Fisheries: Assessing Sustainability. Afro-Eurasia

Pre-Print. Poulsen, Bo “Fisheries” The Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability: Vol. 9. AfroEurasia: Assessing Sustainability. red. / Louis Kotzé; Stephen Morse. Vol. 9 Great Barrington, Massachusetts : Berkshire Publishing Group, 2012. s. 136-140.

Afro-Eurasia: Assessing Sustainability

Fisheries Abstract: Humans have been fishing for more than 100,000 years, and until c. 1900 most fishing practices were sustainable. During the last 100 years, almost every corner of the oceans has been heavily impacted by modern industrial fishing. The amount of wildcaught fish peaked in 1980, but due to the rapidly emerging aquacultural sector, total production of fish had doubled as of 2011.

Wild living fish stocks are a finite resource and renewable only through natural processes, whereas the success of fishermen is dictated by their ability to locate, catch, preserve, and subsequently market the end product. This nature of fisheries has presently and historically caused a number of sustainability issues, foremost the concern that a growing number of fishermen are extracting more fish from the oceans than what can be replaced through natural growth and dispersal of fishes. During the nineteenth century, though, French scientists and fishermen heavily improved the ancient idea of artificially rearing fish—aquaculture, which, since 2009, has replaced wild-caught fish as the world’s primary source of fish. While aquaculture may solve some of the immediate problems of overexploiting wild fish stocks, other issues of sustainability related to pollution, parasites and diseases, ecological footprints, mixing up of natural species characteristics, and invasive species, as well as socioeconomic and nutritional problems, have arisen from the growth of the aquacultural industry. These

sustainability issues are global in scale and impact, but the problems first arose in Europe several centuries ago.

History The earliest records of marine fishing anywhere, found in South Africa, date from 165,000 to 120,000 years ago, and fishing is now the last major human enterprise reminiscent of a hunter-and-gatherer society. In Europe, the first documented fishery is that which resulted in Neanderthal kitchen middens in caves on the Iberian Peninsula, while a bounty of fish species have been found in association with middens from the last 20,000 years, remains of Homo sapiens occupation. More than forty species have been found, along with sharpened bones that suggest the use of hooks. In seventh century BCE, the Phoenicians, who dominated Mediterranean trade, also fished for tuna (Thunnus thynnus); and moving into Roman times, archaeological findings suggest that the pan-Mediterranean trade in fermented fish sauce, the so-called garum, was as prominent as the wine trade, and large-scale fermentation sites have been excavated along the Black Sea coast. Northern Europe is probably the most well-excavated area in terms of fish archaeology. While 7,000-year-old remains of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), and ling (Molva molva) have been extracted from sites in the Orkney Islands, a truly international trade in cod from Lofoten in Northern Norway developed c. 1000 CE. Around the same time, Northern Europeans started fishing at sea with open boats, using long-line hooks for the so-called benthic species, such as cod and ling, with gill nets for herring (Clupea harengus) and other pelagic species, that is, species swimming in the upper layers of the water column. The sudden upsurge in fishing

might be linked to an increase in demand for marine products from the growing urban population, as well as the invention of fasting, which accompanied the spread of Christianity. In addition, the technique of salting herring in barrels was invented in the Øresund strait, presently the narrow waters separating Denmark and SwedenFor inland fisheries, such as those for salmon (Salmo salar) and trout (Salmo trutta), research has shown that catches were gradually being hindered by the building of dams and dikes, while medieval legislation shows signs of a clear awareness of protecting fry and larvae from damaging gear practices. Knowledge, though, is lacking as to whether or not fisheries caused the abundance of inland species to decline; but their relative importance on the European dinner table was waning compared the rising interest in marine products. The per-capita consumption of fish in Europe seems to have reached a high point in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the few surviving records of long-term fish prices suggest that, relative to other food items, herring and cod were much higher priced in this period compared to more recent centuries. The limits to growth were also dictated by technology insofar as Middle Age fishing practices necessitated that the fish be landed within a matter of a few days in order to be processed, either through salting, drying, or smoking. Offshore fish stocks, therefore, were only targeted within a day’s sailing distance from the shore. This technological barrier was broken in the early 1400s as Flemish and later Dutch fishermen started to catch herring all over the North Sea using decked vessels containing salt, barrels, large drift nets, and provisions, which enabled the fishermen to search the fishing grounds for many weeks at a time. The same technique was introduced in cod fishing, which soon covered the entire North Atlantic.

