This striking photo shows Chinese trawlers scraping the sea bed and dredging up clouds of mud. If you eat deep sea fish, then this is probably how they were caught.
This is the factsheet and motion that we sent out to all college reps last week.:
When the shores of Newfoundland were first discovered by European explorers, it is said that if they were to dip a basket into the water it would come back up filled with Atlantic cod. An enormous industry was built on the back of this seemingly inexhaustible natural resource, and bigger boats with bigger nets scraped the sea floor for every fish they could get. By 1992, after years of ignoring scientific advice on how unsustainable these methods were, the cod stocks collapsed, and 40,000 people lots their jobs in a single year. Fifteen years later, the ban on fishing has been partially lifted, but catches are at less than 1% of their 1977 levels, as the ecology of the region has shifted, and fish have been unable to recover. The story of the decline of the Atlantic cod and its subsequent affects on Newfoundland is but one of a series of “fishy” horror stories around the world. In fact, fishery records from 1950 to 2000 show the collapse of 366 out of the world’s 1519 fisheries. The collapse of these fisheries has shifted the pressure onto those remaining, so that the journal Science has suggested that, if current trends continue, there will be a total marine collapse (defined as loss of 90% of stocks of each species) by 2050.
• Up to 25% of all sea creatures caught in fisheries are discarded (thrown back into the sea dead or dying) because they are not the fishermen’s intended target. In bottom trawling the proportion of bycatch rises to 50%.
• Protected areas can be enormously beneficial economically because they serve as “nurseries” where young fish grow to a large enough size.
• Scientists recommend that 20-30% of Britain’s seas should be protected. The figure is currently 0.002%.
However, the sea is a valuable natural resource that can provide some of our dietary requirements if it is harvested in an appropriate way using modern sustainable techniques. The over exploitation of our oceans by bottom trawling, high levels of bycatch and over-fishing of threatened species will mean that within our lifetimes the ecology of all seas will have shifted so dramatically that no edible fish species will survive to be of use to humans ever again. We have two options – we could “hurry while stocks last”, and eat all we can while there are any left, or choose the sustainable future, and demand that kitchens in Oxford are not driving demand for unsustainably caught fish, and send a clear message that we want sustainably harvested fish, or no fish at all.
Motion
This JCR notes that:
• Many species of commercially exploited fish are unsustainably caught and are in danger of being driven to extinction by overfishing, and that some of these fish are being served in college hall.
This JCR resolves to:
• Request that the college not serve unsustainably caught or endangered fish, and instead replace them with more sustainably caught species, ie those approved by the Marine Stewardship Council or those on the Marine Conservation Society ‘Fish To Eat’ list.
