Through the vast
stretches of time, the oceans have provided safe harbor for an immense
pantheon of life-all life, in fact. Research indicates that at present
the biodiversity of the oceans rivals that of the tropical rainforests.
If this fact was better known and appreciated-and people realized that
what we are effectively doing is clearcutting these precious underwater
environments with our appetite for fish-then perhaps many would seriously
reconsider eating so freely from the sea.
Overfishing and
Overeating: The Net Loss
How is it that waters once teeming with life are now so barren as to
deserve being called, "the Next Dust Bowl"? Simply put, humanity's
taste for fish has far exceeded nature's ability to provide. Currently
there are some 13 million fishers in the world. Twelve million use simple
traditional technologies to land about half the world's fish catch.
The remaining one million fishers crew 37,000 industrial fishing vessels
and account for the other half of the fish caught. These fishers deploy
highly sophisticated contrivances ranging from sonar and spotting planes
to fishing nets large enough to swallow twelve 747 jumbo jets.
As vacuuming fish
from the sea has grown easier and fleet sizes have ballooned, fishers
have achieved the once unimaginable-they've begun to strip the seas
of their genetic wealth. Industrial innovations permit fishers to scoop
an astounding 80 to 90 percent of a given fish population from the ocean
in any one year. Individual species have been ushered to the brink of
extinction, and predator-prey relationships that evolved over millennia
have been grievously disrupted. There's more. As preferred species are
overfished and lose commercial viability, fishers switch to less-desirable
species lower in the food web. This robs larger fish, marine mammals
and seabirds of food, creating additional havoc. And since less-palatable
species earn fishers less money, they must catch more of these fish
just to maintain their incomes. Where will it all end? As harvests plummet,
jobs are threatened and governments step in to prop up faltering fishing
industries. In 1994, according to the United Nations, fishers worldwide
spent $124 billion to catch fish valued at only $70 billion. The difference-a
whopping $54 billion-was covered by governments and hence, taxpayers.
Alas, such subsidies encourage massive overcapacity in the industry.
Between 1970 and 1990, the world's industrial fishing fleet grew at
twice the rate of the global catch. The net effect? More and more boats
chasing fewer and fewer fish.
Innocent Bystanders
To worsen matters, today's fishing industry is incredibly wasteful.
For every fish, crustacean or mollusk that ends up on a dinner plate,
several other sea creatures are likely to have perished in the process.
The innocent victims include fish having little or no commercial value,
juvenile fish, turtles, diving seabirds and marine mammals like the
dolphin. Shrimp fishing is particularly indiscriminate. For every pound
of shrimp sold, upwards of 20 pounds of other sea creatures are caught.
Their remains are returned to the sea, either dead or dying. Methods
of catching tuna have become more dolphin-friendly, but they still ensnare
and kill thousands of sharks, turtles, and billfish like swordfish.
(They also kill tuna, of course, majestic creatures that can reach 1,000
pounds and speeds of 55 mph.) Similarly, for every king crab sold from
the fish case, five or six others (mostly juveniles) are caught and
tossed overboard. As disturbing as these figures are, the magnitude
of the waste is probably significantly more, since much "bykill"
is never reported. One may ask, does aquaculture, or fish farming, reduce
the strain placed on the oceans by wasteful industrial fishing methods?
"Strangely, it may do the opposite," says Carl Safina, Ph.D.,
director of the National Audubon Society's Living Oceans Program. How
so? Well, for starters, the young fish used in aquaculture and the food
fed them are often taken directly from the sea. What's more, aquaculture
is routinely conducted on coastal land cleared of mangrove forests,
prime breeding and spawning ground for many fish. To date, about half
the world's mangrove forests have been cleared, drained, diked or filled.
Aquaculture also requires vast amounts of clean water and feed, and
hefty applications of antibiotic drugs.
Gone Fishin' with
Real Bullets
"The emerging anarchy in the oceans" is how one United Nations
official describes the situation on the high seas. With so many vessels
scouring increasingly fished-out waters, squabbles are inevitable. Russians
attack Japanese vessels in the Northwest Pacific. Scottish fishers attack
a Russian trawler. A Falkland Islands patrol chases a Taiwanese squid
boat more than 4,000 miles. Norwegian patrols cut the nets of three
Icelandic ships in the Arctic, and shots are exchanged. Philippine patrols
arrest Chinese fishers near the hotly contested Spratly Islands in the
South China Sea. The list of confrontations is ever-expanding. Shrinking
fish populations have sparked another type of conflict as well. As industrial
fishing fleets venture farther from their territorial waters in order
to fill their holds, they sail increasingly into waters that subsistence
fishers rely upon to feed their families. As National Geographic magazine
reported in 1995, "for these people any declines in fisheries mean
hunger."