In theory, all known waters of the world could now be fished, and they gradually would be. Around 1500, Basque, and later English and French, fishermen pioneered the Great Banks of Newfoundland, which soon became the world’s largest cod fishery. Dried cod can last for years under the right conditions and became a flexible, easily transportable, and nutritious supplement to the diet of the Atlantic world. African fisheries are little known from the time before the European colonization of the continent. By the 1700s, cod exports from Newfoundland to the Caribbean slave plantations were an integral part of the triangular trade between Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Fish consumption was going global. Another novelty of European fish consumption from c. 1600 onwards was a growing interest in a greater variety of species and preservation techniques. Russian caviar from sturgeon (Acipenser sturio) was exported westward all over Europe, while oysters were shipped south and east from France and the Low Countries. In the 1700s, natural oyster beds became early telling signs that marine resources could be depleted. Foremost though, the interest in fresh fish surged at the expense of salted and dried fish, although Eastern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula continuously consumed large quantities of salted herring and bacalao (dried and salted cod), respectively. Fish ponds, especially for carp (Cyprinus carpio carpio), were set up all over Europe following inspiration from the Turkish court, which had learned of the technique from China. Flatfish were kept alive in dams aboard fishing vessels and sailed directly to the marketplace. In spite of local cases of depletion, European fisheries were by and large sustainable, and only from the latter half of the nineteenth century did total landings start to increase with the rate of the general population.

The implementation of railroads opened new markets for the consumption of fresh fish, and incentives grew to invest in steam and motor propulsion of fishing vessels. British vessels first introduced steam, and soon France, Germany, and the Netherlands followed suit before 1900. Catches soared once people could fish more or less unhindered by the changing weather, aided by the engine power added to trawling. Motor propulsion was introduced in Japan just after 1900, and soon South Africa hosted the first modern industrialized fishery in sub-Saharan waters. This marks the onset of large-scale industrial fishing in South African waters, in which the banks of the Benguela Current upwelling system from present-day Namibia in the north to round the Cape of Good Hope provide the most prolific fishing grounds. Fisheries relied mainly on snoek (Thyrsites atun) caught with line until the mid-twentieth century. By the outbreak of World War II, European fisheries had already had a serious impact on the abundance of many commercial species. This is evident from centennial scale records of catch per vessel, where after 1945 the so-called Mexican Wave phenomenon occurred, that is, much higher catch rates immediately after the war, following six years when the fish were left in peace a few meters below the turmoil of naval warfare.

Challenges of Modern Practices In many ways the modern era of fishing began in the 1950s. Following the introduction of echo-sounding and sonar, the fishes of the ocean became much more visible from the deck of a vessel. The implementation of nylon was another leap that enabled stronger, lighter, and consequently bigger nets to be used. The purse seine, by which a school of,

