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Farming the Oceans
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11464 |
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NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
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4 / 1994 |
2,977 Words |
| Author
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Michael A. Champ And Michael D. Willinsky
Michael A. Champ is a fisheries biologist, fish farmer, and oceanographer who has been extensively involved in converting waste materials into artificial reefs for fish habitat. In 1992, he was a cochairman of the National Science Foundation's Open Ocean Mariculture Workshop at the University of Hawaii. He is president of Environmental Systems Development Company in Falls Church, Virginia, and a senior scientist in the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group at Texas A&M University. Michael D. Willinsky is a biologist and fish farmer whose interests in engineering and fisheries have drawn him to mariculture. He was responsible for assembling the research and development team that designed the geodesic sea cage discussed in this article. He is president of Trident Aquaculture, a Canadian firm that is developing offshore mariculture using submersible sea-cage technology. |
It is no secret that seafood is good for you. Many strive to reduce the fat content in their diet, in part by increasing their consumption of fish. As a society, we are beginning to consume more seafood; thus, demand for seafood will soar as an expanding population becomes more health-conscious and wants the high-quality nutrition that seafood provides.
Fish products are the third-greatest U.S. import at over $6 billion per year, exceeded only by illegal drugs and oil. Per capita fish consumption is currently about 17 pounds a year and is projected to at least double by the end of the century, growing at an annual rate of over 2 percent. The value of fisheries is obvious, as the wholesale price of salmon (greater than $20 per fish) has exceeded the price of a barrel of oil ($15) on U.S. docks.
Supply versus demand
We learned at school that most of the world is covered with water and that this water teems with fish. So it is easy to understand why we have assumed for so long that the oceans possess an unlimited bounty of food. Today, however, faced with the prospect of failing fisheries around the world, we must deal with reality: Although fish products are a renewable resource, they behave as a finite resource (like fossil fuels) if fishery habitats are disturbed or overfishing upsets the natural reproductive cycle of the species.
Over the past 40 years, important commercial fishery stocks have declined due to overfishing, environmental influences, and a loss of near-shore juvenile habitats; the worldwide catch has jumped from 25 million metric tons in 1953 to over 100 million metric tons in the early nineties. Since 1990, over 80 percent of the fish consumed in the United States has been imported. During the past decade, existing stocks have been depleted, so seafood imports have been shifting to new, often less desirable, species. This is evidenced by the new names at the fish counter today (such as monkfish, whitefish, shark, and fishery by-products such as surimi).
The world's natural production of fishery products has long been exceeded by unrealistic quotas, allowing the systematic stripping of up to 100 million tons of fish each year. Overfishing was clearly the major contributor to the decline of the world's fisheries. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that 9 of the world's 17 major fisheries are in serious decline, with 4 considered already depleted.
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