The Impact of Fishing Industries and Sustainability of Fisheries

By: Katie Wallace &

Lindsay Bell

What is a Fishery?

There Are Three Main Sectors in the Fishing Industry:

The Commercial SectorThe Traditional Sector

The Recreational Sector

Sustainability

of

Fisheries

Sustainability?“The word sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere (tenere, to hold; sus, up). Dictionaries provide more than ten meanings for sustain, the main ones being to ‘maintain’, ‘support’, or ‘endure’” (Wikipedia.org).

A fishery is sustainable only if the population of fish doesn’t change over a period of time, it has to stay around, or exactly the same from year to year.Fish must be “harvested” at the same rate to prevent the general population form increasing or decreasing.

“Sustainable management of fisheries cannot be achieved without an acceptance that the long-term goals of fisheries management are the same as those of environmental conservation.”

- Daniel Pauly and Dave Preikshot

Population Dynamics in Fisheries:1.Birth Rate2.Growth Rate3.Mortality

Rate

Population Dynamics…• Harvestable surplus: the amount of fish that

can be harvested WITHOUT affecting the population size of a species. If the birth, growth and mortality rates are measured, over time, the harvestable surplus will be found.

• The amount of fish killed in the harvestable surplus is the compensatory mortality, this is when the number of fish killed for harvest, takes the place of the naturally occurring deaths.

• Additive mortality: includes all other deaths.Population size – “the number of individual organisms in a population” (Wikipedia.org).

The Maximum Sustainabl

e Yield:

Things That AffectSustainability…

(1) Pollution:

The fundamental causes of marine pollution are: “oil spills, toxic wastes and illegal dumping” (Three Key Causes of Marine Pollution, By Jonathon Hilton).

(2) Habitat Loss

Hurricanes and other natural processes can cause temporary damage, but humans cause permanent damage.

• Fishing techniques (“bottom trawling”).• Pollution (fish and other animals/plants in the ocean aren't used to all the waste we’re putting in the ocean).• Tourism (brings divers and such into close contact with fragile ecosystems, such as reefs).• Climate change* - the worst of all!

(4) Climate Change:

“Marine ecosystems are undoubtedly under-resourced, overlooked and under threat and our collective knowledge of impacts on marine life is a mere drop in the ocean” (ScienceDaily, 2008).

Out of all the factors that affect the sustainability, climate change it the worst out of all of them! Climate change affects almost everything in the ocean, from the biggest mammals, to the molecular structure of the sea water. CO₂ in the atmosphere is reacting with the sea water, and because of this, the sea water has been acidifying over time. And the worst part of it is that by doing every day things, like driving to work, we speed this process up. Global warming is heating up the ocean temperatures as well. Marine life aren't adapted well to the rising temperatures, and it would take a long time for them to adapt. In some cases, rising water temperatures might be the thing that pushes a species to extinction. We are a catalyst when it comes to climate change, to say the least.

Overfishing is directly caused by the commercial fishing sector. Industrial fishing techniques usually involve huge nets to catch the fish. Nets that are too huge. To put it simply, some species are being harvested faster than they can reproduce, which lowers the population, and could eventually lead to - and has already led to in some cases – extinction.

(3) Overfishing

How do we get past the obstacles?• “Marine Protected Areas”• Fish Farms• Laws/Agreements/Treaties• Boost Awareness in Communities

Are Our Fisheries

Sustainable?

Atlantic Cod Fishery Collapse

• In 1992, the Atlantic cod fishery collapsed, and they are still trying to make a comeback today.

• In the 1980, Canadians caught more than 250 000 tonnes of cod per year, and the numbers increased in the 1990s.

• Finally there weren't enough cod found in Newfoundland, actually, they were almost extinct. The Atlantic cod fishery was forced to shut down.

The Lesson Learned• Fisheries are very careful about conservation now. They

keep track of the populations, and all of the population dynamics. Canadian fishers might not have been sustainable now, but based on their reaction to the cod fishery collapse, we think that they are more sustainable than ever, and they can only get even better as time goes on.

• It would be safe to say that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada runs a tight ship when it comes to conservation, and that the population of all the fish are in safe hands now. Something really bad happened, but something even better has come out of it.

Works Cited• “Biomass (ecology)”. Last modified December 9, 2011. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 12, 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology).

• “Birth Rate”. Last Modified December 8, 2011. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 12, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate.

• “Bycatch”. Last modified September 30, 2011. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 9, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By-catch.

• “Canadian Atlantic Fisheries Collapse”. Green Peace. Accessed December 12, 2011. http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/cbio/cancod.html.

• “Commercial Fishing”. Last modified December 12, 2011. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 12, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_fishing.

• “Environmental Impact of Fishing”. Last modified 2011/09/12. Eionet, GEMET Thesaurus. Accessed December 7, 2011. http://www.eionet.europa.eu/gemet/concept?langcode=en&cp=2834&ns=1.

• “Environmental Impact of Fishing”. Last modified October 20, 2011. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 7, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_fishing.

• “Fishing”. Last modified December 12, 2011. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 9, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing.

• “Population Dynamics of Fisheries”. Last modified December 12, 2011. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 12, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_dynamics_of_fisheries.

• “Sustainability”. Last Modified December 10, 2011. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 12, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability.

• “Sustainable Fishery”. Last Modified December 7, 2011. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 12, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_fishery.

• “Traditional Fishing”. Last Modified December 12, 2011. Wkikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed December 12, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing#Traditional_fishing.