world's fishing fleets are losing billions of dollars each year through depleted stocks and poor management .. Half the world's fishing fleet could be scrapped with no change in catch.
The report was debated at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain. It seems there is similiar trouble with fishing industries in pirating old Europe and other world countries. They have an overcapacity, and say that they can catch the same amount and cut back on harvesters, and save money. Fleets are spending ever more effort, but catches are not rising.
It appears the collapse and lessons learned from it, i.e., contributing factors, were not studied or learned, or subsequent measures put in place in other countries to avoid threatening the cod stocks.
There were different factors involved in the collapse of the Grand Banks cod fishery in 2J3KL fishing grounds. Overfishing was one biggie. Before 1977 when the 200 mile limit allowed Canadian trawlers to fish out to that point, most of the overfishing was blamed on foreign overfishers. After 1977, when more draggers, and factory freezer trawlers began towing 25,000 pounds of fish at once, more overfishing blame was placed on domestic culprits.
Another problem with many foreign fishing now is that are high subsidies - $30 billion.
The challenge now, it says, is to spread reforms into other fisheries where overcapacity is fast depleting stocks.
"Sustainable fisheries require political will to replace incentives for overfishing with incentives for responsible stewardship," said Kieran Kelleher, the World Bank's fisheries team leader.
Hey, there could be some foreign jobs available for experienced TAGs and NCARP program facilitators from here. They had the fun jobs of facing angry displaced fishery workers after the '92 fishery collapse.
Better fisheries management, controls on harvesters, and emphasis on conservation seems to have been deferred in favor of over inflating the harvesting capacity.
Boy it didn't take them long to figure this out.
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