marine part 2 Overcapacity, high demand, and high prices are key factors in generating illegal fishing activity (illegal fishing, along with unreported and unregulated fishing, is commonly referred to as 'IUU fishing'. The high price has led to illegal fishing activities, including illegal spotting planes, pirate fishing, underreporting of catch and fishing during the closed season in pursuit of the increasingly rare fish. From 2007 through 2009, scientists recommended a catch of "29,500 tonnes for eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin stocks. " Even the higher authorized quotas are exceeded. In 2007, according to ICCAT statistics, the total Mediterranean catch was 61,000 tonnes, more than twice the authorised limit. (ICCAT. (2009). Report of the standing committee on research and statistics (SCRS). Madrid, 5-9 October 2009). The powerful economic incentives that drive overfishing - poorly managed fisheries, high global demand and subsidised production - typically overwhelm efforts to conserve fisheries through conventional fisheries command-and-control management. While management is a necessary element for sustainability, the record is clear: even management systems in developed countries have failed to preserve stock sustainability, and management does not address the market- and trade. By limiting the harmful impact of such demand, export prohibitions may turn out to be one of the most effective approaches to conserve highly sought after seafood. Bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. (© Manfred Bortoli). http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/compass-points/2017/09/29/has-eastern-atlantic-and-mediterranean-bluefin-tuna-recovered-not-yet
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2646833/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12167876
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Fish stocks are increasingly threatened due to numerous factors including increased demand for fish and seafood products; more efficient fishing methods; inadequate management and enforcement; and lack of alternative livelihood options. Overfishing leads to declining in fish populations, ecosystem-wide impacts, and impacts on dependent human communities. There is an absolute limit to what we can extract from the sea and it is possibly very close to current production levels, which have stabilized over last few years. They have grown a little in recent years but we don’t expect much more growth because of the rampant increase in aquaculture production. Many populations and some species of marine organisms have been severely overfished. Fished and unfished populations have been affected by other human activities, such as coastal development, as well. Those populations and species are ecosystem components and consume or provide significant fractions of the ecosystem's production. Fishing thus affects not only exploited species but also other species that are linked ecologically or environmentally with fished species and their ecosystems. In addition, many current fishery problems are the legacy of a misplaced belief in the inexhaustibility of marine resources, which led to management that did not create incentives for conservation. As a result, many species have been overexploited and more are at risk; there is severe overcapacity of fishing power, which puts pressure on managers to make risk-prone decisions, and as a result many marine fisheries under current management practices are not sustainable at societal acceptable levels "The number of overexploited or collapsed fish stocks in the Mediterranean Sea has been increasing at a rate of approximately 38 every 10 years between 970 and 2010, a new study has shown. In the Black Sea, the equivalent figure is 13 stocks per decade, the researchers found. Plus, 52% of fish stocks are fully exploited." (The FAO Fish and Aquaculture organisation, 2012.)http://overfishing.org/pages/why_is_overfishing_a_problem.php
http://www.reefresilience.org/coral-reef-fisheries-module/coral-reef-fisheries/overfishing/ http://www.reefresilience.org/coral-reef-fisheries-module/coral-reef-fisheries/resilience-of-fisheries/ Map of saturated thickness(vertical distance between the water table and floor of the aquifer) of the Ogallala in 1980 on the left and in 1997 on the right. (Choices Magazine, 2013). More than half of Earth’s 37 largest aquifers are being depleted, according to gravitational data from NASA (The Washington Post, 2015). Depletion of world's groundwater In many regions, especially where rainfall is scarce and the area is favorable for human settlements, aquifer development may be intensive, since groundwater is often the fresh-water resource that is most accessible, cheap and reliable. The pressure for development may be enormous, especially by the private sector, and may often exceed the control capabilities of classical water authority agencies.
Aquifers can take thousands of years to fill up and only refill with water from snowmelt and rains. Now, as drilling for water has taken off across the globe, the hidden water reservoirs are being stressed. The lack of precipitation in many areas which doesn’t percolate back into the aquifer fast enough to replace the water that is being extracted compounded with the draining of aquifers makes for a bad situation. Industries like oil production have also been blamed as they pull out groundwater as part of extraction process. And it’s not just the fact that there’s less water to use. Losing groundwater is bad for other reasons: It kills trees, makes the ground sink, and can eventually cause the aquifer itself to collapse. One third of the aquifers—which provide food and water to two billion people—are being depleted at accelerated rates. At least eight of those are categorized as “overstressed,” meaning they are losing water at the fastest rate (NASA, 2015). Granted the farm-rich Central Valley is considered stressed in terms of groundwater--here is a proposal for an agricultural solution; Heavy depletion of aquifers often exists in close proximity to problems relating to excessive use of surface water in high-water-table areas. More optimized conjunctive use through micro-zone planning (including, for example, sealing bank embankments and de-sedimentation of major canals) could increase the cropping intensity without compromising groundwater resource sustainability. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2015WR017349 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26050959 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24946577 The world is sitting on several time bombs. Climate change, toxic environments, burgeoning aspirations, jobless growth, crumbling infrastructure and of course, pollution being just a few of them. The current models of social consumption and growth are simply unsustainable. More importantly, not only are these issues interlinked but in most cases, have reached a gridlock wherein no single component can be solved in isolation without impacting stakeholders affected by other problems.
