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Background

Fishing for herring around 1550. Herring schools were reputed to be so dense in the Baltic that an axe thrust into their midst would remain upright.

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For too long, marine life has been largely open for the taking by anyone possessing the means to exploit it. Rapid advances in technology have meant that the ability, reach and power of vessels and equipment used to harvest marine life now far outweigh nature's ability to maintain it. This already has far reaching consequences for the marine environment, its species and the people who depend on it.

The earliest accounts of sea life indicate that oceans once contained an abundance of fish, marine mammals, seabirds and turtles in numbers which are now almost unimaginable. In the eastern north, archeological evidence from several thousand years ago demonstrates that prehistoric fishers caught larger fish in a wider variety than anything near current catches. In parts of north Asia, catches were 40 per cent higher than current levels.

Early visitors to the Canadian Atlantic coast reported no need for a hook to catch cod – they could be scooped up by the basketful. Whales were so plentiful, it seems, that ships bumped into them as they lazed on the surface. Under the surface, abundant oysters and mussels up to a foot long piled up, gently filtering plankton from the water and helping to keep it clear.

Crawling on the ocean floor and hiding under rocks, lobsters weighing 35 to 55 kilograms were netted by the hundreds. Giant schools of menhaden, capelin, herrings and other small species swam together, eating plankton and serving as food for larger species. A vast number of fish, including 1.8 metre salmon and 5.5 metre sturgeon could be caught by the thousands and millions…and they were.

The reality of modern fishing is an industry dominated by fishing vessels that far out-match nature's ability to replenish fish. Giant ships using state-of-the-art fish-finding sonar can pinpoint schools of fish quickly and accurately. The ships are outfitted like giant floating factories - containing fish processing and packing plants, huge freezing systems, and powerful engines to drag enormous fishing gear through the ocean. Put simply: the fish don't stand a chance.

Nowhere is the history of fishery mismanagement more spectacular than in the cod fishery collapse off the coast of Newfoundland. The 1992 collapse forced the closure of the fishery and led to the loss of some 40,000 jobs in the industry, and the fishery has yet to recover.

The cod stocks in the North and Baltic Seas are heading the same way and are nearing commercial extinction. Instead of trying to find a long-term solution to these problems, the fishing industry is turning towards the Pacific – but this is not the answer. Politicians continue to ignore the advice of scientists about how these fisheries should be managed and the need to harvest these threatened species in a sustainable way.