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  BBC 2 Nov 06
'Only 50 years left' for sea fish
By Richard Black

Yahoo News 3 Nov 06
Overfishing may harm seafood population
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

Yahoo News 2 Nov 06
World fish, seafood could collapse by 2048: study
By Deborah Zabarenko

National Geographic 2 Nov 06
Seafood May Be Gone by 2048, Study Says
John Roach

Yahoo News 3 Nov 06
Fish, seafood on track to disappear by 2048: study

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The world's fish and seafood could disappear by 2048 as overfishing and pollution destroy ocean ecosystems at an accelerating pace, US and Canadian researchers reported.

If current global trends continue, the loss of fish and seafood will threaten humans' food supplies and the environment, according to the most exhaustive study to date on the subject, published in the November 3 issue of the US journal Science.

"Our analyzes suggest that business as usual would foreshadow serious threats to global food security, coastal water quality, and ecosystem stability, affecting current and future generations," the international team of ecologists and economists wrote in "Impact of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services."

The four-year analysis was the first to study all existing data on ocean species and ecosystems and synthesize them to understand the importance of biodiversity at the global scale.

"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging," lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, in Canada, said in a statement.

Worm said the disappearance of species from ocean ecosystems had been accelerating.

"Now we begin to see some of the consequences. For example, if the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime -- by 2048," Worm said.

"In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -- beyond anything we expected."

At this point, 29 of currently fished species were considered "collapsed" in 2003, that is, their catches have declined by 90 percent or more, he said.

"It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating," he said.

National Geographic 2 Nov 06
Seafood May Be Gone by 2048, Study Says
John Roach

Unless humans act now, seafood may disappear by 2048, concludes the lead author of a new study that paints a grim picture for ocean and human health.

According to the study, the loss of ocean biodiversity is accelerating, and 29 percent of the seafood species humans consume have already crashed.

If the long-term trend continues, in 30 years there will be little or no seafood available for sustainable harvest.

The increasing pace of diversity loss thus imperils the "ecosystems services" that many human populations depend on for survival, the study says.

The research also found that biodiversity loss is tightly linked to declining water quality, harmful algal blooms, ocean dead zones, fish kills, and coastal flooding.

"Biodiversity is a finite resource, and we are going to end up with nothing left ... if nothing changes," said Boris Worm, an assistant professor of marine conservation biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Worm led the international team of scientists and economists that examined the role of marine biodiversity in maintaining ecosystem services. The research appears in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.

But areas managed for improved biodiversity can and do recover, Worm says, raising the possibility that the trend can be reversed if humans take action. "Where we [protect marine areas] around the world?from the tropics to temperate ecosystems--we see an increase in species diversity and productivity and stability and economic revenue from those ecosystems," he said.

Consistent Response

Worm and colleagues examined the impact of species loss at local, regional, and global scales and in a variety of ecosystems.

Everywhere they looked, they got the same result: The greater the loss of diversity, the greater the impact on ecosystem services.

"Ecosystems that were losing species were always more fragile, always more vulnerable, always more likely to see a whole collapse of fisheries, more likely to show an increase in toxic events like fish kills and things like that," Worm said.

"Whereas those systems that still had a full portfolio of species or had large species diversity to begin with were more robust, better buffered against change."

In a telephone briefing with reporters, Worm added that he and his colleagues were "really surprised, to some extent shocked, by the consistency of the result."

Worm told National Geographic News that the tight-knit connections between ocean communities and their habitats might explain why species diversity affects ecosystem services so closely.

He likened the relationship to a house of cards: Remove one species or habitat type in the system, and the whole thing comes tumbling down.

But Donald Boesch at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Cambridge is not convinced. In a Science news article on the study, he said "it falls short of demonstrating that biodiversity losses are the primary drivers of why the services have declined."

For example, excessive fertilizer runoff into the Chesapeake Bay is most likely behind the decline in water quality there, not loss of biodiversity, he says.

Reversing the Trend

But the finding that areas do recover if managed is a major bright spot to the otherwise dark study, Worm says.

"This can be done. It's not beyond our reach at all," he said.

The study recommends an ecosystem management approach that sets aside some zones completely off-limits to any human activity while opening others to certain uses, such as recreation, research, and fishing.

"It's exactly what we do on land, and we've been doing it for a long time," Worm said.

Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, praised the study for presenting compelling evidence that ecosystems can recover if appropriate action is taken.

"That said, their first conclusion about the downward spiral [of biodiversity] suggests that the rate of implementation of those recovery tools needs to be sped up quite significantly," she said.

