To what extent overfishing impacts the world?

DNL: to what extent overfishing impacts the world?

More than 171 million tonnes of aquatics goods are fishing in the world every year, so that’s more than 5 400 kg of marines’ species harvested every second. The overfishing -removal of a species of fish from body water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally- is a phenomenon topical which represents many strakes for the futures generations. Indeed, these statistics are very worrying because they are implicating the decline in ocean wildlife populations. Indeed, many factors as demographic growth, illegal fishing or overconsumption, impact the world socially, environmentally and economically. To explain this phenomenon, we have a document which is a detailed diagram about overfishing made by an oceanographer called Mohamed Adel in 2019. The aim of this illustration is to demonstrate the strakes of overfishing by statistics and definitions. Therefore, we can ask ourselves to what extent overfishing impacts the world? Firstly, to answer this question, we will explain how overfishing had developed, secondly the strakes of it.

To begin, the world is facing the demographic’s situation. In fact, demographic growth -the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group- is a big strake nowadays because it is increasing of 1,1 per cent per year. If the population continues to grow at this rate, misery will become prominent because no one will be able to provide their basic needs furthermore, their needs of food. The perfect example is China which is the largest populated country in the world and must find solutions to stop this demographic growth to save the population of an economic crisis such as the only child politic in 1979. The major cause of population growth is the decrease in death rate and rise in the life span of the average individual. The rapid spread of education in developing countries has made people health conscious, in India for example which is the second largest populated country with 1.3 billion people, or the advancement of knowledge in science, medicine, and technology has resulted in lower mortality and higher fertility, resulting in population rise. Moreover, the growth of the population has a major impact on the living standards of people. Indeed, overpopulation, the condition of being populated with excessively large numbers, may create more demand for resources which cannot be replenished so easily. In other words, because of the increase demographic’s population, countries must feed their growing population and therefore increase their resources by the overfishing for example. Indeed, we learn in the document that more than 1 000 000 000 people rely on fish as their primary source of protein but with the increase of population more and more people will be added to the list developing the fishing to provide everyone.

        On the other hand, overfishing is due to illegal traffic as it says in the document. In fact, more than 80 per cent of the world’s fishing areas are illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) so much that some experts say that there are around 26 million tonnes of caught fish, equal to 33 per cent of the world’s legal catch in 2011. As we say, there are three categories of IUU fishing: the illegal fishing which refers to fishing activities conducted by foreign vessels without any permission under the jurisdiction of another state, the unregulated fishing which refers to fishing activities in areas catch as in the South Atlantic for example, and the last, the unreported which refers to fishing activities which have not been reported by vessels to the relevant national authority. However, the main reason why IUU fishing is a particularly critical issue today is that many fish stocks have already been overexploited by legal fishing activities. Moreover, the ZEE, exclusive economic zone -which is an area which extends either from the coast, or in federal systems from the seaward boundaries of the constituent states to 200 nautical miles off the coast - is not respected because they are coveted such as the French ZEE of the Clipperton islands which is disrespected at the same time by Mexico and China. Illegal fishing is an economic strake to provide countries given that the increase population want to eat fishes. Thanks to some organizations such as WWF (World Wildlife Fund), solutions are made like traceability to combat illegal fishing and they also help to facilitate the flow of information through supply chains.                                                                Finally, the overconsumption -an excessive consumption- is also a cause of this overfishing because the demand shoots up recently because of, firstly, demographic growth and secondly the behaviour of humans. Indeed, nowadays, the society want more and more resources such as oil and gazes which are very important for the technology or the mobility. This overconsumption is due to economic growth -an increase in the amount of goods and services produces per head of the population over a period of time-. In fact, in 2019, 11 000 scientists from 150 nations signed a warning about the excessive extraction of materials and overexploitation of ecosystems. In France, the consumption of fishes is estimated around 34 kg per person and per year, so much that France eats more fishes than the country can fish! During 2022, the fishing day -the day when all the reserves of fishes are unavailable- was the 2nd of may this year in France July and it goes backwards every year. On the document, we explain that 70 per cent of the fish population is fully used up or threatened, it proves us how much we consume fishes for our own alimentation.  On account of human behaviour, the overconsumption is partly due to the waste. In France, a citizen throws 37 kg of dishes every year. Moreover, a surplus of 140 billion tonnes is consumed per year. Nevertheless, 690 million of people don’t have enough money and suffer with food’s insecurity. Many ONG (Nongovernmental organization) raise awareness about this intensive fishing. Besides, eating fishes has become a trend. In 2016, 70% of French people declare to prefer fish to meat. Moreover, because it is healthier, the risk of cancer colorectal decrease according to the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Another point is that Asian foods are trending such as sushi for example and drive people to eat fishes, at least 22 per cent of French people eat sushi every month. By the way, it doesn’t only work with sushi but also tartare and typical meal. Overconsumption (so overfishing too) has many consequences, such as emptying oceans of resources.

