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Publication year : 0
Thematic : Fisheries
Language : English
Note
This paper concentrates mainly on the effects of fishing on, or near, the seafloor in the High Seas; i.e., it will say little about the effects of pelagic fishing, the hunting of cetaceans, krill harvesting, etc. Fishing has large effects, direct and indirect, on the fished stocks and on the rest of the ecosystem. Those effects are universally such that, without management or restraint of some kind, fishing is not ecologically sustainable by UN (WCSD) definitions. Most of the evidence for that statement comes from studies within EEZs; some examples will be mentioned from Australian research. There is no reason to suppose that the unsustainability is in any way diminished if the fishing occurs in the High Seas rather than in national EEZs; in fact, in some respects it is worse. This is illustrated by some examples of demersal fishing, which, although within EEZs, has some of the characteristics of High Seas demersal fisheries. The examples do show that actions can be taken to diminish the effects and to make the fishery ecologically sustainable. They will not be done, however, unless there is a will to do them, and this takes considerable effort to develop. In addition, we have to recognize the possibility that in some cases the biology and ecology of the system may be such that there is no way to fish sustainably.
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Keywords : Pteropus griseus
Encoded by : Pauline Carmel Joy Eje
