11-05-2022

WeDneSDay, May 11, 2022
5
eMMa BRyCe
In February 2022, a Dutch-owned
fishing trawler released a silvery
stream of 100,000 dead fish,
which carpeted several thousand
square metres of ocean off the
coast of France. The vessel's
owners blamed the discharge on a
faulty net. Environmental groups
alleged that the fish were
intentionally dumped.
Whatever the truth, that
spectacle of squandered sea life
was the tip of the iceberg: figures
from WWF show that in 2019, at
least 230,000 tonnes of fish were
dumped in EU waters. Most of the
waste - 92% - is related to bottomtrawling,
a fishing method that
scrapes the seafloor,
indiscriminately scooping up
everything in its path.
But this figure is a small fraction
of an even larger global issue. The
UN Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) estimates
that 35% of all fish, crustaceans
and molluscs harvested from
oceans, lakes and fish farms are
wasted or lost before they ever
reach a plate.
Fish are highly perishable and
fragile, which makes them more
vulnerable to waste, a problem
that is compounded by
haemorrhaging fish at every step
of the supply chain. Fish waste is
especially shocking, says Pete
Pearson, senior director for food
waste at WWF, because they "are
wild animals, so we are harvesting
wildlife".
Fish populations are already
threatened by overfishing,
pollution, and the climate crisis.
With current rates of fish
consumption projected to double
by 2050, waste is increasingly on
the radar of regulators. "We have
to do something about it," says
Omar Peñarubia, a fisheries
officer at the FAO. That begins,
experts say, with understanding
exactly what is driving waste
between harvest and plate. The
task is made difficult by fisheries'
notoriously opaque supply chains,
and incomplete datasets that are
also inconsistent, although the
evidence is clear that most fish
waste starts at the point of
extraction.
Just under half of all fish
consumed by people is wildcaught
at sea. "There's such
abundance that we've grown to be
OK with certain loss rates,"
Pearson says, although noting that
34% of global marine stocks are
now overfished. Bycatch
(unintentionally caught,
unwanted fish) is a growing
problem, too: roughly 10% of
wild-caught fish are discarded
worldwide each year, representing
8.6m tonnes of animals. The main
culprits are imprecise fishing gear
and policies that allow fishers to
discard non-target species.
There's an economic driver, too.
"I think there is a strong
connection between subsidies and
waste in the water," says Rashid
Sumaila, professor of ocean and
fisheries economics at the
University of British Columbia.
Although subsidies were
historically devised to support
small-scale fishers, today 80% of
$35.4bn (£26.4bn) in annual
fishing subsidies goes to a handful
of industrial fleets, Sumaila's
research shows. These include
gargantuan bottom trawlers that
are uniquely equipped to travel
out to the high seas and overfish,
The growing threat of fish waste
Some of the 100,000 dead fish that were thrown into the sea off the coast of la Rochelle, France, by a
factory ship in February.
Photo: aFP
leading to discards on an
industrial scale.
The impact of illegal and
unreported fishing is also
important, says Sumaila, as it is
likely contributing tonnes more
bycatch to global fish waste.
Fish waste is about more than
just the physical loss of fish: for
the 3 billion people whose diets
depend on fish, it is a lost
nutritional opportunity.
"The narrative is that we have to
produce more to feed the growing
masses, but the greatest pathway
to [increasing] supply is reducing
loss and waste," says Shakuntala
Thilsted, global lead for nutrition
and public health at World Fish
and winner of the 2021 World
Food Prize.
Many see controlled aquaculture
systems (or "fish farms") - which
generate more than half our fish
supply - as a solution to the waste
of wild fishing. But Dave Love,
senior scientist at the Johns
Hopkins Center for a Livable
Future, says that various factors,
such as disease, are driving
considerable losses on farms, too.
"Mortality in fish ponds is actually
a significant source of lost
potential food," Love says.
Fish waste continues after
harvest - though how it unfolds
differs depending on location. The
FAO estimates that 27% of all fish
globally is lost or wasted after
landing, but in low-income
countries the fish is more likely to
be unintentionally lost than
wasted, says Peñarubia.
One study showed that in
Ghana, Burkina Faso and Togo,
65% of lost fish on land was
attributable to poor handling, lack
of storage and cooling facilities on
fishing vessels and along the
lengthy supply chain.
Fish disappear after
distribution, too, but here the
culprits are retailers and
consumers, almost exclusively in
middle-and high-income
countries. In North America,
Oceania and Europe, fish waste at
consumption far outstrips that of
any other region in the world.
Pearson thinks retailers in the
US partly contribute to the
problem by prioritising large,
fresh fish to sell at a premium,
which quickly spoil. "This is the
real tragedy, because it's moved all
the way through the supply chain,
and then we're comfortable with a
10% to 30% loss rate in the
grocery store," he says.
