A vast majority of Australian households have seafood meals throughout the year.
According to the Dept. of Agriculture Australia has the world’s third largest Exclusive Economic Zone. However, the low productivity of our marine waters limits wild capture fisheries production.
This meant that by 2015 an estimated 70 per cent of the seafood we consumed was imported from other fisheries around the world.
In 2016 the United Nations expected fish stocks in oceans and inland waters to significantly contribute to feeding a global population predicted to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 – even though at least 31.4 percent of fish stocks were estimated as fished at a biologically unsustainable level and therefore overfished and, there has been a general decline in global fish take since 1996. [Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, 2016 The State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture]
According to the Dept. of Agriculture Australia has the world’s third largest Exclusive Economic Zone. However, the low productivity of our marine waters limits wild capture fisheries production.
This meant that by 2015 an estimated 70 per cent of the seafood we consumed was imported from other fisheries around the world.
In 2016 the United Nations expected fish stocks in oceans and inland waters to significantly contribute to feeding a global population predicted to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 – even though at least 31.4 percent of fish stocks were estimated as fished at a biologically unsustainable level and therefore overfished and, there has been a general decline in global fish take since 1996. [Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, 2016 The State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture]
Since then
there have been reports
that competition with fishing fleets for the remaining Chinook salmon has
led to a resident population of Orca experiencing sustained near starvation and
studies are now showing that in human-dominated marine ecosystems loss of
populations and species is occurring.
Despite the global situation Australians are still being encouraged to eat more seafood, but how long can this continue?
Despite the global situation Australians are still being encouraged to eat more seafood, but how long can this continue?
In 2018
another study was published which looked at ocean processes over the next 282 years
and this study predicts that the global fish catch will continue its current decline.
Climate change is
rapidly warming the Earth and altering ecosystems on land and at sea that
produce our food. In the oceans, most added heat from climate warming is still
near the surface and will take centuries to work down into deeper waters. But
as this happens, it will change ocean circulation patterns and make ocean food
chains less productive.
In a recent study, I worked with colleagues from
five universities and laboratories to examine how climate warming out to the
year 2300 could affect marine ecosystems and global fisheries. We wanted to
know how sustained warming would change the supply of key nutrients that
support tiny plankton, which in turn are food for fish.
We found that warming on
this scale would alter key factors that drive marine ecosystems, including
winds, water temperatures, sea ice cover
and ocean circulation. The resulting disruptions would transfer nutrients from
surface waters down into the deep ocean, leaving less at the surface to support
plankton growth.
As marine ecosystems
become increasingly nutrient-starved over time, we estimate global fish catch
could be reduced 20 percent by 2300, and by nearly 60 percent across the North
Atlantic. This would be an enormous reduction in a key food source for millions
of people.
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