Hook, Line and PCBs
Fish caught by the world's 12 million subsistence fishers may represent
a dietary necessity for those who eat it, but the same cannot be said
of the seafood consumed in the developed world. In the US, where fish
is lauded as a low-fat source of protein, the average American already
consumes roughly twice as much protein as is recommended. Excess dietary
protein is not a risk-free indulgence; it has been linked to obesity,
kidney disease and osteoporosis, among other serious health problems.
Worried about getting insufficient protein on a plant-based diet? Have
no fear. Protein is found in generous quantities in many plant foods,
making it virtually impossible not to get enough when eating a varied
plant-centered diet. There are numerous additional personal health reasons
to reconsider eating seafood and load up instead on whole grains, beans,
seeds, nuts and fresh fruits and vegetables. To begin with, fish contain
none of the protective phytochemicals, antioxidants and fiber found
only in foods of plant origin. Dark green vegetables, canola, soybean
and walnut oils, tofu, walnuts, pumpkin and flax seeds and wheat germ
possess the prized heart-protective omega-3 fatty acid found in fish.
Moreover, plant foods contain no cholesterol, a claim fishmongers cannot
honestly make. A three ounce serving of salmon, for example, contains
74 milligrams of cholesterol, about the same as in a comparable serving
of T-bone steak or chicken. How much cholesterol should you eat? A recent
international conference of leading heart researchers concluded, "The
optimal intake of cholesterol in the adult is probably zero." Fish
and shellfish can also become repositories for the industrial and municipal
wastes and agricultural chemicals flushed into the world's waters. As
one authority observed, "If there's something wrong with the water,
chances are something will be wrong with the fish." Consider PCBs,
a synthetic liquid once widely used for industrial purposes but outlawed
as carcinogenic in 1976. According to a six-month investigation by Consumers
Union (publishers of Consumer Reports magazine), "By far the biggest
source of PCBs in the human diet is fish... As PCBs linger in the environment,
their composition changes, and they gradually become more toxic... And
these more toxic forms are likely to be found in fish... PCBs accumulate
in body tissue. The PCBs that you eat today will be with you decades
into the future." Of the eight species it analyzed, Consumers Union
found PCBs in 43 percent of the salmon, 25 percent of the swordfish
and 50 percent of the lake whitefish. Other pollutants that can concentrate
in sea creatures include mercury (which can damage the brain and nervous
system), lead (which can impair behavioral development in young children)
and pesticides. Fish and shellfish can also harbor a number of naturally
occurring toxins, none of which can be detected by sight or smell, nor
destroyed by cooking. Consumers Union's investigation also revealed
that nearly half the fish tested from markets in New York City, Chicago
and Santa Cruz, CA, were contaminated by bacteria from human or animal
feces. Why weren't these tainted fish detected? Inspectors examine a
scant one percent of the domestic catch and three percent of the imported
catch for chemical or bacterial contamination. No wonder the Centers
for Disease Control reports an average of 325,000 food poisonings annually
from contaminated seafood.[33] In fact, this figure may severely undercount
the true number of poisonings since many sufferers attribute their flu-like
symptoms to something other than contaminated seafood.
Scaling Back: A
Recipe for Getting the Planet's Oceans Off the Hook
The situation is grim, but not hopeless. In order to safeguard the oceans
from further decline, a number of things must occur. We must do a much
better job of curbing all forms of water pollution. We must put an end
to the reckless development of our coastlines. We must convince governments
to stop subsidizing fishing operations with taxpayer moneys. And, we
must press governments, regulatory agencies and fishers to act with
future generations in mind, rather than fighting with each other down
to the last fish. As we undertake these admittedly daunting challenges,
thankfully there is something we can do every day to help protect and
rejuvenate our imperiled aquatic environments. We can choose an ocean-friendly
diet. Some might suggest that dramatically scaling back our consumption
of fish and shellfish doesn't even begin to address the problem. Will
it really make a difference if you stop eating seafood? Given the horrible
difficulty involved in getting fishers and governments worldwide to
stop draining the seas of life, what we do individually is likely the
only thing that can make a difference. Ultimately, it is consumer demand
that has brought us to this juncture, and only a profound reduction
in consumer demand can prevent a total collapse of the seas. If Americans
begin by halving their current intake of seafood, two billion pounds
of marine life would be spared each year, not to mention all that is
killed incidentally. This would allow the oceans, rivers, streams, lakes
and estuaries to begin the process of healing. Do what you can to help
take the seas and all their creatures off the hook. Begin by taking
them off your plate.
