Romantic Cod and Fish Populations?

[Jaffa]

Rant over, whose round was it?

[Ken Davison South Wales]

No you are right Jaffa and I accept that they are entitled to earn a reasonable living.

 

I think one of the biggest problems is we as a world population have always looked upon fish as a cheap easy source of food.

 

Whilst the methods of fishing were basic no damage was done, when big business got involved the only thing that mattered was how many tons can you put on the quayside.

 

Take the whale, when indigenous populations hunted for food in canoes using all of the animal landed no harm was committed it was a natural occurance. Then along came big white hunter and all hell let lose, total carnage and horrendous wastage of a substainable resourse.

 

This same history applies to trawling, in the days when the fishing smacks were going out supplying fish to a local market no damage was done.

 

Country people ate country food and coastal people coastal food.

 

Then along came business some time between the twenties and thirties so not that long ago.

 

You did not have to grow fish they were out there for the taking and we have all that inland market to supply. Through the fifties and sixties there was only one thing on the whole of the fishing industries mind, profit.

 

Gunboats came into play because pressure was applied by the fishing industries in order to protect their business, not fish stocks.

 

When countries wiped out there local stocks they looked for ways of exploiting loopholes to deploy boats in other areas.

 

This has all happened in our life time and the time has come for hands to be raised in recognition of the facts.

 

Until that happens I cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel, because the basic mental attitude remains entrenched.

 

Sorry to rattle on

[Leon Roskilly]

http://www.free-eco.org/articleDisplay.php?id=285

 

(See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons )

 

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=...=mg17723875.100

(Unfortunately you need to suscribe to get the whole article - it is interesting though!)

 

 

http://www.perc.org/publications/policyser...s/community.php

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 16. February 2005, 08:39 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Leon Roskilly]

If there is to be a solution it will be driven by political demand.

 

So long as people shy away from getting involved, because the problem seems too big, too complex to understand, or do anything about, nothing much is going to happen.

 

Hordes of people burning down the gatehouse and marching up the drive may be naive, wrong-headed, turning their anger onto the wrong people etc., but they do get the attention of the political establishment which is then forced to recognise that there is a problem which they better solve, or else ..............

 

(What is happening now in the political awakenings to the problems beneath the waves that are now making themselves felt ashore, should interest any student of political science. Even I can see predictable patterns emerging)

 

Before we can fix the problem, we have to get the science and economics right.

 

Before we can get the science right, there must be a 'political will' to fund the research, and (more importantly) to act on that.

 

(Any 'fix' will mean change which will impact on people, producing resistance and reaction, but is necessary).

 

The 'political will' grows from what you and I, and thousands of others say, and more importantly do.

 

Just writing a letter helps, even if it's naive, wrong-headed, and our anger is turned onto the wrong people.

 

Doing nothing achieves nothing.

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 16. February 2005, 09:26 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Jaffa]

Ken, the way you refer to business interests, gunboats, and loopholes to deploy boats abroad I presume you mean the big trawler companies, like those operating out of Grimsby, Aberdeen , Hull and Fleetwood up until the 70's?

 

If so, I suspect you fail to understand, as it seems most anglers do, that they have nothing whatsoever to do with the boats that have fished our waters since then. This is the inshore fleet with totally dirrent histories, working practices and cultures.

 

Those trawler companies were screwed when they lost access to Iceland and Faroe, and I'm glad they have gone; they treated their crews like animals and their rich owners had too much power with goverment.

 

The way they got out of the industry is a national disgrace; payouts to mothball the trawlers whose owners then converted the boats to standby vessels for the new oil industry; all the while finding loopholes in employment law so they could avoid paying any redundancy to their crews. What happened with those trawler companies is a national disgrace.

 

Im glad those companies have gone but they have little to do with what has happened in UK waters since.

 

This is where that blame game gets in the way IMO Ken; its important to understand that the fishermen like the one in 101's article had nothing to do with cod wars and all the rest of it.

 

Leon, need to go look at your links, but IMO doing nothing would have given us much better fish stocks than the disastrous attempts at regulation we have used up to date. I do see glimmers of hope in some of what I see nowadays to be fair; its been a long time coming .

 

Demonising the fishermen is not the way to go though.

[Leon Roskilly]

Ken Davison South Wales:

No you are right Jaffa and I accept that they are entitled to earn a reasonable living.

Why?

 

Are housebreakers entitled to earn a reasonable living?

 

Are drug dealers and pimps entitled?

 

People who responsibly access a renewable public resource, in a sustainable way, are entitled to earn a reasonable living (and I'll include many netsmen in that category).

 

But not those who by their actions damage what would otherwise be a renewable publicly owned resource. Certainly not those who are likely to destroy it (even though they may be ignorant of the damage they are doing, rather than unconcerned).

 

Ten men with axes are entitled to make a reasonable living from the wood growing in a forest.

 

Five men with chainsaws, cutting timber at the rate that a hundred men with axes couldn't ever manage, will soon lose their 'right'.

 

As will have the generations who might otherwise have been entitled to a reasonable living if it had not been destroyed by the chain saw men's unrestrained willingness to take what was there before the next man.

 

Too many people with too much technology chasing too few fish.

 

Some will have to earn a 'reasonable' living in another way, and more will need to follow, as the technology becomes ever more 'productive'.

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 16. February 2005, 09:30 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Jaffa]

Leon, fishermen, drug dealers and pimps?

 

Wow. Glad the rest of us are so free of blame when it comes to the environment.

[Jaffa]

White rag anyone? if there are any left!

[101_North]

Only managing some time today to try and catch up with this thread. Although the original article contained some quite glib statements about loved up cod there was a serious element. I'm glad that the serious part has prompted some good discussion.

 

I'll not claim to know much about conserving fish stocks and what's best etc. etc. Hopefully by taking the time to read the various links, articles and opinions posted I can start building a clearer picture for myself.

 

Exactly why I asked the question in the first place

 

Cheers guys

[spanner]

"vigorous fishing stimulates population growth"

 

That can mean a bunch of different things and in isolation is a worthless statement.

 

Population growth can be increased numbers of fish, increased size of individual fish, or increased total biomass.

 

Remove the fish that eat cod eggs and larvae, e.g. sprats, and you have a boom in cod numbers. Is that good news for the cod? Not if you have removed what they feed on as they grow up, e.g. sprats, you just produce a lot of half starved and diseased cod in poor condition.

 

I can't think of a vigorous fishing method that increases the size of the fish though! But I can think of plenty that deplete the stocks, regardless of how you define it!

 

Besides, evidence from different fisheries around the world may not be relevant. What happened with Grand Banks cod is probably relevant to North Sea cod, but just how relevant is evidence from the situation with Orange Roughy, Tuna or Patagonian Toothfish?