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How humans have 'harvested' the oceans to emptiness.
Reviewed By Michael W. Robbins
July/August 2003 Issue
One thing that humans are very proficient at is killing. Since man
started hunting in boats, we have been killing everything we could catch
from the world's oceans. We've killed for food, ornament, fertilizer,
and fuel. We kill by accident (the term commercial fisheries use is "bycatch"),
out of carelessness, and frequently for the sheer hell of it.
For most of our history, given the vastness of the oceans and the
seemingly unlimited life therein, we couldn't impact most species of
fish, whales, turtles, seals, and seabirds. Now, though, as Richard
Ellis bluntly argues in this important and aptly named book, we have the
resources and the technological wherewithal to so reduce so many species
of ocean life that the ecological consequences are incalculable.
By continuing to "harvest" sea life as if it were boundless, we have
nearly finished off the fisheries of cod, sardines, and anchovies, and
are fast working our way through the remaining tuna, swordfish, large
sharks, Chilean sea bass, and Atlantic salmon. How is this possible?
It's as simple as demand outpacing supply. "A million vessels now fish
the world's oceans," Ellis writes, "twice as many as there were 25 years
ago."
This is not an easy book. Ellis is fond of facts and numbers, and with
them he's fashioned a nigh-overwhelming elegy for the victims of our
gill nets and drift nets, factory fishing ships, explosive harpoons,
longlines, trawlers, and fish-spotting aircraft -- not to mention our
collective shortsightedness.
Among the obstacles to halting this enormous, long-running tragedy:
Powerful economic interests skew the policies of such regulatory bodies
as the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, while much of the
overfishing takes place in international waters where no one country or
organization can manage what's left of the "resources."
Is there any hope? Maybe not much, but consider that the depleted
species themselves are resilient and, given half a chance, can and do
rebound, albeit slowly. Ellis notes that marine reserves -- "no-fish"
zones -- have proved effective and should be established on a larger
scale. Still, time is short, and the oceans' precious biodiversity is
already damaged. As Pogo put it and Ellis would agree, the enemy is us.
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