The Environmental Impact of Fisheries and Fish Farming on a Global Scale

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The Environmental Impact of Fisheries and Fish Farming on a Global Scale

On our Oceanography class trip to La Jolla, California, we spent a day on the Ocean Institute boat running tests and observing sea life. To collect a sample of the different fish in the area we dragged a large net in the water, which the volunteers said they don’t do often because it is destructive to the environment. I found it interesting that catching fish in this way could be harmful not only to the fish, but to the ocean environment itself. I am a pescetarianism for environmental reasons, but I never considered the environmental effects of fishing. My experience made we want to learn about commercial fishing and if it had any serious effects on the environment. This paper is a simple investigation into commercial fisheries, fish farming and the impact they are having on fish populations and the environment.

Marine fisheries are large commercial fishing companies that recklessly catch mass amounts of fish, causing decline in marine fish populations and irreversible changes to the oceanic environment. Scientists Goldburg and Naylor record fishery’s statistics who report the amount fish caught globally by commercial fisheries to be about 90 million metric tons per year (21). Due to this excessive volume, it has been estimated that ninety percent of large fish in the world, like sharks and swordfish, have been wiped out (Goldburg and Naylor 21). Harris and Codur site the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s statistics, which show that sixty percent of major fish species in eleven of the fifteen most important global fisheries are in decline (1). Such a population decrease, seemingly impossible to restore, one would assume must be ...

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Pauly, Daniel and Dirk Zeller (Lead Authors); J. Emmett Duffy (Topic Editor). 2006. "Marine fisheries." Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). (2006). 25 Mar. 2010

Pauly, Daniel, Reg Watson, and Jackie Alder. "Global Trends in World Fisheries: Impacts on Marine Ecosystems and Food Security." Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences,Fisheries: A Future? Vol. 360.No. 1453, (2005): 5-12 28 Mar. 2010

Norse, Elliot A., et al. eds. Marine Conservation Biology: the science of maintaining the sea's biodiversity. Washinginton DC: Island Press, 2005.

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