But "just making recommendations doesn't make things happen, unfortunately."

However, she points to several promising developments, including a proactive movement toward marine reserves and protected areas off the coast of California and Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

She also promotes "catch shares" fisheries management, in which commercial fishers have a stake in maintaining healthy fish populations because they are granted a percentage of the total allowable catch. As more fish are available, the fishers get a larger share.

"The whole idea is to align fishing and conservation interests so there is incentive for fishermen to conserve stocks so we have something to catch in the future," she said.

On the individual level, Worm says, people need to pay attention to what they eat.

"All of these species end up in our bellies somewhere, so of course we have a lot of control over what is caught and how it is caught," he said. "We need to make informed choices on the fish we eat."

Yahoo News 3 Nov 06
Overfishing may harm seafood population
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Clambakes, crabcakes, swordfish steaks and even humble fish sticks could be little more than a fond memory in a few decades.

If current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, the populations of just about all seafood face collapse by 2048, a team of ecologists and economists warns in a report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems," said the lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

"I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are--beyond anything we suspected," Worm said.

While the study focused on the oceans, concerns have been expressed by ecologists about threats to fish in the Great Lakes and other lakes, rivers and freshwaters, too.

Worm and an international team spent four years analyzing 32 controlled experiments, other studies from 48 marine protected areas and global catch data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's database of all fish and invertebrates worldwide from 1950 to 2003.

The scientists also looked at a 1,000-year time series for 12 coastal regions, drawing on data from archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archaeological data.

"At this point 29 percent of fish and seafood species have collapsed--that is, their catch has declined by 90 percent. It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating," Worm said.

"If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime--by 2048."

"It looks grim and the projection of the trend into the future looks even grimmer," he said.

"But it's not too late to turn this around. It can be done, but it must be done soon. We need a shift from single species management to ecosystem management. It just requires a big chunk of political will to do it."

The researchers called for new marine reserves, better management to prevent overfishing and tighter controls on pollution.

In the 48 areas worldwide that have been protected to improve marine biodiversity, they found, "diversity of species recovered dramatically, and with it the ecosystem's productivity and stability."

While seafood forms a crucial concern in their study, the researchers were analyzing overall biodiversity of the oceans.

The more species in the oceans, the better each can handle exploitation. "Even bugs and weeds make clear, measurable contributions to ecosystems," said co-author J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.

The National Fisheries Institute, a trade association for the seafood industry, does not share the researchers alarm.

"Fish stocks naturally fluctuate in population," the institute said in a statement. "By developing new technologies that capture target species more efficiently and result in less impact on other species or the environment, we are helping to ensure our industry does not adversely affect surrounding ecosystems or damage native species.

Seafood has become a growing part of Americans' diet in recent years. Consumption totaled 16.6 pounds per person in 2004, the most recent data available, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That compares with 15.2 pounds in 2000.

Joshua Reichert, head of the private Pew Charitable Trusts' environment program, pointed out that worldwide fishing provides $80 billion in revenue and 200 million people depend on it for their livelihoods. For more than 1 billion people, many of whom are poor, fish is their main source of protein, he said.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's National Center for Ecological Synthesis and Analysis. ___


Yahoo News 2 Nov 06
World fish, seafood could collapse by 2048: study
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's fish and seafood populations will collapse by 2048 if current trends in habitat destruction and overfishing continue, resulting in less food for humans, researchers said on Thursday.

In an analysis of scientific data going back to the 1960s and historical records over a thousand years, the researchers found that marine biodiversity -- the variety of ocean fish, shellfish, birds, plants and micro-organisms -- has declined dramatically, with 29 percent of species already in collapse.

Extending this pattern into the future, the scientists calculated that by 2048 all species would be in collapse, which the researchers defined as having catches decline 90 percent from the maximum catch.

This applies to all species, from mussels and clams to tuna and swordfish, said Boris Worm, lead author of the study, which was published in the current edition of the journal Science.

Ocean mammals, including seals, killer whales and dolphins, are also affected.

"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging," Worm said in a statement. "In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -- beyond anything we suspected."

When ocean species collapse, it makes the ocean itself weaker and less able to recover from shocks like global climate change, Worm said.

The decline in marine biodiversity is largely due to over-fishing and destruction of habitat, Worm said in a telephone interview from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

OVER-EXPLOITATION

The loss of biodiversity makes ocean ecosystems less able to recover from the effects of global climate change, pollution and over-exploitation, Worm said.

He likened a diverse ocean environment to a diversified investment portfolio. With lots of different species in the oceans, just as with lots of different kinds of investments, "You spread the risk around," Worm said.