Can Saying 'No,
Thanks' to Meat and Dairy Safeguard Water and Fish?
Replacing fish on your menu with nutritious whole foods of plant origin
is a direct and vital way of helping protect and restore beleaguered
aquatic environments, both freshwater and marine. Another albeit less-obvious
way is by reducing your consumption of all animal products. How so?
It's a matter of water pollution, second only perhaps to overfishing
in the toll it exacts on aquatic ecosystems worldwide. Given that how
we eat determines to a considerable extent how our world is used, a
person eating a plant-based diet bears little if any responsibility
for the massive quantities of land degraded, soil eroded and water polluted
by this nation's animal foods industry. These activities yield pollutants-principally
nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizers and manures, and sediments
from eroded soils-that routinely make their way into creeks, streams,
lakes, rivers and oceans. The pollutants wash primarily from two sources:
(1) Croplands used to produce animal feedgrains (more than 60 percent
of America's croplands are planted for this purpose); and (2) animal
production sites including feedlots, holding areas and pasturelands.
Farm animals in the US create roughly ten times the waste produced by
human residents. How big is the problem? BIG. The Environmental Protection
Agency has fingered agriculture as far and away the leading source of
pollution flowing into this nation's waterways, contributing significantly
more pollution than either municipal or industrial sources. According
to the organization Trout Unlimited, "The nation is replete with
examples of watersheds containing valuable aquatic ecosystems contaminated
by agricultural run-off and physically degraded by grazing and other
livestock rearing activities." Why are agricultural pollutants
so devastating? Sediments are the worst. They smother eggs and newly
hatched fry, and they block sunlight, killing aquatic plants that provide
cover for fish and the organisms fish subsist on. Nutrients from fertilizers
and manures can have an acutely toxic effect on aquatic organisms. Scientists
says that nutrient overloading from animal and human waste, and fertilizer
runoff is responsible for killing more than 10 million fish in southeast
North Carolina in recent months. Nutrients promote algae growth as well,
depriving fish of life-giving dissolved oxygen. As an added wallop,
agricultural pollutants can carry with them an assortment of pathogens
(like fecal coliform bacteria) and toxins. Between 1963 and 1985, more
than 200,000 fish were killed by the pesticides toxaphene and endosulfan
in California's Central Valley alone. The processes involved in agricultural
pollutant run-off are self-aggravating. As soil erodes, polluting aquatic
habitats, soil fertility is lost. Farmers "replenish" topsoil
with added applications of chemical fertilizers, but these are quickly
leached because the soils now are less able to hold nutrients. Runoff
and pollution worsen as a result. Soil productivity plummets, beginning
the vicious cycle anew.
Freshwater fish like trout are the first to suffer from agriculturally
tainted water because they are close to the point of contamination and
are keenly sensitive to pollution. (In fact, the American Fisheries
Society calls cattle ranching the leading villain in the demise of this
nation's wild trout species.) But marine fish are by no means immune.
More than 75 percent of the US commercial catch of ocean fish is comprised
of species that depend upon North America's large rivers, estuaries
and near-ocean waters for some portion of their lives. It has reached
a point where fish don't even have to come close to shore to be sickened
or killed by agricultural runoff. As reported in the Wall Street Journal
in September 1995, researchers are monitoring the growth of a lifeless
expanse at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico now covering roughly 7,000
square miles, nearly the size of New Jersey. This "Dead Zone"
is the end result of an ecological "chain reaction" set in
motion by all the agricultural fertilizers, animal manures, sediments
and pesticides that end up in the Mississippi River. Excess nutrients
flush from the river into the Gulf of Mexico and trigger exponential
algae growth. When the algae die and sink to the bottom, their decomposition
depletes the water of oxygen, creating a death trap for any fish or
shrimp that cannot escape.
There's one more key connection between animal foods production and
the welfare of the oceans. Currently one-third of all the fish caught
in the world are turned into fishmeal and fed to livestock. This arresting
and disturbing fact highlights the far-reaching and sometimes unforeseen
environmental benefits that shifting to a plant-based diet can have.
It also demonstrates the resounding vote that such a dietary shift represents
for the wise and sustainable use of all the world's natural resources.
written by Steve
Lustgarden
United
Nations Report
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