
dithered until there was no longer a problem: the shark is now
extinct in the North Sea.

Why do we find it so hard to stand up to fishermen? This tiny
industrial lobby seems to have governments in the palm of its
hand. Every year, the EU sets catch limits for all species way
above the levels its scientists recommend. Governments know
that they are allowing the fishing industry to destroy itself and
to destroy the ecosystem on which it depends. But nothing is
sacred, as long as it is underwater.

In November, the UN failed even to produce a resolution urging
a halt to trawling on the sea mounts at the bottom of the ocean.
These ecosystems, which are only just beginning to be explored,
harbor great forests of deepwater corals and sponges in which
thousands of unearthly species hide. But we can't summon the
will to stop the handful of boats that are ripping them to shreds.

FISHING LOBBY

The power of the fishermen's lobby explains the lack of
protection for marine predators. Though fish species far
outnumber mammal species, the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species protects 654 kinds of mammal
and just 77 kinds of fish. Trade in only nine of these is subject
to a complete ban.

The rules that do get passed are ignored by fishermen and
governments. Last Sunday, I stood with a fisheries manager
on the banks of a famous sea trout river in Wales. Perhaps I
should say a famous former sea trout river in Wales. For the
past four years, scarcely any fish -- sea trout or salmon -- have
appeared. He was not sure why, but he told me that trawlers in
the Irish Sea land boxes of what appear to be bass; hidden
under the top layer are salmon and sea trout.

No one seems to care enough to stop them: Government
monitoring appears to be non-existent. The pressure group
Oceana walks into European ports whenever there's a public
holiday and finds hundreds of kilometers of illegal drift nets
stowed on the boats. Where are the official inspectors?

Of course, governments plead poverty. Which makes you
wonder why they decided last year to allocate 3.8 billion euros
(US$5.1 billion) to the destruction of the marine environment.
This is what you and I are now paying in subsidies to keep the
ocean wreckers afloat. The money buys new engines and boats
for young fishermen hoping to expand their business. For the
same cost you could put a permanent inspector on every large
fishing vessel in European waters.

If we don't act, we know what will happen. Another paper
published in Science suggests that on current trends we'll see the
global collapse of all the species currently caught by commercial
fishermen by 2048. Yet, if we catch the ecosystems in time --
with temporary fishing bans and the creation of large marine
reserves -- they can recover with remarkable speed. I hope British
ministers, now drafting a new marine bill, have read this study.

But beyond a certain point the collapse is likely to be permanent.
Off the coast of Namibia, where the fishery has crashed as a result
of over-harvesting, we have a glimpse of the future. A paper in
Current Biology reports that the ecosystem is approaching a
"trophic dead- end." As the fish have been mopped up they have
been replaced by jellyfish, which now outweigh them by three to
one. The jellyfish eat the eggs and larvae of the fish, so the switch
is probably irreversible. We have entered, the paper tells us, the
"era of jellyfish ascendancy."

It's a good symbol. The jellyfish represents the collapse of the
ecosystem and the spinelessness of the people charged with
protecting it.

Copyright © 1999-2007 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/04/08/2003355782

Fishing Industry Annihilating
Sharks, Big Ocean Fish
By George Monbiot
The Guardian - UK
4-13-7

Marine predators are on the verge of extinction, yet the fishing
industry is ripping the environment to shreds - and with impunity

If these animals lived on land there would be a global outcry.
But the great beasts roaming the savannahs of the open seas
summon no such support. Big sharks, giant tuna, marlin and
swordfish should have the conservation status of the giant
panda or the snow leopard. Yet still we believe it is acceptable
for fishmongers to sell them and celebrity chefs to teach us
how to cook them.

A study in this week's edition of the journal Science reveals the
disastrous collapse of the ocean's megafauna. The great sharks
are now wobbling on the edge of extinction. Since 1972 the
number of blacktip sharks has fallen by 93 percent, tiger sharks
by 97 percent and bull sharks, dusky sharks and smooth
hammerheads by 99 percent. Just about every population of
major predators is now in freefall.

Another paper, published in Nature four years ago, shows
that more than 90 percent of large predatory fish throughout
the global oceans have gone.

You respond with horror when you hear of Chinese feasts
of bear paws and tiger meat. But this is no different, as far
as conservation is concerned, from eating shark's fin soup
or swordfish or steaks from rare species of tuna. One
practice is considered barbaric in Europe and North America.
The other is promoted in restaurant reviews and recipes in the
color supplements of respectable newspapers.

In terms of its impact on ecology and animal welfare, shark
fishing could be the planet's most brutal industry. While some
sharks are taken whole, around 70 million are caught every year
for their fins. In many cases, the fins are cut off and the shark
is dumped, alive, back into the sea. It can take several weeks
to die. The longlines and gillnets used to catch them snare whales,
dolphins, turtles and albatrosses.