"In the ocean ecosystem, we're losing a lot of the species in our stock portfolio, and by that we're losing productivity and stability. by losing stability, we're losing the ability of the system to self-repair."

"This research shows we'll have few viable fisheries by 2050," Andrew Sugden, international managing editor of Science, told reporters at a telephone news briefing. "This work also shows that it's not too late to act."

To help depleted areas rebuild, marine-life reserves and no-fishing zones need to be set up, Worm and other authors of the study said. This has proven effective in places including the Georges Bank off the U.S. Atlantic coast, he said.

With marine reserves in place, fishing near the reserves can improve as much as four-fold, Worm said.

Beyond the economic benefits to coastal communities where fishing is a critical industry, there are environmental benefits to rebuilding marine biodiversity, the scientists said.

Depleted coastal ecosystems are vulnerable to invasive species, disease outbreaks, coastal flooding and noxious algae blooms, they reported.

Certain kinds of aquaculture -- like the traditional Chinese cultivation of carp using vegetable waste -- can also be beneficial, according to the scientists. However, farms that aim to raise carnivorous fish are less effective.

BBC 2 Nov 06
'Only 50 years left' for sea fish
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website

There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study. Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

Writing in the journal Science, the international team of researchers says fishery decline is closely tied to a broader loss of marine biodiversity. But a greater use of protected areas could safeguard existing stocks.

"The way we use the oceans is that we hope and assume there will always be another species to exploit after we've completely gone through the last one," said research leader Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Canada.

"What we're highlighting is there is a finite number of stocks; we have gone through one-third, and we are going to get through the rest," he told the BBC News website.

Steve Palumbi, from Stanford University in California, one of the other scientists on the project, added: "Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood."

Spanning the seas

This is a vast piece of research, incorporating scientists from many institutions in Europe and the Americas, and drawing on four distinctly different kinds of data.

Catch records from the open sea give a picture of declining fish stocks. In 2003, 29% of open sea fisheries were in a state of collapse, defined as a decline to less than 10% of their original yield.

Bigger vessels, better nets, and new technology for spotting fish are not bringing the world's fleets bigger returns - in fact, the global catch fell by 13% between 1994 and 2003.

Historical records from coastal zones in North America, Europe and Australia also show declining yields, in step with declining species diversity; these are yields not just of fish, but of other kinds of seafood too.

Zones of biodiversity loss also tended to see more beach closures, more blooms of potentially harmful algae, and more coastal flooding.

Experiments performed in small, relatively contained ecosystems show that reductions in diversity tend to bring reductions in the size and robustness of local fish stocks.

This implies that loss of biodiversity is driving the declines in fish stocks seen in the large-scale studies.

The final part of the jigsaw is data from areas where fishing has been banned or heavily restricted. These show that protection brings back biodiversity within the zone, and restores populations of fish just outside.

"The image I use to explain why biodiversity is so important is that marine life is a bit like a house of cards," said Dr Worm. "All parts of it are integral to the structure; if you remove parts, particularly at the bottom, it's detrimental to everything on top and threatens the whole structure.

"And we're learning that in the oceans, species are very strongly linked to each other - probably more so than on land."

Protected interest

What the study does not do is attribute damage to individual activities such as over-fishing, pollution or habitat loss; instead it paints a picture of the cumulative harm done across the board.

Even so, a key implication of the research is that more of the oceans should be protected.

But the extent of protection is not the only issue, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the global marine programme at IUCN, the World Conservation Union.

"The benefits of marine-protected areas are quite clear in a few cases; there's no doubt that protecting areas leads to a lot more fish and larger fish, and less vulnerability," he said.

"But you also have to have good management of marine parks and good management of fisheries. Clearly, fishing should not wreck the ecosystem, bottom trawling being a good example of something which does wreck the ecosystem."

But, he said, the concept of protecting fish stocks by protecting biodiversity does make sense.

"This is a good compelling case; we should protect biodiversity, and it does pay off even in simple monetary terms through fisheries yield."

Protecting stocks demands the political will to act on scientific advice - something which Boris Worm finds lacking in Europe, where politicians have ignored recommendations to halt the iconic North Sea cod fishery year after year.

Without a ban, scientists fear the North Sea stocks could follow the Grand Banks cod of eastern Canada into apparently terminal decline.

"I'm just amazed, it's very irrational," he said. "You have scientific consensus and nothing moves. It's a sad example; and what happened in Canada should be such a warning, because now it's collapsed it's not coming back."
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