The unknown story of marine fish protein and humans

There are perhaps very few people on the planet that can claim to have not eaten fish or at least know someone that has eaten .Most people however probably dont know the whole story of how human beings interact with the fish stocks of the world  and the great importance of marine fish with respect to it.

Most people also dont know how important wild fish are to their daily lives and for the edifice we like to call modern human civilization.

Have you ever eaten a pork stake or some chicken or even some turkey or bacon in your sandwich? guess what: you are eating fish!.Well not exactly but these animals eat foodstuffs which are actually composed to a great extent from fish meal.This goes for farmed fish as well. According to a recent study more than 30% of the wild fish caught end up to become fish meal for farmed fish or livestock.

The  meal for farmed fish and livestock also commonly included soya from the Brazilian Amazon and other areas of South America with rapidly dissapearing forests.

This is just to show how little many people understand the importance of this resource and how it is managed.

The infographic bellow explains some important information about the fish people eat

And there is more , this video gives 13 facts more to the ones above

People have advocated that killing whales and other large mammalian predators of fish solves the problem by decreasing competition with fishermen. This is not at all true but still the goverment of Japan believes it can prove this by conducting scientific research and killing whales to prove this,even though most of the species pursued by these whaling "research" vessels, dont actually eat fish they eat other things like Kril.

In fact it has been scientifically proven that whales actually help ecosystem stability and with their actions increase the amount of fish in the sea.

The first video you will see bellow explains how whales are not responsible for less fish in the sea and that scientists know that exploring further in issues like ecological interactions is part of providing the answer. Certainly you dont need to kill any more whales for this also

The second video is a talk by George Monbiot, an ecologist and journalist . He explains this later point about ecological interaction in 6:45 minutes of the video.

If this sounds a bit scary to you then you are probably right. It is quite terifying as to how mismanaged our oceans are and the fish stocks in specific are.

Some would argue that aquaculture represents a sustainable solution,especially marine one.This is unfortunatelly not the case however. Most fish in marine aquaculture are carnivorous ones that are fed a mixture of soya from the Amazon and wild fish meal. The fact that they are carnivorous means they can only accumulate a very small percentage of the protein that they eat in their bodies(around 10%).Furthermore aquaculture requires things like fertilizers,antibiotics, and other things that are used in livestock farms and produce the same amount of waste or even more that all end up in the water. Furthermore the coastal embayments where these are normally put are the breeding grounds of wild fishes and they effectivelly destroy these. Escaped farm fish also mix with wild fish and genetically contaminate wild populations  of the same species ireversibly. This is because they are different genetically. Sometimes they are also genetically modified.

Fish farming is an industry infested with corruption. A very characteristic example comes from Greece where at present and with current legislation that was passed either in a dubious manner or a few days before national ellections all of the Greek waters belong to the aquaculture companies essentially to use as they like and now it is allowed to make aquaculture facilities within protected areas in both marine and terrestrial nature protected areas.

A characteristic example is the inner ionian archipelago in Greece ,which is the second largest marine protected area in Greece one of the largest in the medditeranean ,yet now it is also an area designated as planned for the organized development of industrial aquaculture.More information on this reserve can be found here. For a quick overview of this situation the yellow is the reserve area and the red superimposed is the area designated for the industrial production of fish in 2011. As of December 2014, the entire area can be given over to aquaculture following recent legislation passed in Greek parliament.And this is just one of many protected areas that face this threat.The non govermental organization Terra Sylvestris is activelly involved in securing the future of this reserve through petition and a project directed towards protecting the core of the reserve from aquaculture advancement. More details can be found here

And its not just fish but also shrimp.In fact most would argue that the devastation caused by shrimp farming is greater than most cases of fish farming.However the situation is characteristic of what happens with fish farming. Essentially the need for product setting aside the rights and needs of local societies, biodiversity conservation and so on, all to maximize short term financial profit of certain large coorporations.Research has proven that long term gain from protecting indigenous ecosystems and managing them sustainably is greater . The video bellow from the swedish society for nature conservation, describes the situation in brief for a part of Asia(Banglandes).

The situation with fish and especially aquaculture is reminiscent of the fairy tale of the goose that laid the golden eggs. The goose laid one egg each day. Then the owner became greedy and decided to kill the goose to get more eggs. He did it and got more eggs but then the goose was dead. This is the case with commercial fishing mostly and aquaculture. These interests are much like the greedy owner of the goose.They seek to liquidate natural capital and turn it into financial one with the goal of maximizing short term gain irrespective of the consequences.The local communities of an area are left with the carcass and large corpoorate interests take the eggs and run.

The result of all of this is that the oceans of the world are now full of dead zones(areas where there is almost no life) that are expanding with time. It is estimated that by 2050 commercial fishing worldwide will not exist. The image is from NASA earth observatory.

But what can you do about all of this?, is perhaps not eating meat a potential solution.Not really because some of the fish caught are used to grow your vegetable and fruit. This is not just because of the manure but because wild fish powder is used as a fertilizer for plants in a variety of applications.Certainly sourcing meat that does not come from such sources should be an objective

Or you can become directly involved in efforts related to the preservation of marine ecosystems,try and purchase sustainably fished wild fish if you want to eat them. But above all get educated and spread the word of what is happening as much as possible.

Here are some ideas

• Share this kind of information and stimulate discussions
• Sign and share petitions against projects of this kind and standards
• Support non govermental organizations working towards finding solutions for sustainable fisheries and are against aquaculture advancement as an alternative to fish and marine animal protein.
• Stimulate public engagement and awareness of such issues in your local community
• share ideas and discuss them as much as possible.

This is certainly one of the most pressing environmental issues albeit not one of the most popular like defforestation and climate change