Slow-swimming, tasty and healthy to eat, codfish are an easy to catch and immensely popular food species. As with so many of the world's important fisheries, popularity has sent stocks reeling toward collapse. With northwestern European cod stocks headed for destruction, a group of codfish decided to take their message to a king and some high officials.
It's time to cut down on fish sticks: Greenpeace 'codheads' at Norway's royal palace to demand an end to overfishing.
Weary of being pushed to extinction so humans can dine on fish
sticks, Greenpeace "codfish" dressed up and took their concerns to
Norwegian and Swedish officials on November 8. The activists
wearing codfish masks and black suits demonstrated before the royal
palace in Oslo, Norway as the nation's king held the government
weekly meeting. Cod quotas were on the government's agenda that
day, and the activists were there to demand real action to stave
off cod collapse in the region's waters.
Norwegian and Russian fisheries commissions continue to allow
overfishing in the Barents sea to their north. While scientists
have recommended a cod quota of 181,000 for the Barents, the 2003
Norwegian fisheries commission's quota, proposed on November 8 was
a whopping 395,000 tonnes. All indications are that scientists'
increasingly sharp warnings will once again be ignored.
Fearing their fate given continued Norwegian and Russian
overfishing, the Greenpeace codheads then headed for asylum at the
Swedish Embassy in Oslo, where they were warmly welcomed by the
Swedish ambassador. The Swedish government has quite properly
decided to enforce a cod moratorium for the Baltic and western seas
in light of the threatened stocks.
Globally 75 percent of the world's fish stocks are fully
exploited, overfished or depleted. A tragic lesson in cod collapse
can be learned from Newfoundland, Canada. The fish were once so
plentiful there that explorer John Cabot reported catching them
with a bucket in 1497. Yet by 1992, the entire cod fishery
collapsed, sending coastal Newfoundland fishing communities reeling
as thousands of jobs were lost. That same year a total cod
moratorium was imposed, and the fishery has never recovered.
"We cannot let history repeat itself and allow cod in the
Barents to go the same way. If this happens the ecological and
social consequences will be disastrous," said Greenpeace campaigner
Frode Pleym.
To meet massive international demand for cod, competing fishing
fleets empty the sea floor for a mile at a time using highly
efficient drag nets. Last month scientists warned North Sea cod
stocks were at their lowest ever level. They number only half the
minimum number needed to assure that they will continue to
propagate. In fact, the numbers are so bad, scientists are no
longer even sure of the species' population dynamics. The
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea advised a ban
on North Sea, Irish Sea and waters west of Scotland for most
fishing, indefinitely, until the cod recover. The wider ban is
necessary because may cod are caught as a "bycatch" of other
fisheries.
Scientists say that the low stocks leave the population
vulnerable to environmental shocks like water temperature changes
or fluctuations in prey species, like the tiny capelin which fish
cod feed on. Along with severe and sustained overfishing, such
environmental shocks are thought to have helped precipitate the
total collapse in Newfoundland.
Scientists have been sounding the alarm over cod for years now,
but Instead of taking concrete measures to preserve the fish,
European Union members have argued about how it should be done. As
they fail to act on warning after warning, scientists' worst fears
are now being realized.