Tuesday 3 May 2016

OUGD505 - Studio Brief 02 - Causes of Overfishing

The main problem of overfishing is the “open access” nature of fisheries. Because there are no or few property rights there is a lack of incentive for fishermen to leave fish in the water.


Another problem is the lack of management. The government does not have strong enough regulations to limit ships and people to fishing. There is also a lack of evidence that fish are actually being caught legally therefore, fish are not caught in a sustainable way and retailers can not ensure this.

A big problem is that alot of the fish are caught illegally, unregulated and unreported. This also means that people could fish from a small scale to a large scale illegally. The cost of illegal fishing within pirate fish products is estimated between $10-23.5 billion annually. This is massive market to pirate boats that fish illegally and get so much money back. I can only imagine how many fish are caught in a year with the value of $10-23.5 billion.

Governments still financially support their fleets therefore allowing overfishing to occur. Today we catch 2 and a half times more than we need to catch. There is also a lack of protected areas. 1.6% of the worlds oceans have been declared as marine protected areas whilst 90% of existing marine protected areas are open to fishing. This means that things like corals are being destructed and affecting how fish are being produced. Protected areas allow food security for people who rely on the ocean for their everyday need and livelihoods.

Targeted fishing of top predators (such as billfish, sharks and tuna) eventually disrupts marine communities, causing increased abundance of smaller marine animals at the bottom of the food chain. This in turn has impacts on the rest of the marine ecosystem, such as the increased growth of algae and threats to coral reef health. Overfishing is also closely tied to bycatch, another serious marine threat that causes the needless loss of billions of fish, along with marine turtles and cetaceans. - worldwildlife.org

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