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So, Susannah, what problem are we mulling over today?
Can we solve our overfishing problem and sustainably satisfy the world's hunger for fish? According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, or the FAO, in 2020 the International Trade of Fisheries and Aquaculture Products was worth around $150bn. But the FAO now classifies a third of the world's fishery stocks as overfished, which means they're being fished beyond sustainable levels.
So what can be done to combat overfishing? Firstly, fishing subsidies which incentivise overfishing are a huge problem. Now, these are subsidies from governments for things such as fuel, fishing gear, and new vessels. An academic study from 2019 estimated that these government payouts to the fishing industry totalled around $22.2bn.
There has been some progress in limiting subsidies, especially those that end up supporting unregulated fishing. In June 2022, the World Trade Organisation agreement on fishery subsidies was signed. The goal in mind is to prohibit subsidy support for illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing, and limiting fishing of overfished stocks. But it's only due to come into force when two-thirds of WTO members ratify it. That means that 110 countries have to ratify it. But as of the 1st of July of this year, only 78 countries have done so.
So what other measures could we be looking at? Firstly, we could be doing more to protect essential predator species. For example, it's estimated by the WWF that one third of shark species face extinction. Predator species like sharks play a crucial role in the ocean ecosystem and food chain.
Next, to avoid bycatch, the FAO has suggested placing the top end of fishing nets two metres lower in the water. Now, this has been shown to effectively reduce the mortality of marine mammal bycatch by 98 per cent in places like the Indian Ocean. Finally, the growth of aquaculture, which is fish farmed in pens or ponds, could ease some of the pressure on wild stocks.
Today, more than 50 per cent of the fish that we eat is farmed. Of course, these measures that I've been speaking about come with their own challenges. If we take aquaculture, for example, critics say aquaculture's practises for sourcing feed harm food security in poorer countries. That's because it hoovers up small species of fish, which the local communities rely on for food in order to make fishmeal for the aquaculture farms.
Another huge challenge facing authorities is simply the sheer number of fishing boats in the world, many of which are unregulated. Now, according to the FAO, illegal or unregulated fishing accounts for some 20 per cent of what's caught, or around 26mn tonnes of fish every year. Regulating fisheries has always been a highly political issue. But no matter how difficult the problem of overfishing is to solve, it cannot be ignored.
