New Release: FAO's State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2010

The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) just released the 2010 update of the State of the World's Fisheries and Aquaculture. Time to update the statistics in my thesis...

Fun Fish Facts

Overfishing

• The proportion of marine fish stocks estimated to be underexploited or moderately exploited declined from 40% in the mid-1970s to 15% in 2008 (the lowest proportion recorded since the mid-1970s) and the proportion of overexploited, depleted, or recovering stocks increased from 10% to 32% (the highest since the mid-1970s). 53% of stocks are estimated to be fully exploited, with no room for expansion.
• Global marine fish catch production peaked in 1996 at 74.7 million tonnes. Although many studies predicted a rapid decline in production, the catch has remained relatively stable

• The same species have dominated marine catches since 2003, with the top ten species accounting for 30% of all marine catches. The fully exploited stocks in this list are the two main stocks of anchoveta (Engraulis ringens), Alaska pollock (Theragra chalcogramma), blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou), Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) (some stocks are depleted), Japanese anchovy (Engraulis japonicus), Chilean jack mackerel (Trachurus murphyi). It may be possible to expand some stocks of chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus). The largehead hairtail (Trichiurus lepturus) was estimated to be overexploited.

• 60% of the tuna stocks are fully exploited and up to 35% are overexploited or depleted and only a few appear underexploited (skipjack). Although the Atlantic bluefin was refused listing under CITES Appendix I, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has had some success in reducing the exploitation rates in some areas.

Consumption

• In 2008, 115 millions tonnes of fish was consumed by humans, which is 17kg (live weight) per person, an all-time high.
• In 2007, fish accounted for 16% of the global population's intake of animal protein and 6% of all protein consumed. In low-income food-deficit countries (LIFDCs), fish is 20% of the total animal protein consumed and is probably higher than the statistics indicate because of underreporting from small-scale and subsistence fisheries.
• Consumers of fish, particularly in the world's richer economies are increasingly demanding that retailers guarantee that their fish is high quality and also that it comes from sustainable sources. Several large-scale retailers are demanding certification to their own private standards schemes in food safety, quality, and sustainability. Traceability initiatives are growing, being initiated by NGOs, governments, or RFBs (regional fishery bodies)

Aquaculture

• Aquaculture now makes up 46% of the total food fish supply, which is slightly lower growth than than predicted but has grown from 43% in 2006 and is set to overtake capture-based fisheries in production.
• Latin America and the Caribbean has experienced the highest growth rate in aquaculture from 1970 to 2008 (21%).

Employment

• In 2008, 44.9 million people were engaged in the fish sector, and at least 12% were women. This is a 167% increase since 1980. For each person employed directly by fishing or aquaculture production, about three jobs are produced in secondary activities. Each job-holder provides for three dependents or family members on average. Therefore, fisheries support about 540 million people or 8% of the world population.

Small-scale Fishery Management

• The role of RFBs in international fisheries governance is growing but strengthening their performance is a major challenge. Their major tasks are regulating unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, effective implementation of monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) and overcapacity in fishing fleets. Many RFBs have been unable to control IUU fishing, implementing the ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF), the control of bycatch and the promotion of economic development in member countries.
• Small-scale fisheries contribute to more than half of the world's marine and inland fish catch, almost all of which is destined for direct human consumption. These fisheries employ more than 90% of the world's 35 million capture fishers and support another 84 million people in secondary jobs. Almost half of these people are women. More than 95% of small-scale fishers and related workers live in developing countries. Poverty remains widespread for millions of these communities, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.
• Overfishing are a threat but social structures and institutional arrangements play a central role in engendering poverty. Critical factors that contribute to poverty in these communities are insecure access rights to fishery resources, poor or absent health and educational services, lack of social safety nets, vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change, and exclusion from wider development processes owing to weak organizational structures and inadequate representation and participation in decision-making.
• Policy makers are suggesting a human rights approach to include marginalized groups in institutional processes, which would include measures such as: strengthening the capacity of fishing communities to be aware of, claim and exercise their rights effectively; requiring duty-bearers, including states, to fulfill their human rights obligations, including through legislation; the delegation of management responsibilities and the creation of comanagement arrangements that involve local resource users together with the state, which require human capacity on the local level as well as legal, practical, and community-based arrangements.

