EDITORIAL
Of all the environmental crises facing the planet in the opening decade of the 21st century, the deterioration of the oceans may be the least discussed. People still seem to view the vastness of the seas as a kind of immunity to the unprecedented pressures placed on them by mankind. Scientists have been sounding the warning for some time, however.
Logic tells us that most of the pollutants used on the land eventually make their way to the oceans. The runoff from agricultural fertilisers and pesticides has created vast dead zones off of every continent. But many marine scientists believe that the biggest threat to the ocean environment, even greater than pollution, is overfishing.
The increasing demand for fish the world over, coupled with innovations that allow fishing fleets to zero in on fish stocks and ensnare them with ever greater efficiency, often at great harm to the fisheries themselves, have led to the depletion of many species, and some, such as abalone, have become commercially extinct.
A report released in November 2007 by Australia's Lowy Institute for International Policy says that many fish species native to Southeast Asian waters may disappear in the next decade. "Since the number of fishers, vessels and the intensity of fishing is still increasing, all resources are expected to be exploited and over-exploited in a decade," the study said.
The study found that the density of fish in the Gulf of Thailand declined by 86 percent between 1961 and 1991, and the amount of fish caught per hour by individual fishing trawlers had fallen by more than sevenfold in that 30-year period.
Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines currently rank among the top 12 fish-producing countries in the world. "The crisis will have an impact not only on eating habits but also on the economies of these countries," the report said. "The livelihoods of up to 100 million people could be affected."
The problem is not limited to Southeast Asia or the Pacific, of course. In general the waters of the Atlantic have been more seriously overfished than the Pacific.
All is not doom and gloom, however. With proper conservation efforts, which include strict and verifiable catch allowances, most fish species can make a comeback. Regional and national agencies and organisations the world over are working to enact measures to rebuild depleted populations and allow them to replenish naturally, but these measures require the support of governments and the fishing industry.
An essential part of the strategy also involves closing off some fisheries to commercial exploitation indefinitely in what are known as marine protected areas. MPAs are obviously not popular among most fishermen, but it is probably the only viable option when fish stocks are seriously depleted.
At the very least MPAs provide pockets of diversity in increasingly barren oceans, and it is expected that at some point the benefits of such protected zones will spill over into adjacent marine areas. Last week it was reported that a heavily fished area off the coast of Devon in southwest England had shown a significant revival after being completely closed to fishing for just five years, with lobsters seven times more abundant within the protected zone than outside.
The Regional Action Plan to Strengthen a Resilient Network of Effective Marine Protected Areas in Southeast Asia: 2002-2012 is a proposal put forward by several environmental organisations in line with the directives of the Millennium Development Goals to "devote urgent attention to creating and expanding marine protected area networks." Toward that end a workshop will be held in Jakarta in the coming week by the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), in cooperation with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, bringing together scientists, experts, managers and staff working on protected areas in the region to draft guidelines for the effective management of terrestrial and marine transboundary protected areas. All Asean nations should diligently support these efforts.
Prev
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next