for instance, sprat (Sprattus sprattus) can be circled and scooped in one haul, was one result of the combined nylon and sonar revolutions. During the 1950s and 1960s, large stocks of main commercial species became depleted, such as North Sea herring. Following the implementation of the European Common Fisheries Policy, a moratorium on herring was imposed in 1977. The ban was lifted only gradually during the 1980s, and today North Sea herring is considered a success in terms of marine restoration. The Scando-Atlantic herring, North Sea cod, and Baltic cod, however, have never reached the peaks in catches that were seen in the 1960s and 1970s. With regard to Baltic cod, environmental factors such as inflow rates of salt water into the Baltic Sea play a major role; but in every case, fishing pressure has been intense. European restrictions within the territorial waters of Europe led to a widening of the fishing area, where fleets from many European countries, not the least of which were Russian and Spanish trawlers, began prowling the unregulated waters not least off the coast of West Africa. Besides the environmental effect of this practice, the social sustainability was also affected, when a local and nutritious natural resource like fish, bypassed the local economy. In a similar effort to fish in richer, less restricted areas, much fishing has taken to the grounds of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Several times during the first decade of the twenty-first century, scientists discovered new species and fish stocks living in previously uncharted areas, only to find that their abundance had already been disturbed by fishing. Off the South African and Namibian coast, though, purse-seine fishing for sardines (Sardinops sagax) became the main fishing practice after World War II and until

the stock collapsed in the 1960s. Thereafter, hake (Merluccius paradoxus), anchovy (Engraulis encrasiolus), and horse mackerel (Trachurus spp.) have made up the bulk of catches. Hake is an important export commodity to Europe and North America, and compared to many other areas the ecosystem is still very productive. The Black Sea suffered a great deal more. Following a combination of eutrophication from river run off, jellyfish invasions and inefficient management, life in the upper trophic levels (large and mid-size fish) has more or less disappeared. This had led to a complete shift in the controls of the local ecosystem, which is now dominated by low-order species such as jellyfish (scyphozoans).An ecosystem already impacted by for instance eutrophication is more prone to be affected by environmental changes, such as the arrival in ballast tanks of the comb jelly, (Mnemiopsis leidyi). The larger Mediterranean Sea is not as severely impacted, but recent studies of the Adriatic Sea reveal that the larger late-maturing species have declined in importance relative to smaller species over the twentieth century. Another novelty, already invented before World War II, was fisheries for fodder instead of human consumption. Worldwide Peru and Chile are leading nations within this production, and within Europe, Denmark and Norway became dominant players in the fishmeal industry, where the catches were processed and turned into a powder suitable for feeding pigs as well as farmed fish. Almost all fish are carnivorous, so even though fish farming relieves the fishing pressure on the farmed species, such as cod or halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus), the rearing of fish depends on large catches of other fish, which in turn become in danger of overfishing. Such has been the case for fish like sand eel (Ammodytes tobianus) and sprat,

which are now fished under quota regulations in the same way as fish for direct consumption. One of the present challenges of fish farming is to genetically engineer fish that will thrive on vegetable proteins. The mixing of distinct stocks is another challenge, when, for instance, salmon escape the farms and blend with the natural stocks differing from river to river. In Norway, it is estimated that hardly any “clean” stock is left. While many European fish farms work under fierce regulations in terms of what to feed the fish, and how much nutrient outflow is allowed, the rapidly growing African aquaculture sector is posing a serious problem. Since 2000, Nile perch (Lates niloticus) has become a major African export commodity, especially for the European market. This undoubtedly benefits several African economies, but in many lakes and rivers Nile perch has completely disrupted the original fauna. Positive introduction of new species occur as well, such as the introduction of freshwater sardines (Limnothrissa miodon) into the artificially constructed Lake Kariba, which consequently has come to support as large commercial fishery. Another downside is that fish, a nutritious and healthy food item, is becoming less readily available to the local consumers around the shores and lakes of Africa, while European and North American consumers are not affected by the rapid changes in how and where fish are obtained for consumption. Relatively cheap transcontinental shipping costs have facilitated a booming market for frozen fish in the developed countries. Sushi restaurants serving expensive raw fish, such as tuna, have become a global craze. Invasive species create a problem of their own. Fish have been successfully transplanted from one area to another for more than a century, exemplified by Danish fisheries scientist C. G. J. Petersen’s effort to relocate plaice (Platessa platessa) from the