When retailers prioritise fresh
fish, "the ripple effect is that
consumers are more likely to
waste that in their homes," says
Love, who published research
showing that retailers were
responsible for about 16% of
wasted seafood in the US, while up
to 63% comes down to consumers
putting uneaten fish in the bin.
Solutions do exist to reduce fish
spoilage along the supply chain.
Increasing access to cold-chain
technologies in low-income
countries, along with methods
such as solar-powered drying
tents, could extend the shelf life of
fish. Fishers and processors also
need training on better fish
handling and storage to limit loss,
Peñarubia says.
At the consumer end, Pearson
and Love argue that we should
encourage more people to opt for
frozen fish, which could reduce
demand for fresh fish in grocery
stores, and limit the amount that
is lost in retail and people's homes.
Thilsted suggests diversifying
our appetites beyond the
ubiquitous fish fillet to smaller fish
and bivalves, which can be
consumed whole to reduce waste.
"If our notion of 'fish' is a fillet on
a pan, then we are already far
down the path of loss and waste,
because we have reduced the
edible part to such a small portion
of the whole."
Existing fish byproducts can be
captured and turned into new
ones. Fish heads, fins, and bones
from the fishing industry are
already a source of fertiliser and
feed; now innovators are finding
uses for everything from fish skin
for burn treatments, and
crustacean waste to make
biodegradable packaging.
"The idea of full utilisation is
something that needs to be
pervasive across all food supply
chains" says Pearson, who
cautions, however, that we
shouldn't overstate these
solutions. Unless fish byproducts
replace a share of fish demand,
they are simply making use of
waste - not reducing it at source.
Ultimately, prevention is the
best solution, starting at sea,
where this problem begins,
Pearson says. Fishers need to be
equipped with more selective gear
for fishing, and aided by policies
that discourage discards. Sumaila
underscores the need for "good
subsidies" that can be channelled
towards fisheries that help
replenish wild stocks: "We need to
spend taxpayers' money in ways
that reinforce positive feedback
from people to nature, and nature
to people," he says.
For generations we've believed
"the ocean is huge, and we can just
take whatever we want," says
Pearson. "Now we're coming to
see the limits of that. And when
you have limits, it requires you to
become more efficient."
Asia's weather is hitting extremes
a labourer in Delhi, india.
Matt anDReWS
The final days of April saw
further unbearable
temperatures recorded in
India and Pakistan.
Temperatures peaked at 49C
in Jacobabad, Pakistan on 30
April, with a high of 47.2C
observed in Banda, India.
The Indian Meteorological
Department confirmed that
average temperatures in
April were the highest for
northern and central parts of
the country since records
began over 100 years ago.
Heatwaves are a common
occurrence at this time of
year in India and Pakistan,
but scientists believe the
intensity, duration and
arrival time of the conditions
witnessed so far this year are
caused by rising global
temperatures. Despite a
slight respite in the extreme
heat over the past few days,
temperatures are set to
intensify once more this
weekend and into next week
with
maximum
temperatures expected to
approach 50C in parts of
Photo: Manish Swarup
north-west India and
Pakistan.
In stark contrast to intense
heat across northern India
and Pakistan, tropical parts
of south-east Asia have seen
unusually low temperatures
for the time of year. On 2
May, the Hong Kong
Observatory reached 16.4C.
This was the lowest May
temperature recorded since
1917, and broke the previous
record set in 2013. The
southern Chinese city of
Guangzhou observed a
temperature of just 13.7C on
the same day, the lowest
temperature ever recorded
during May. On 4 May, a
minimum temperature of
13.6C was also recorded in
the Umphang district,
Thailand. This is the lowest
temperature ever recorded in
May in Thailand.
The cool weather was a
result of a north-east
monsoon and unsettled
conditions, but these low
temperatures won't come as
any consolation to northern
India and Pakistan with
dangerous temperatures
expected to return over the
coming days.
Meanwhile, Australia has
seen its first cold outbreak of
the year after the seventh
warmest April on record. A
cold front brought a
significant drop in
temperature to south-eastern
parts of the country on
Wednesday with
temperatures 4-8C below the
average for parts of South
Australia, Victoria, New
South Wales and Tasmania.
Heavy rain and strong winds
affected Tasmania on
Thursday and Friday thanks
to a deep area of low
pressure. Referred to as an
"east coast low" by
meteorologists, these
features occur several times a
year and can bring some of
the most destructive weather
conditions, including heavy
rain, strong winds and flash
flooding.
toM leVitt
An H3N8 strain of bird flu
has been detected in
humans for the first time, in
China's central province of
Henan.
The four-year-old boy
infected had been in contact
with chickens and crows
raised at his home,
according to reports from
China's National Health
Commission.
Avian influenza or bird flu
as it is commonly known is a
highly contagious viral
disease with the first reports
of human cases in the 1990s.
