Future of Commercial Fishing?

I don't mind

hippies huggin trees - really i don't.

I especially like the ones who hug the trees really hard...I mean really hard - both arms wrapped around so tight and fingers of both hands interlocked so that the fingers go white...

It's best they hang on really tight, coz, when I get thru scarfing it and backin it down - i really love to hear em yodelling for help as I scream "tiiiimmmmbbbeeerrr"..

That make a few nasty gurgling noises after they hit ground, but if you have your stihl brand orange ear muffs on tight and rev up ya stihl chainsaw real loud a few times - usually they've gone quiet by the time it idles down again!


Course the ones what won't let go even after they are dead are a problem - ya hafta saw up those lags straight away before they start to stink the place up a bit...

The pieces are easey enough to peel off once you break the log down into lumber!

Yup yup yup - I don't mind tree huggin hippies one bit!

Cheers
(he says as he walks away hummin the tune "I'm a lumberjack & i'm OK...")

 

"there are boats in the cheasapeake bay virginia "

But there not responsable for the disaperance of the oysters , the lubbers are.

The Chessy drains a HUGE!! area of land with the fertilizer , and lawn chemicals for miles and miles in every direction draining in and depleating the 0-2.
AS does sewage , rain runoff ect.

To restore the water "Only" requires the banning of lawn chemicals for say 300 miles in every direction. Some chance!

The chicken farmers also will need to clean up their acts.

They purchase tons of grain and turn it into chickens and FERTILIZER, which has no value as its too costly to return to the grain fields where commercial mfgd fertilizer is used. Fee chicken crap anyone?

The solution is to use hearty Chinese oysters ,that can thrive in marginal waters, but again the hissy fit crew gets upset.

FAST FRED

 

The other solution is to let iran build a few nukes - that f***ing nutter will use 'em so we lets old blugh (our nutty warmunger) and your fella, whats 'is name, cactus rose or something to do with flowers get there first nuke 'im nuke each other KABOOM end of world.

Nature can then start again, and maybe get it right next time! Bit drastic I know, but it would work..................eventually!

 

fast fred you are right! there are multiple problems with it all. you guys on this site are pretty smart ,,,,even walruss!,,,,,,,somebody must be doing something now .who? the squeaking wheel gets the grease.does anyone know who to contact? lets do it ,and stop talking about it/ ,,, if we dont get the results we want /well go another rought.....maybe the solutions are easier than we think;rembereeeer buerocrats understand paperwork and polls more than us as we say in southern Ohio( lets start seein' the brains!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I know freddys smarter than me ,cause he can spell [oyster]right the first time longliner.

 

HAHAHAHAHA,Goood one Trouty....But seriously, there is no solution, the pollies wont do anything, they cant it's a multi billion dollar industry.Imagine any pollie in any country tryin to stop or drastically reduce fishing quoters..it's not going to happen....the only time it will, is when there are no more fish to fish.....

 

Sadly Seadogs

I believe you are most likely correct.

The ocean belongs to no one and many of the cultures that surround ours, believe in raping it (because they have no other option - with their large populations and few natural resources!).

The Ocean although vast - is NOT as prolific in life as we mistakenly think. Like the land - there are some very vast area's of ocean - that are essentially marine deserts.

Sure -we find fish in such places occasionally - but usually near some point of reference for the fish - a large coral outcropping etc (basically an oasis in the middle of the marine desert)..and we catch a swag of fish there.

Many make the mistake of assuming the whole oceans are like that - and they certainly are not.

We can and do very easily fish out our oceans of enough lifeforms to put species on the brink of extinction. International ocean going processing factories don't help.

But - essentially - the richest areas are the shallow benthic zones near land - where sunlight enters the water and weed / algae etc grow which kicks off the food chain. We live in those areas too - right alongside the food factories of the ocean - the shallow benthic zones.

We pour our polution out into these food factories - we overfish them - right down to juvenile stocks before they have even had a chance to spawn, on our doorsteps.

Now we are harvesting krill for goodness sakes....

When we get to eating that low down on the food chain - you know collapse of our species population is imminent..

We know the dangers & we clearly know the consequences of our actions - yet we keep on doing the exact things that cause the problem.

If it's not New Clear War that gets us - or wars over the last oil reserves...then sure as eggs collapse of the planets life systems (read the air we breath) - will certainly get us in the end.

The "trick" - if you like - is to enjoy it while you can and be the last rat off the sinking ship! (Taking all the cheese with you!)

Cheers!

 

As Trouty points out, the seas are vast and basically un-regulated (or un-regulate-able). One angle on the issue is the "tragedy of the commons" which is basically a dilemma of racing to extract a finite resource because if you don't, someone else will, and you lose.

I thought about commenting on this thread soon after it started, and my basic comment was that legal/economic/political solutions are VERY difficult (and something that I work on a lot and am trying not to bore everyone with). There are global forums, and there have been agreements, but we are still stuck with the issues of (i) "you can't tell me what to do", (ii) the costs of supervision and "imposed" inefficiency, and (iii) allocation of cost (i.e. fishermen are unemployed, fish costs more in the market, taxpayers foot some new regime, etc.).