Danish Limfjord onto Dogger Bank in the North Sea, now an important fishing ground for plaice. A more recent invader is red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus), which Russian fishermen moved from the Pacific Ocean to the Barents Sea, from where it is now spreading into the North Atlantic. In other cases, the invasion is accidental, such as that of Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas), which probably entered European waters through ballast water. They are gradually replacing the resident European flat oysters (Ostrea edulis) along the shores of the European continent, which is seen as a mixed blessing. In summary, the above account of the long history of fisheries highlight several overarching developments. First of all, most pre-industrial fishing activities from paleolithicum onwards took place in a sustainable fashion, where as increasingly since the latter half of the 19th century, fisheries have had serious impact on the abundance and diversity of commercial fish species in Afro-Eurasia. With the rapid increase in world population during the 20th century as well as the development of preservation techniques such as freezing, and opening of new fish market via railroads, trucks and air planes, the demand for seafood has outstripped the natural supply of the World’s oceans. This is one reason why aquaculture has risen to prominence in recent decades, now surpassing wild caught fish, as the main source of seafood. Bo POULSEN Aalborg University, Denmark See also [Cross references to come] [please leave this section for the editors.]

Further Reading

Bekker-Nielsen, Tonnes. (2005). Ancient fishing and fish processing in the Black Sea region (Black Sea studies, 2). Langelandsgade, Denmark: Aarhus University Press. Fortibuoni T. et al. (2010). Coding Early Naturalists' Accounts into Long-Term Fish Community Changes in the Adriatic Sea (1800–2000). PLoS ONE 5(11): e15502. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0015502 Gertwagen Ruthy, et al. (Eds.). (2009). HMAP international summer school: When humanities meet ecology: Historic changes in Mediterranean and Black Sea marine biodiversity and ecosystems since the Roman period until nowadays. Languages, methodologies and perspectives. Retrieved January 11, 2012, from http://hmapcoml.org/documents/When_Humanities_Meet_Ecology_english.pdf Hoffman, Richard C. (1996, June). Economic development and aquatic ecosystems in medieval Europe, American Historical Review, 101(3), 631–669. Holm, Poul; Marboe, Anne Husum; Poulsen, Bo; & MacKenzie, Brian R. (2010). Marine animal populations: A new look back in time. In Alasdair D. McIntyre (Ed.), Life in the world’s oceans. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Karlsdottir, Hrepna M. (2005). Fishing on common grounds: the consequences of unregulated fisheries of North Sea herring in the postwar period. Ekonomisk-Historiska institutionen vid Göteborgs universitet. Fall and Rise of the Black Sea Ecosystem Kideys, Ahmet E. (2002, 30 August). Science: 297 (5586), 1482-1484. [DOI:10.1126/science.1073002] Kinsey, Darin. (2006, July). Seeding the water as the earth: The epicentre and peripheries of a western aquacultural revolution. Environmental History, 11(3), 527–566. Pauly Daniel, et al. (2002). Towards sustainability in world fisheries. Nature, 418(6898), 689–695. Pinnegar, John K., & Engelhard, Georg H. (2008). The “shifting baseline” phenomenon: A global perspective. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, 18(1), 1–16. Roberts, Callum. (2007). The unnatural history of the sea. The past and future of humanity and fishing. London: Gaia Books. Rozwadowski, Helen M. (2002). The sea knows no boundaries: A century of marine science under ICES. Seattle & London: International Council for the Exploration of the Sea/University of Washington Press. Sicking, Louis, & Abreu-Fereira, Darlene. (Eds.). (2008). Beyond the catch: Fisheries of the North Atlantic, the North Sea and the Baltic, 900–1850. London & Boston: Brill Academic Publishers.

Torben, Rick C., & Erlandson, Jon M. (Eds.). (2008). Human impacts on ancient marine ecosystems: A global perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Watermeyer, K. E.; Shannon, L. J.; Roux, J-P.; & Griffiths, C. (2008). Changes in the trophic structure of the northern Benguela before and after the onset of industrial fishing. African Journal of Marine Science, 30(2), 383–403.