0
KUALA MUDA (Malaysia): The old adage ‘there are plenty more fish in the sea’ no longer rings true for Malaysian fisherman Shafie Said. “These days, we have to go farther offshore and into deeper waters to fish,” said Shafie, aged 39, his face weather beaten after 16 years sailing tropical waters in the Andaman Sea, off the coast of northwest Malaysia.
“Sometimes we return empty handed,” Shafie said sadly.
It is a story told across Asia by millions of fishermen who ply the region’s seas to bring home their main, and often only, source of income.
A staple in Asia with its extensive coastlines and poor populations, seafood provides up to 70 per cent of the animal protein intake of most Asians.
But the tide is turning as fish stocks in Asia have declined by 70 per cent in the past 25 years, says Stephen Hall, head of WorldFish, a non-profit research body based in northern Malaysia.
“We are taking far too many fishes out of the sea and not leaving enough there to grow and re-generate,” Hall said at his seaside office on the Malaysian resort island of Penang.
Compounding the problem is global warming, which will bring rising sea levels, higher sea-surface temperatures, higher salinity and greater weather extremes from droughts to storms.
Scientists predict mean sea levels will rise by 10-90 cm over this century, with most estimates in the range of 30-50 cm.
“This will likely damage or destroy many coastal ecosystems such as mangroves and salt marshes, which are essential to maintaining many wild fish stocks,” explained a WorldFish report.
Warming seas are changing fish migration patterns with some fish heading south and others moving north, damaging entire ecosystems and affecting reproduction and replenishment rates.
Scientists in Australia are already warning of a massive decline in fish along the country’s eastern seaboard with marine life such as yellow-fin tuna and stinging jellyfish moving towards Antarctica as sea waters warm.
“It’s not a disaster for the ones that can move south. It is for the ones that can’t move south,” Dr Alistair Hobday, the lead author of a recent report from the CSIRO, Australia’s premier scientific institution, told recently.
FISHERMEN’S LIVELIHOOD AT RISK: And it’s not just the environment that is at risk.
Fishermen in Asia and across the Indian Ocean in Africa are economically vulnerable to the decline in fish stocks, which directly affects their livelihoods, local economies and diet.
Poor and often uneducated, many are unaware of the need to help marine life rejuvenate by throwing back immature fish and avoiding catching turtles and other sea creatures in nets.
“Fishers need to reduce their reliance on narrow resources by learning to exploit a broader range of species and pursue alternative sources of income and fish production such as marine and aquaculture,” Hall explained.
But teaching the world’s estimated 29 million fishermen about sustainable fishing is an enormous task, especially as many live in countries where education systems are poor, poverty endemic and where there is little investment in aquaculture projects.
WorldFish suggests governments enforce tighter controls over fishing such as ceilings on the number of boats allowed to operate in certain areas and institute a vessel registration system. But enforcing such a system may be close to impossible.
Another solution is expanding fish farms in Asia. But these require significant investment as well as a successful campaign to convince fishermen to change their lifestyles from plying the seas for fish to raising them in ponds on land.—Reuters
