One Ocean, Many Worlds of Life - Convention on Biological Diversity

and growth rates <strong>of</strong> many deep-sea fishes makes them especially vulnerable
to the impacts <strong>of</strong> fishing—so much so, that it seems likely that for many
species, once a stock has been depleted, it will take decades, and potentially
centuries, before it will recover.64
It is frequently suggested that the solution to all this is to raise fish in “farms”
instead <strong>of</strong> taking them from the wild. Unfortunately, although aquaculture
can, under certain circumstances, contribute effectively to the amount <strong>of</strong>
fish available for human consumption, and do so in such a way that does
not damage the environment, far too <strong>of</strong>ten it compounds the problem that
it ostensibly should be helping to solve. More than 33 million tonnes <strong>of</strong>
fish—approximately one-third <strong>of</strong> the global fish catch—is caught annually
for purposes other than human consumption, primarily for reduction into
fish oil or fish meal that are used for livestock, and domestic animal feed,
but also for feeding to other fish. The amount <strong>of</strong> fish that has been caught
to feed farmed fish such as salmon, catfish, snapper and flounder, as well
as species such as tuna that are caught in the wild when young and then
fattened in pens, has grown enormously, from under one million tonnes in
1970 to over 13 million tonnes today.65
In addition to removing millions more fish from the sea, fisheries for aquaculture,
fishmeal and fish oil also take fish that might otherwise find its way
into the mouths <strong>of</strong> hungry people. For example, only 43,000 tonnes—or
0.73 percent <strong>of</strong> the total Peruvian anchoveta harvest <strong>of</strong> 5,935,302 tonnes—was
destined for direct human consumption in 2006; 99.3 percent <strong>of</strong> the total
anchoveta catch was reduced to fishmeal and fish oil.66
Furthermore, <strong>of</strong> 357,000 tonnes <strong>of</strong> processed fish products produced in
Peru in 2006 for direct human consumption, 329,000 tonnes—over 92
percent—was exported.67 Nor is that example atypical: although the growth
in commercial fisheries is sometimes ascribed to the need to feed a growing
world population, approximately 80 percent <strong>of</strong> internationally traded fish
products are imported by the developed world, where population growth and
levels <strong>of</strong> hunger are generally both low.68 In fact, because the fishing industry
has caused fish stocks worldwide to decline and collapse, and because many
<strong>of</strong> those fish have been taken from the waters <strong>of</strong> less developed nations and
consumed by the inhabitants <strong>of</strong> more developed ones, it has been estimated
that, without overfishing, approximately 20 million undernourished people
worldwide could have avoided that undernourishment in the year 2000.69
44 Marine BiOdiversity