Overfishing is a phenomenon due to many factors, demonstrate us the importance of topical events on our consumption and how far people can go to provide their family and country. Accordingly, these changes engender many strakes, which ones that we had not thought of before.

        Overfishing implicates socials strakes such as the decline of fish stocks in coastal waters resulting from overfishing and illegal fishing activities. In consequences, it decreases the accessibility of this important resource for some of the world's poorest citizens, thus creating inequalities between the middle and lower classes. In many African and South Asian coastal countries, fish may account for as much as 50 percent of protein in a typical diet. Moreover, overfishing doesn't just make fish disappear from the oceans; it also kills jobs because as fishing gear and technology continue to advance, fewer crew members are needed on the fishing fleets; further resulting in the loss of jobs. Indeed, overfishing in Europe would lead to the loss of more than 100,000 jobs per year, including 83,000 in the 27 states of the Union. Around 60 million people work directly and indirectly in the fishing industry in the world. In addition, the arrival of large fleets near the coast deprives the natives of an important resource and pushes fishermen to go fishing further out to sea for less profitability and greater risk. Many conflicts exist when indigenous fishermen obeying traditions of exploitation and industrial fishermen acting for money without regard to local traditions, find themselves in the same area. Conflicts also exist between indigenous groups and animal rights organizations. Besides, the demands for fish are diverse and lead to a poor distribution of certain species most in demand, such as salmon, which will be favoured in rich countries, or even caviar. Thus, a social divide is created due to a lack of resources. Nevertheless, some indigenous communities find solutions to protect their resources such as the Darawa village in the Wakatobi archipelago with their octopus fishing.                                                                       Nowadays, overfishing is a threat for the economic prosperity. Highly industrialized, fishing today uses various methods, such as trawls (fishing nets), which take considerable quantities. Recently, the World Bank estimated the annual losses linked to the mismanagement of fisheries at 70 billion euros, and attributed 15% of this figure to Europe. In addition, overfishing costs 3.2 billion each year. We can explain this with declining stocks, fish are caught when they are younger and smaller, leading to less tonnage and a lower selling price. We can take the example of Canada, because this country is not immune to the consequences of overfishing, with fall of cods fishing in the 1990s which include economic consequences and new strake to replace cods. The uncontrolled growth of fishing and fleets comes from an overcapitalization of the industry whose performance has exceeded the optimum indicates an FAO report. Moreover, many communities around the world depend on fish for food and also rely on low-level fishing industries to ensure their economic viability. Nevertheless, these enterprises, unlike large-scale fishing enterprises, generally cause much less damage to marine life because they are much smaller. However, these communities cannot access food or their financial support causing a resource problem. We can see on the document, illustrations of vessels, it can show us how much we need fishing boat and how it is important to build these boats, the sector of caught fishing count more than 3.5 million of vessels. In consequences, many industries invest and lost money. Fish products are very coveted and trend, they are an essential economic strake for the world. In fact, Fish products represent 1 per cent of world merchandise trade by value and more than 9 per cent of total agricultural exports. In 2014, global exports amounted to $148 billion. Exports of fish products from developing countries brought in $80 billion, generating net trade revenues higher than those of meat, tobacco, rice and sugar all combined this is the reason why fishing is so important for the economy. Finally, the decrease in catches will lead to an increase in prices which is unfavourable to the poorest consumers. In South Africa, a drop in consumption has already been observed for example.                                        Finally, the main strake of overfishing is the environment. First of all, with removal of essential predator as we can see on the document: industrial fishing has reduced the number of large ocean fish such as sharks, swordfish and birds like martin. Indeed, Sharks and tuna are particularly susceptible to overfishing, and when they are removed from the areas they live in, this means that sea creatures further down the food chain are negatively impacted. Moreover, the growth of algae impact ecosystems like the sargassums in Guadeloupe which monopolize all the surface of beaches. The document indicates us the unintended catches which represents 27 per cent of the total global caught and the overfishing implicates non-target species includes like birds or turtles affecting the food chain of the water body and many species die because of this loss of food. Unintended catches are the leading cause of death for certain cetaceans, especially dolphins. However, solutions exist to counter these phenomena. For example, by designing fishing techniques with less impact on the seabed or nets whose size have been adapted to allow young mammals to escape. In addition, many species are in severe decline. The document explains to us that we can guess that there is a lot of exploitation for each species, which are endangered species, because of the remaining percentage in blue is very weak. Indeed, 70 per cent of the fish population is fully used up or threatened.

...