Some strains of the bird
flu, such as with H3N8 now,
have been passed to humans
but this is currently very
rare, and usually occurs after
very close contact with
infected birds or animals.
H3N8 viruses circulate
widely in birds and in horses
and have also been detected
in dogs in North America.
"We often see a virus
spread to a human and then
not spread any further so a
single case is not a cause of
great concern," said Sir Peter
Horby, professor of
emerging infectious diseases
and global health, University
of Oxford.
"There is no reason to
think it will go any further,"
said Prof Paul Digard from
the Roslin Institute,
University of Edinburgh,
adding that Chinese
China detects first human case
of H3N8 bird flu strain
authorities had not reported
any illness in the immediate
contacts of the infected boy.
However, Horby and other
disease experts said the
widespread transmission
and record number of
outbreaks of avian flu in
birds across the UK, US and
Europe this year was a cause
of concern as it increased the
opportunity for avian
viruses to mix and mutate
and for human infection.
"I do generally believe we
need to be increasing
influence surveillance
globally quite concertedly
right now. Apart from
H3N8, we have seen a
number of other new
spillover events of influenza
from poultry to people over
recent years including H5N8
H3n8 viruses circulate widely in birds and horses.
in Russia and H7N9 and
H10N3 in China," said
Alexandra Phelan, assistant
professor at the centre for
global health science and
security at Georgetown
University.
Marius Gilbert, an
epidemiologist at the
Université Libre de
Bruxelles in Belgium, said a
novel virus should always be
Photo: VCG
Jane Hill
In recent years, many of us have
come to appreciate the huge
importance of insects to our
natural ecosystems - from the
life-enhancing beauty of
butterflies to the vital role that
pollinating insects play in our
food supply. So it's hardly
surprising there is huge concern
over the so-called
"insectageddon".
A recent study adds to an
emerging narrative of severe
decline and builds on the
perception that there were more
insects in nature in years gone
by - and that things were better
in the past. One often-cited
memory is that car windshields
used to be splattered with
insects, and this latest study
uses a "splat rate" to conclude
that numbers of flying insects
have plunged by almost 60% in
Britain between 2004 and 2021.
But how reliable is this
conclusion, and how worried
should we be?
Understanding the severity of
insect decline requires detailed
and long-term records of
species changes. Britain has a
long history of monitoring
nature going back many
decades, so we can rely on one
of the best datasets in the world
to help us understand these
changes and what might be
causing them. The
"splatometer" joins other
established monitoring
initiatives including light traps
for moths and other night-flying
insects, and walk-and-count
transects for butterflies.
So if we have so much
information, why is there still
debate about the severity of
decline? An important finding
from recent analyses is that
patterns of change are more
complex than statements
pointing to catastrophic
declines would have you
believe. We know that nature is
dynamic, so there is often
considerable turnover in which
species occur at any given site,
and a constant reshuffling of
communities. One 2020 study
of more than 5,000 species in
Britain highlights winners and
losers. Analysis of nearly 50
years of insect data reveals longterm
declines in moths but not
aphids, and that there is
evidence of shorter-term
periods of recovery - a decidedly
more optimistic picture than
you might imagine.
It illustrates the complexity of
Is there any possibility of
‘insectageddon’?
We should be focusing our efforts to ensure the actions we are taking to combat the climate crisis are
also benefiting biodiversity.
Photo: Dragomir Radovanovic
the landscape when reporting
on the wellbeing of insect
populations. Understanding
why some species are losers but
others are winners is key for
developing action plans to help
all nature thrive.
Another problem is that the
types of datasets that are
analysed, such as the number of
species at a site or types of
species present, and the
measurements that are taken
may not always tell the same
story. Deciding which historical
baselines to compare changes
against is also important, given
that short-term reporting may
not reflect long-term trends,
especially in insects whose
populations can respond very
quickly to their environment.
This high variability of insect
populations means we need
gold-standard data to
distinguish between long-term
trends and normal year-to-year
variation.
Let's be clear: most
researchers are concerned
about insect declines, but most
will also caution against the
increasingly common
hyperbole of impending doom.
Instead, we should be focusing
our efforts to ensure the actions
we are taking to combat the
climate crisis are also benefiting
biodiversity. Given the current
focus on tree planting and
increasing woodlands in the
UK, it is concerning that moth
declines are worst in
woodlands, for instance.
Our appreciation of green
spaces together with
government commitments for
nature recovery are cause for
optimism. There are many
examples where careful
management and restoration of
sites can hugely boost
biodiversity, but we need to be
doing this over much more of
the landscape. The introduction
of butterflies into the Cotswolds
and Rockingham Forest are
examples of success. For many
species, we already know how to
manage landscapes to ensure
their success. And that, of
course, may mean more insects
splattered on car windscreens.