The modern thinking Indian

Scientists know that fishing stocks the world over are at risk, both from changes due to global warming, and due to over-fishing (and there have been many reports and articles predicting dire forecasts for the health of the fishing stock in the world's oceans). However, in a more detailed and back-looking approach, researchers are studying historical records to see what fish stocks were like just hundreds of years ago, and try to use that data to correlate into estimates of what the future will hold. They are getting hold of historical tax records and logs maintained by sailors, and studying them to determine the long-term impact.
The research was carried out by Members of the History of Marine Animals Project (HMAP), and they came out with results detailing the change in fish species over the past few hundred years that shocked them, and about which they believe that the level of public awareness is low (link to article):

The scale of humanity's impact has shocked them. "I was surprised by the magnitude of the depletion of species and its universality around the globe," Dr. Andrew Rosenberg, an HMAP project leader told CNN. "The extent of it was really quite dramatic. We've fundamentally changed ecosystems without realizing that was possible." HMAP research has revealed a picture of a remarkable wealth of life in the seas as recently as 200 years ago, which has now largely been lost.
Before whaling began in the waters to the south of New Zealand around 1800, the population of whales was roughly 30 times higher than today. In the 17th century the waters around southwest England were home to blue whales, as well as large numbers of porpoise, dolphins, and blue and thresher sharks. Around the world the inshore regions of our seas are estimated to have on average held 10 times the amount of life two or three hundred years ago than they do today.

The oceans are a fundamental factor in the continuance of the human species, whether that be due to the effect they have on global climate, or due to the fact that many geographical concentrations of humanity are dependent on sea life as a major source of nutrition. For the fisheries around the world to have lost so much correlates with earlier research from a couple of years back that stipulated the dangerous position that many of the world's fishing stocks are in. We already see this in the restrictions on the amount of fishing allowed in many regions around the Atlantic in order to conserve the fish population.
At the same time, the research also found that there is hope. If scientifically imposed restrictions on fishing are imposed, fish stocks have bounced back, with the example of the regeneration of the North Sea (Atlantic) herring stocks. If Governments have the courage to thwart the short term interests of the commercial fishing industry, then fish stocks (and the larger species such as whales and other larger fish) can come back.

Labels: Conservation, Ecology, Fish, Ocean, Regeneration, Research, Study

Climate change, and the efforts needed to counter it, are among some of the hottest topics in the last 1-2 decades; it is also easy to see that the effort to discuss the needs for combating climate change is more than actual work being done to reduce emissions (climate change needs quick action and some aggressive goals of reducing emissions, and they are nowhere near happening). Nations get into political arguments when discussions start; the main major polluter (the United States) refuses to take action because of the feared effect on its economy, Europe looks to somebody for taking the lead on this, and the fast developing nations such as China, India, Brazil, etc who are still current low contributors but will have a much higher impact on emissions going forward want to get funding from the rich before taking action.
And in the middle of all this, the world keeps getting hotter, and the changes that are being made due to the global warming phenomenon keeps on working to its own cycle. Global warming is supposed to affect poor nations much more than it will affect the richer nations (and it will affect nations that are more sea based much more than nations that are bigger land masses) since some of the changes being caused due to global warming are higher sea levels and changes in weather patterns that affect crop cycles. Another way in which global warming directly affects the world food economy is due to the impact on fishing, and a study points out that the rich fishing waters near Southeast Asia will get severely impacted (link to article):

Experts have warned that the richly diverse coral reefs of the Coral Triangle around southeast Asia will disappear by the end of the century if action is not taken against climate change. As well as the loss of one of the world's most diverse underwater ecosystems, the knock on effect would be the collapse of coastal economies that supports around 100 million people, according to the WWF- commissioned study outlined at the World Ocean Conference this week.
The Coral Triangle includes 30 percent of the world's reefs, 76 percent of global reef building coral species and more than 35 percent of coral reef fish. "In this world, people see the biological treasures of the Coral Triangle destroyed over the course of the century by rapid increases in ocean temperature, acidity and sea level, while the resilience of coastal environments also deteriorates under faltering coastal management. Poverty increases, food security plummets, economies suffer, and coastal people migrate increasingly to urban areas."

The report concludes that unless we take action to rollback some of the effects of global warming, the direct impact on fishing will cause huge problems to the global fishing economy and impact people who are dependent on fishing as both livelihood and for their food needs, and yet, if one evaluates where we are with trying to roll back emission levels, it is still talk and no action. The Obama administration, for all its talk about making changes in the Bush administration policy of action on global warming, has not taken any concrete action.

Labels: Climate, Climate Change, Economy, Fish, Global Warming, Impact, Livelihood, Reef, Weather