MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, November 22nd 2024 - 03:30 UTC

 

 

Fisheries, aquaculture support livelihoods of 8% of world population, says FAO

Monday, January 31st 2011 - 21:21 UTC
Full article 2 comments

The contribution of fish to global diets has reached a record of about 17 kg per person on average, supplying over three billion people with at least 15% of their average animal protein intake. Read full article

Comments

Disclaimer & comment rules
  • briton

    If they can farm salmon in scotland, and other places, cannot they farm-
    other fish in shore to help the sea stock recover, just an idea

    Jan 31st, 2011 - 09:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • GeoffWard

    “About 32% of world fish stocks are estimated to be over-exploited, depleted or recovering and need to be urgently rebuilt, the report says.”

    Absolutely meaningless terminology.

    A fish stock is not a unit commodity - if it were, the North Atlantic cod might be worth a notional '200 stocks' compared to the Roughie of Argentinian waters.

    When we say “ the North Atlantic cod is depleted to the point of extinction” it means much more in terms of human survival than the erradication of the Roughie or the Snow Crab.

    Yes, it's good that communities farm shrimp and salmon - the elephant in this room is that every farmed individual needs ten times its own weight in food to be found for it and, for slow growing species, much more - where does this huge tonnage of fish-food come from?....that's right, the sea.

    The switch from wild fisheries to farmed fisheries looks good if you just look at tonnages - but multiply the farmed tonnage by ten, add it to the farmed tonnage, add this to the wild fisheries tonnage, and you see the massive effect on the aquatic ecosystem.

    We collect the 'easy' species as fish food (pellets) - sprats, mackerel, herring, pilchard, etc. Once these have gone the fish farming industry will revert to a cottage industry once more and Japan (especially) will yearn it's passing.

    Feb 01st, 2011 - 08:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0

Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!