GLOBAL VIEW

“There is no other business more globalised than the seafood industry - it is the most primary commodity in the world” (Unsustainable Harvest on WWF, 2010). This means that what is sold locally and globally will have an environmental impact on our oceans. Developing a sustainable seafood industry will require a holistic approach, by addressing all areas of the value chain – from the fishermen’s hook to the final product sold at the supermarket.

Despite a global movement trying to stop the further destruction of our oceans there remains global industralised fishing on quite a substantial scale. In spite of the evidence showing what will happen to the fish over the long term, we continue to raid our oceans (State of the Oceans on Green Peace, 2011).

Currently the Green Peace has tried to expose companies that are selling fish that are endangered, focusing on America. They have started a project called Carting Away the Oceans; over the last four years that the project has been running they have tracked progress and innovation throughout the seafood value chain. They have encouraged supermarkets to incorporate sustainability into their seafood practices to provide sustainable seafood options for consumers. Although they admit that there are many seafood retailers still not co-operating and don’t seem to care about the effects on the ocean. Going into 2011 Green Peace decided to take on a more aggressive approach by doing a direct campaign to expose these companies by taking online and offline actions. The result was positive as the company they were targeting final released sustainable seafood statement, where they promise to discontinue any unsustainable fishing practices (State of the oceans on Green Peace, 2011). People from all over the world are demanding change across the globe. Activists are confronting companies directly with emails, letters, in-store demonstrations and other creative tactics, pressurising companies to become sustainable fishing practices.

Supermarkets around the world need to realise the buying power they hold over the fishing industry to try create positive change, they can become the leaders in the environmental movement towards sustainable practices. Supermarkets are the biggest connections to the oceans; most of the world buys their fish over the counter. Change can be made with a proactive stance, by supporting governmental initiatives, removing unsustainable fish from their stock rooms, provide more point-of-purchase information to customers – this will create transparency (State of the oceans on Green Peace, 2011).

Fish Sold at supermarkets

As more fish stocks decrease, high-tech industrialised fishing fleets are under pressure to catch more fish faster and even find new species which they can exploit. Fish no longer have anywhere to hide as they companies hunt them down with new technologies (Dead ahead on Green Peace, 1998). United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation are putting reduction programs in place to prevent over-capacity and wasteful fishing (Overfishing on The Grid, 2004).

The demand for seafood has driven fishing fleets into new fishing territories around the world. Before in the 1950’s fishing was done around your countries water today they are reaching into deep unknown waters that haven’t been claimed by anyone. To compensate for the increasing market they are fishing large predators like Tuna and salmon, which makes people believe there is plenty of fish available. A Global study done be SeafoodPrint says that rich nations are to blame for this and have completely underestimated their impacts. They suggest that if this does not end quickly the abundance of fish would fall dramatically, with only the rich being able to afford seafood options (Greenberg, P. 2010: p.88). Preservationists believe that technology will be able to tackle any problem for limited resources, but we can see that it was actually technology that has accelerated the exploitation of fish (Hannigan, J. 1995: p.43).

We can look at the fish system in terms of ecosystem discourse as marine life form an interwoven ecosystem, where there is an exchange of energy and nutrients with the natural system (Hannigan, J. 1995: p.44). For example, your large predators like tuna eat the intermediate predators like squid, which eat the first-order consumer like zooplankton, who eat the primary producers phytoplankton (Greenberg, P. 2010: p.82). If any change had to occur within this system at any point it would have tremendous consequences at all the other points (Hannigan, J. 1995 p.43). The fish system will focus on the new approach to ecology as it has become a scarce resource with the amount of over fishing taking place. Commoner (1971) breaks down the environmental crisis into four laws of ecology which relates to the marine ecosystem perfectly, they are: ‘everything is connected to everything else’; ‘everything must go somewhere’; ‘nature knows best’; ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’ (Hannigan, J. 1995: p.45).

The European Council of Fisheries adopted a long term recovery plan for endangered species, which also included social factors for the fishermen. The plan aims to increase stocks of Cod by 30% and Hake by 5% over the next ten years. For threatened species there will be multi-annual programs for each area, this will involve fish quotas, restrictions on fishing effort and tighter policies (European fishing quotas on The Grid, 2004). I believe that if this should work, the policies created could be used by other countries as a base line strategy; they could just adapt it to what suits their communities best.