The Effects of Fishing Industry to Marine Life
Aquaculture or fishing industry is one of the main food resources in the world. Many countries lie on fishing industry, in small or bigger scale as their main income or even main foor sources. The dependant of human to fishing industry has created a bigger problem, which is over-fishing and destructive fishing practice that have taken a place in decreasing the number of marine population, especially fish in the last decade. This matter is highly urgent because the decrease in marine population will also impact the world’s food sources since many people in the world lie on fishing industry. Aquaculture is now estimated to contribute in 23% of the world’s food supplies. According
to a journal written by Lisa Speer, a senior policy analyst in the US Natural
Resources Defense Council, the demand of fish as food source has been
increasing from 40 million tons in 1970 to 72 million tons in 1993.
The main cause of this matter is the increasing of the world’s population, which leads to higher demand for food. As fish stocks in the ocean has been decreasing in the last decade, small and big fishing industry, or even local fishermen now adapted a new and more extreme way of fishing, it is called destructive fishing. Many fishermen wanted to get more and more fish every day since the demand is very high and the living cost has also been increasing, so they need more money each day. On the other hand, the fish population keeps decreasing over the years as more fishermen catch more fish and the number of fishermen is also increasing. This led to extreme fishing practice, such as using bottom trawling technique, explosives or even poison.
All the practices of extreme fishing not only harm fish population, but also the population of marine wildlife. Bottom trawling is the most dangerous because most of the time, up to 80%-90% of their catch will be thrown back into the ocean as discards, mostly dead or wounded. This practice is also the most dangerous because sometimes not only fish that got caught inside the nets, but also any other species such as turtles, dolphins, reefs, etc. This practice is mostly used by big fishing industry since they need a huge boat and trawling nets. The explosives and poison (cyanide) fishing practice are commonly used by smaller fishing industries, such as local fishermen because the explosives and poison is more common in stores and does not need any advance skills to use it. Local fishermen and fishing industries that used explosives and poison contributed more to the destruction of the ocean bed and reefs, and also to the decrease of fish and marine population. Thousands of local fishermen compete each day to get more fish than the others, and they use every way possible without even thinking about the surrounding marine environment.
If human keep doing these kinds of fishing practices, fish stock will completely run out by 2048. If people can’t lie on fishing industry anymore, the world will be in the verge of hunger since agriculture cannot fulfill the needs of food supplies for all the people in the world, and the world population will be in great hunger. People must think way for the future and not only think about the present needs and condition. If people can act responsibly from now, we can save the marine population for our future.
Written by: Wafina Mario
Written by: Wafina Mario