So, thinking to spare everyone from my legal/political angle, I was also thinking about the Chesapeake skipjacks and what an elegant solution they represented (w/r/t oysters). Especially -on this forum- since the solution promoted historic sailboats. But before I hit "send" on my message, I thought that I'd better look it up, and I found that, in fact, there are many of the same location/volume/manner/permit restrictions on Chesapeake oyster harvesting as we're talking about with open seas fishing - so I held back. I'm not a fisherman; I thought I had an example of a particular solution that, while in a specific application (i.e. no foreign invaders), worked; I was, at least, half wrong, so I didn't send; waste of everyone's time for any of us to be too clever by half.

Enforcement is a cost item. It's easy to say that "someone should [_____] (fill in the blank), and it's usually true, but the allocation of that expense, both enforcement/monitoring cost and loss of revenue needs to be allocated (new cost), and it's hard to do that efficiently. Plus people get pissed off (new cost).

A true, working solution needs to be a lot more natural than just rules. It has to work for the people who have spent money on their fishing boats and earn their livelihood through fishing, and its costs of monitoring/maintenance should not eclipse its net return.

Doing a little reverse-engineering, I would say that any solution means that fish-products are more expensive in the market - I think that's OK. But the trick is to determine where that extra revenue goes: is it compensating fishermen for fishing in a less efficient manner; is it paying the new fish-police or the related lawyers/lawmakers; is it financing fish farms or protected zones.......?

There are some interesting parallels in energy and pollution -both, also, a "common" resource. There has been some very good progress on carbon-credits, pollution allocations, etc. that might inform a solution for the fishing issue.

I think I've broken my earlier effort to spare you all my long thoughts (sorry!), but I'd be interested to hear -from you who are closer to the water on the fishing issue- how you think revenue, costs and burdens could be allocated. (i.e. what would actually work for fishermen).

Regards,
JPC

 

Yes and No, that's the trouble with this subject (like most conservation subjects). Yes something should be done, and No not by me as 'me & mine' will suffer!

the trouble is we will all suffer in the long run if something is'nt started NOW. OK there are some places and instances where a start has been made and is quite effective, but these tend to be in areas where close control can and is maintained mainly thro' the geography of the place! The Fal and Chesaspeake oyster fisheries immediately spring to mind. Closely controlled by the fishermen whose livelyhood can be affected. But these area's and fishing can easily be controlled due to remoteness from other types of fishing and fishermen.

Area's under the 'control' of the EEC are kind of controlled but 'poaching' is so widespread to make it totally pointless, both from the preservationist and the local fishermans viewpoint! Whilst in these situations the average (there will always be few idiots in any society no matter what - 10% or thereabouts normally) local fisherman knows and will attempt to look after 'his' stocks. But when a bunch of 'out of towners' comes stealing what is a guy to do -after all if someone is going to have it it may as well be me! Get what I can for my family NOW!

As I've said before my view is that a widespread total ban of a particular style of gear/fishery is the only way forward! e.g. 'ban all nets from anywhere' one penalty only, any vessel found, at sea, with nets onboard is immediately scuttled, no matter the flag either carrying or scuttling. then we will get somewhere! Five years is all we need! then return to a proper controlled environment (patrolled and controlled by the fishermen themselves). Unfortunately this requires everybody in the world to co-operate. With the state of modern politics no chance!!!!

Alternatively each country MUST take charge of it's own destiny and tell the world how it will control it's own waters in future - and do it! It worked for Iceland in the sixties and seventies! It can again!

the world knows the choice!

"I don't suffer from insanity, I'm enjoying every minute of it!"

the Walrus

 

The best histories of fisheries recovery and sustainable fishing in my home land's waters (Galicia), have been those where fisherman organized themselves to look after the fishing grounds, for sure with the help of authorities for fining and pursuing infractors, etc. Probably this is the best way in coastal waters. More difficult is what happens in international waters, because enforcing the law there is much more difficult; although there are several producers organizations working closely with scientific institutions and authorities on auto-regulations for certain fisheries, that are beginning to attain some encouraging results.
But it's not going to be an easy task...

 

Or go pinch other people's fish!

 

Hey, Walrus! I'm the Eggman...! I haven't go pinching anywhere!

 

Guillermo, appoligies, not you personally of course but there are (and have been) vessels from your part of the world seen dragging nets round ours!

And none of this getting your own back for Cadiz (Drake) or Trafalgar (Nelson) and many others! But I guess it might be worth a try!

 

In Vigo (my born town) we do not care a lot about Cadiz or Trafalgar, you know... Our pride has rather been more hurt because of the Vigo Bay battle (1702) where the english-dutch army (Rooke) sunk the "Silver Fleet" and stole from us a nice part of its treasures....Maybe that's why some galician fishermen still go nowadays to UK waters to commit piracy...

 

From the naval viewpoint we were about evenly matched, but you were in a fortified harbour, this gives you a slightly better advantage AND you managed to get most of the Silver away (or you lost it). Not very good really! Shame on you for loosing all that money (Ok not you personally but you know what I mean!)

But a million in silver is not to be laughed at, time we got some more

the Walrus