Nearly half the world’s fishing catch is either thrown back dead or sold without regard to whether the fish stock is endangered, according to a report . Unwanted fish that used to be discarded before returning to port, traditionally referred to as bycatch, are now being taken to market. Traditional fishery management plans focus only on target species, leaving bycatch species heavily exploited and without any scientific control or monitoring.
Species once considered unpalatable are appearing in fishmongers and alternative markets are booming. The use of “trash fish” as animal feeds or in fish farming means that bycatch is increasingly financially attractive to fishers. In 1995 one study showed that 27 million tonnes of fish were being discarded every year but by 2005 another investigation found that the figure had dropped to only 7 million tonnes.
"The amount of bycatch didn’t drop,” said Robin Davis, one of the report’s authors. “The missing 20 million tonnes were being sold, but without control. What hope do we have of achieving sustainability in fisheries if we don’t know what is being caught?”
80 per cent of the world’s fisheries are either fully exploited or over-exploited and an estimated 90 per cent of all large predatory fish are gone. It would benefit marine ecosystems if our intervention in the seas was reduced, allowing species time to repopulate. The mentality encouraged by capitalism is to strive for profits at the expense of long-term consequences. The warnings raised by the environmentalists and scientists are muffled by the demands of economic exploitation.
Following a socialist revolution, the wealth of knowledge and skills held by those who work in the fisheries could be applied to a conservation-based use of sea marine resources. The expertise and technology provided could be acted on, without the constraints of the market.
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