As We Drain Mediterrenean Of Fish, Livelihoods & Catches Collapse, But No Cuts In Capacity - CSM

[hatrack]

EDIT

Twice as many fish are caught in the Mediterranean today than in 1950. The Mediterranean alone cannot provide enough fish to meet local needs. Southern Europeans eat significantly more fish than the global average of 35 pounds per person annually. Spaniards consume 90 pounds a year, while Italians, French, and Greeks, eat almost 45 pounds – much of which is imported. Though catches are down from their mid-1980s peak, the fact that fishermen expend greater effort to catch fewer fish indicates that stocks are overexploited. Trawling has been identified as the most environmentally destructive type of fishing here.

"The fundamental problem is that the sea is not managed with the objective of conservation, or rational management of the resource, but mostly in the short-term interest of those few fishermen who take as much as they can," says Alessandro Gianni, a fisheries campaigner with Greenpeace, whom Pisanu contacted for help. "The more economically profitable ... out the smaller artisanal fishermen."

Gianni Usai, regional director of Legapesca, the largest local fisherman's cooperative in Cabras, was one of the first locals to recognize that there was a problem. Twenty years ago, he began to notice that lobster catches were declining, from 10 tons a year in the mid-1980s to between 3 and 4 tons in the early 1990s. Today, local fishermen catch less than half a ton. But for years, his warnings were ignored. "When there's a fire in the woods ... everyone is upset and goes and stops it. In the sea, it's like there's been a fire forever, but no one does a thing," says Mr. Usai.

EDIT

But efforts to reduce capacity have failed, or in some cases backfired. On the northern shore – there's little data from the south – the total number of European boats fishing the Mediterranean has decreased. But environmental groups say that EU subsidies intended to help fishermen modernize their fleet enabled many to upgrade from small boats like Pisanu's 33-ft. Nina, which he inherited from his father, to bigger, more environmentally damaging vessels. In Cabras, for example, local fishing organizations say subsidies helped fishermen purchase many of the devastatingly efficient trawlers based there. In Italy – which has the largest fishing industry in the Mediterranean – trawlers make up only a small percentage of the fishing fleet, but account for more than half of catches. But bottom trawling churns up the sea floor, destroying vital habitat for many bottom-dwelling species, and is among the most wasteful forms of fishing. Although estimates vary widely, up to 70 percent of the fish caught by bottom trawlers are thrown back because they are the wrong type.

EDIT

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0116/p01s01-woeu.html

[ladjf]

1. Humans might not have enough sense to survive.

[DCKit]

2. "...up to 70 percent of the fish caught by bottom trawlers are thrown back.." DEAD.

They don't survive the catch and handling.