KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Overfishing is threatening more than
two-thirds of the world's most valuable fish species, triggering fears
that hundreds of millions of people in mainly developing countries will
suffer food shortages and losses of income, scientists said Thursday.
Countries, especially in Asia and Africa, should strive harder to combat
illegal fishing and pursue trade policies and environmental treaties
that promote sustainable fishing practices, said a report by the World
Resources Institute, a Washington-based research group.
"It is quite evident there is a fisheries crisis," the report's
co-author, Carmen Revenga, told a news conference at its launch in Kuala
Lumpur. "But the general public doesn't realize this is happening,
because there still seems to be lots of fish in the supermarkets."
About 75 per cent of the world's most commercially important fish stocks
are overfished or fished at their biological limits, raising concerns of
looming shortages in developing nations, which produce more than
two-thirds of all fish eaten by humans globally, Revenga said.
Demand for seafood products - mainly in the consumer markets of the
United States, the European Union and Japan - has doubled worldwide in
the last 30 years and will likely rise 1.5 per cent annually through
2020 as populations and food consumption skyrocket, the report said.
Overfishing to meet demand in the international fish trade - which is
worth $55 billion US each year - could deplete fisheries, eventually
jeopardizing ecosystems and sparking social and economic problems, said
institute researcher Yumiko Kura.
About one billion people, mostly in poorer regions, eat fish as their
main protein source, while 35 million workers are employed in fishing
and breeding fish in farms, the report said.
Nevertheless, countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Norway
and Chile have mounted strong efforts to curb overfishing, especially by
tightly enforcing fishing regulations and imposing the use of less
destructive fishing equipment, Revenga said.u
[Homestead] Massive overpopulation and massive overfishing,
Tvoivozhd, 10/01/2004