(Reuters, 2013). Economic growth is a central assumption to political and economic system. But strong growth is not normal, being a recent phenomenon over the last two centuries, it is based upon the profligate use of mis-priced natural resources such as oil, water and soil. It relied on allowing unsustainable degradation of the environment. The human race refuses to accept that it is not possible to have infinite growth and improvement in living standards in a finite world.
A main reason why even sophisticated societies fall into this suicidal spiral is the conflict between the short-term interests of decision-making elites and the long-term interests of society as a whole, especially if the elites are able to insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions. As the author Derrick Jensen says, for way too long a time, “We have been too kind to those who are killing the planet. We have been inexcusably, unforgivably, insanely kind.” https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/biodiversity/ https://reliefweb.int/report/world/high-price-desertification-23-hectares-land-minute https://books.google.com/books?id=LGL8PCVc_pcC&pg=PT198&lpg=PT198&dq=We+have+been+too+kind+to+those+who+are+killing+the+planet.+We+have+been+inexcusably,+unforgivably,+insanely+kind.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=ctivV_caMd&sig=Ch13_CRNqYU2UpGvGNC_iFtPjxk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjTvZi65oPZAhVX62MKHT7nA_sQ6AEINzAF#v=onepage&q=We%20have%20been%20too%20kind%20to%20those%20who%20are%20killing%20the%20planet.%20We%20have%20been%20inexcusably%2C%20unforgivably%2C%20insanely%20kind.%E2%80%9D&f=false Overexploitation #3(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2017). Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been widely proposed for protecting overexploited fish populations. (National Ocean Service, 2017). It has been suggested that fisheries may be enhanced by spillover of individuals from MPAs into fishing grounds. However, traditional spillover studies fail to account for the seasonal migrations of many populations. Most fisheries models also fail to include the stochasticity inherent in marine environments explicitly. Here we assess MPA efficacy using a simple population model simulating the migration of fish populations between a spawning ground MPA and a fishery. Including realistic environmental stochasticity in our model allows the population to deviate from, and shift between, positive stable equilibria, something that is impossible in a deterministic analysis. This deviation may result in population collapse in cases where deterministic analysis predicts population persistence. We show that, although effective at low migration levels, the ability of MPAs to protect stocks from collapse generally decreases as migration increases. However, "an MPA provides greater protection and greater expected fisheries yield than a system without an MPA, irrespective of migration level. Combining MPAs with a harvest control rule may further increase protection and yield(National Ocean Service, 2017). MPAs can be conserved for a number of reasons including economic resources, biodiversity conservation, and species protection. They are created by delineating zones with permitted and non-permitted uses within that zone. We therefore argue that MPAs can play a role in the protection of migratory species. All MPAs are designated for the purpose of conservation of biodiversity or cultural heritage. The designation of MPAs and MPA networks is driven by a range of international, regional, or national obligations or objectives. Types of MPAs vary widely across regions but names for these MPA types (e.g. marine reserve, strict marine protected area) are not consistent between regions. More commonly, however, MPA types vary according to the protection being granted (e.g. no-access zones, no-take or no-impact zones). https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/mpa.html https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225505194_Connectivity_sustainability_and_yield_Bridging_the_gap_between_conventional_fisheries_management_and_marine_protected_areas https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12384670 The rhino’s plight has become so desperate that in some places conservation officials tranquilize rhinos and saw off their horns so poachers will have no cause to kill them. It is not known whether removing the horn impairs the rhino’s ability to survive or reproduce. It is known, however, that in some areas, a mother rhino uses her horn to defend her young from attacks by cats and hyenas. The black rhino has not fared so well. As recently as 1970, an estimated 65,000 black rhinos could be found throughout sub-Saharan Africa. But in eastern Africa, 90 percent of them were killed in the 1970s. Now there are fewer than 2,500 left, in pockets in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania. Today, all five species of rhinos are perilously close to extinction. The rate of their decline is truly astounding: in the decade of the 1970s alone, half the world’s rhino population disappeared. Today, less than 15 per cent of the 1970 population remains, an estimated 10,000 to 11,000 worldwide. In addition in an article from the WWF it states, "More rhinos have been killed in South Africa in the past 10 months than were killed in all of 2010, new poaching numbers reveal." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28926135
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25996571 http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?202224 Overexploitation includes overharvesting, overhunting, and overfishing. If humans can reduce numbers of a population low enough then the species cannot sustain themselves in the wild. As a population becomes smaller it suffers from low genetic diversity and a higher likelihood that a natural disaster or some change in the environment can cause them to go extinct. Additionally, some species fail to reproduce effectively when their populations become too small. Overexploitation has been a driving force of species decline or loss in every ecosystem. From a news story in 2014: Poachers killed one of Kenya's most beloved elephants -- a behemoth animal with tusks so large, they touched the ground. Satao was shot with poisoned arrows in the sprawling Tsavo National Park in the country's southeast. Wildlife officials found his carcass with two massive holes where his tusks once stood. His face was so badly mutilated, authorities used other ways to identify him, including his ears and the pattern of mud caked on his body.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/15/world/africa/kenya-satao-famous-elephant/ https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Threats-to-Wildlife/Overexploitation http://www.biosbcc.net/green/onlinetext/biodiv/biodivover.htm |
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