Subject: Group F

Message: Examine the sustainability of ocean fishing. (10 marks) 

“Men have been hunting fish under the ocean ever since they discovered they were there”

About 99.4% of the Earth’s oceans are fishable and are used as fishing grounds. The recent improvements in technology over the past decade has allowed fishermen to use bigger boats, bigger fish nets (as big as football fields) and radars that can detect where the large fishing grounds are located. Thanks to this, the fishing industries profit more because of a bigger catch. Although the fish stocks are being depleted, the demand for fish doesn’t seem to reduce with the increasing population and the increasing popularity of fishery products. By fishing in abundance, we are causing an irreparable damage to the ecosystem but the “problem is that we’re too good”. There

are certain measures that can be addressed in terms of finding a solution for sustainable ocean fishing: we can always close down fishing areas and prohibit fishermen and fish industries to fish in those areas. However, these still fail to address the problem of over fishing because it has become a large business and the fish industry are still catching small fishes in large quantities that have no chance to reproduce and in turn is causing a decline in fish stocks. Although many efforts have been made to reduce the size of fish stocks but still it isn’t enough to repair the damages we had caused to the fish. But is there really a way that would allow us to maintain our fish yields without causing any damage to the ecosystem? Scientists believe that if we continue to fish like this, in fifty years, there won’t be any fish left to be pulled out of the sea.

How can we solve this global problem? Potential solutions for over fishing are already being put in place by States such as Alaska who are limiting not only the number of boats that can fish in their waters but also the time period of how long fishermen can stay in those waters. More efforts like this should be made: decreasing the size of fish nets, more banning of fishing grounds, etc.