Data Collection

• The number of non-reporting countries increased this year due to the economic crisis.

Abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG)

• Magnets have been attached to longlines to repel sharks.
• Acoustic beacons and reflectors in gillnets and set net fishing gear to reduce catch of non-target species such as cetaceans, turtles, and seabirds.
• Trials are testing lines made from substances that reflect sound, such as barium sulphate, which don't affect the performance or appearance of the net in anyway

FAO Abbreviations

ALDFG- Abandoned, Lost, or otherwise Discarded Fishing Gear

CITES- Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

EAF- Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries

EEZ- Exclusive Economic Zone

FAO- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

ICCAT- International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas

IUU- Unreported and Unregulated Fishing

LIFDC- Low-Income Food-Deficient Country

MCS- Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance

NGO- Non-Governmental Organization

RFB- Regional Fishery Bodies

RFBN- Regional Fishery Bodies Secretariat Network

Life after Grad School?

I had a discussion with my advisor a week ago concerning my thesis proposal and he said that I needed to expand my introduction to include an overview on why overfishing was an issue and examples of other specie-specific fisheries that have been overfished and the consequences because I need to frame my study into a larger picture because I'm not just becoming a specialist in lobster houses, but am part of a larger field of study, which is sustainable fishing. This discussion fit into the thoughts that I was having about what I wanted to do with my life and if my thesis project actually had any connection to it at all. Now I realize that it does. I came into my masters program wanting to focus on sustainable food production and I still am. : )

I did some research on possible jobs and opportunities that I would want after finishing grad school, I came across a fellowship for the FAO called the Junior Professional Programme in which candidates are assigned to an FAO headquarters or other offices for two years and is provided with a good salary and a mentor who works for the FAO. I even get bonus points because I come from an under-represented country (who would have thought?) and am a woman. However, I do not have more than one year of experience in a field relevant to the work of the FAO, only three months, but that could change by the time the application is due, which is August 31st! This would be my dream experience.

Continuing my quest for the possibility of life after grad school and employment opportunities for the Spring semester (to add to my experience for the FAO internship ; ) ), I came across a temporary job posting for a business called New York Sun Works, which is an organization whose goal is to improve "scientific literacy and environmental awareness by developing educational projects that sustainably produce food, clean water, and energy." The job posting was a temporary construction job to help build hydroponic and aquaponic systems on top of schools. I could hardly contain my excitement upon reading the post because it sounded like so much fun! : ) Last summer they built the Science Barge, which was called by the organization an floating urban agriculture experiment on which vegetables were grown hydroponically and was the first demonstration of high yield commerical grad urban food production with near zero net carbon emissions. However, this blog post makes a good argument against its sustainability. I am definitely going to apply, but don't know what the hours are going to be. My current class schedule leaves Thursday and Friday completely open, classes at 4 on both Monday and Wednesday, and class all day Tuesday, so technically I could work full-time if necessary.

Cooincidences continue. While I was looking for interesting classes to take, I came across an Architecture class called Life Support in which students design aquaponic systems. They even designed some of the systems used on the Science Barge! Sadly I e-mailed both the professors and the dean of the architecture school and they told me that I can't register for the class but I can sit in! It's 6-8 on Tuesdays, so I guess I'm not going to be enjoying happy hour after Con Bio seminars any more or Bhakti Club, but building aquaponic systems is better I think. : )

I am extremely excited for my classes for next semester because they are much more relevant to what I want to do than the classes I'm taking now, like Ornithology, and I expect them to be more engaging, unlike Payment for Ecoystem Services.

Classes for next semester include:

Global Food Systems- SIPA class that sounds extremely interesting. I wanted to take the Food and Globalization class taught by E3B but it conflicted with GIS.

Fundamentals of GIS- this class is supposed to have a huge time commitment, but GIS is a skill that every conservation biologist should have and its role in science is growing.

Latin American Poverty Laboratory- experimental course with invited speakers from the UNDP, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank that sounds fascinating.

Thesis Research- The writing continues...

Life Support-Sadly I'm only sitting in. : (

and of course the Research Seminar