The new paper shows that shark catching also causes a cascade
of disasters through the foodchain. Since the large sharks were
removed from coastal waters in the western Atlantic, the rays
they preyed on have multiplied tenfold and have wiped out all
the main commercial species of shellfish.

Much of this trade originates in east Asia, where shark's fin
soup -- which sells for up to US$200 a bowl -- is a sign of
great wealth and rank, like caviar in Europe. The global
demand for shark's fin is rising by about 5 percent a year.

THE SPANISH CONNECTION

But if you believe that this is yet another problem for which the
Chinese can be blamed and the Europeans absolved, consider
this: The world's major importer -- and presumably re-exporter
-- of sharks is Spain. Its catches have increased ninefold since
the 1990s and it has resisted -- in most cases successfully --
every European and global effort to conserve its prey.

The Spanish defend their right to kill rare sharks as fiercely as
the Japanese defend their right to kill rare whales. The fishing
industry, traditionally dominated by Galician fascists, exerts an
extraordinary degree of leverage over the socialist government.

The Spanish government, in turn, usually gets its way in Europe.
The EU, for example, claims to have banned the finning of sharks.
But the ratio it sets for the weight of fins to the weight of bodies
landed by fishermen is 5 percent. As edible fins make up only 2
percent of the shark's bodyweight, this means that two-and-a-half
finless sharks can be returned to the water for every one that
comes ashore.

Even this is not enough for the Spanish, whose members of the
European Parliament have been demanding that the percentage
is raised.

Northern European civilization doesn't come out of this very
well, either. In 2001, the British government promised to protect
a critically endangered species called the angel shark, whose
population in British waters was collapsing. It ducked and
dithered until there was no longer a problem: the shark is now
extinct in the North Sea.

Why do we find it so hard to stand up to fishermen? This tiny
industrial lobby seems to have governments in the palm of its
hand. Every year, the EU sets catch limits for all species way
above the levels its scientists recommend. Governments know
that they are allowing the fishing industry to destroy itself and
to destroy the ecosystem on which it depends. But nothing is
sacred, as long as it is underwater.

In November, the UN failed even to produce a resolution urging
a halt to trawling on the sea mounts at the bottom of the ocean.
These ecosystems, which are only just beginning to be explored,
harbor great forests of deepwater corals and sponges in which
thousands of unearthly species hide. But we can't summon the
will to stop the handful of boats that are ripping them to shreds.

FISHING LOBBY

The power of the fishermen's lobby explains the lack of
protection for marine predators. Though fish species far
outnumber mammal species, the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species protects 654 kinds of mammal
and just 77 kinds of fish. Trade in only nine of these is subject
to a complete ban.

The rules that do get passed are ignored by fishermen and
governments. Last Sunday, I stood with a fisheries manager
on the banks of a famous sea trout river in Wales. Perhaps I
should say a famous former sea trout river in Wales. For the
past four years, scarcely any fish -- sea trout or salmon -- have
appeared. He was not sure why, but he told me that trawlers in
the Irish Sea land boxes of what appear to be bass; hidden
under the top layer are salmon and sea trout.

No one seems to care enough to stop them: Government
monitoring appears to be non-existent. The pressure group
Oceana walks into European ports whenever there's a public
holiday and finds hundreds of kilometers of illegal drift nets
stowed on the boats. Where are the official inspectors?

Of course, governments plead poverty. Which makes you
wonder why they decided last year to allocate 3.8 billion euros
(US$5.1 billion) to the destruction of the marine environment.
This is what you and I are now paying in subsidies to keep the
ocean wreckers afloat. The money buys new engines and boats
for young fishermen hoping to expand their business. For the
same cost you could put a permanent inspector on every large
fishing vessel in European waters.

If we don't act, we know what will happen. Another paper
published in Science suggests that on current trends we'll see the
global collapse of all the species currently caught by commercial
fishermen by 2048. Yet, if we catch the ecosystems in time --
with temporary fishing bans and the creation of large marine
reserves -- they can recover with remarkable speed. I hope British
ministers, now drafting a new marine bill, have read this study.

But beyond a certain point the collapse is likely to be permanent.
Off the coast of Namibia, where the fishery has crashed as a result
of over-harvesting, we have a glimpse of the future. A paper in
Current Biology reports that the ecosystem is approaching a
"trophic dead- end." As the fish have been mopped up they have
been replaced by jellyfish, which now outweigh them by three to
one. The jellyfish eat the eggs and larvae of the fish, so the switch
is probably irreversible. We have entered, the paper tells us, the
"era of jellyfish ascendancy."

It's a good symbol. The jellyfish represents the collapse of the
ecosystem and the spinelessness of the people charged with
protecting it.

Copyright © 1999-2007 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/04/08/2003355782