There is literally too much money chasing too few fish,” somberly noted US Secretary John Kerry to the participants of the second “Our Oceans Conference” in Valparaiso, Chile last week. He obviously referred to the big global problem of overfishing.
Overfishing may be defined as “the practice of commercial and non-commercial fishing which depletes a fishery by catching so many adult fish that not enough remain to breed and replenish the population. Overfishing exceeds the carrying capacity of a fishery.” https://overfishing.org/pages/what_is_overfishing.php
Fishing fleets use sophisticated technology and gears that allow them to harvest more fish than what is needed. It is said that global fishing effort is such that “we have enough capacity to cover four Earth-like planets”.
The result? One third of the world’s fish stocks are over-exploited. In the Philippines, ten of the thirteen major fishing grounds surveyed are overfished.
Dr. Daniel Pauly, Professor at University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Centre, who spent many years at the International Centre for Living Aquatic Resource Management (ICLARM) in the Philippines, minces no words in describing overfishing as a “major catastrophe”.
Further decimation of our fish stocks can only create, in Dr. Pauly’s words, this dark scenario: “The big fish, the bill fish, the groupers, the big things will be gone. It is happening now. If things go unchecked, we’ll have a sea full of little horrible things that nobody wants to eat. We might end up with a marine junkyard dominated by plankton.”
Overfishing is clearly unsustainable, destroys marine ecosystems and species of marine life, and needless to say, imperils food security and livelihood. One billion of the world’s increasing population depend on fish as the primary source of protein. In the Philippines, “[f]ish is served at every meal, representing 56 percent of animal protein intake and 12 percent of all food.” (https://ph.oceana.org/about-oceana/about-us)
In addition to overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the challenges faced by our oceans are marine pollution, destruction of habitats and the impacts of climate change. Solutions to reviving the abundance of our fisheries require collective and global action by caring citizens and governments.
It was a privilege indeed to be among the hundreds from various countries representing non-government organizations, governments and the private sector in the Valparaiso international oceans conference. Our country was officially represented by Environment Undersecretary Demetrio L. Ignacio Jr. who presented the Philippines’ commitment for the protection of our ocean.
The annual event is aimed at finding solutions to the multitude of threats our oceans face. For this year, the goal was to provide the platform for discussions of voluntary commitments by countries and entities to help protect and preserve our ocean.
Discussions centered, among others, on the creation of marine protected areas, technologies to track fishing, marine pollution and acidification, and commitments were likewise made. It was heartening to see and hear the announcement of President Michelle Bachelet of Chile in the establishment of the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park, a fully protected no-take zone where no fishing and other extractive activities will be allowed. It covers a surface area of 297,518 square kilometers, effectively earning for Chile the distinction of protecting 12 percent of its marine surface area, an increase from 4.4 percent, and creating the largest marine park in the Americas.
We salute the strong and determined leadership of our colleague from Oceana in Chile, Mr. Alex Munoz, and his hard-working team, in partnership with National Geographic Society and the charming Enric Sala, Explorer-in-Residence and head of the Society’s Pristine Seas project, for making this milestone a reality.
In 2013, Oceana and the Society formed the first expedition to the Desventuradas, considered one of the last potentially pristine marine environments in South America.
It was amazing to see on screen what the team of scientists, with their state-of-the-art technology, found in the underwater environment beneath the islands: swaying kelp forests, abundant fish populations, including enormous amberjacks, yellowtail jacks and deep sea sharks, fragile deep corals, deep underwater mountains with species new to science, abundant giant lobster and a relict population of the once-thought-extinct Juan Fernández fur seal. One could not imagine that huge lobsters could exist. Some measured nearly 2 feet long and weighed 15 pounds. The deep sea bottom in this area was found to be in exceptional condition and showed no signs of human impacts.
The result of the expedition, with the thousands of images and video never before seen, was presented to the Chilean government. The rest is history.
The creation of the largest marine park in the Americas, Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park, may be said to mark the beginning of the glorious epoch in the millennium when we can say that humanity stood up, as valiant defenders of our vastly threatened ocean, to avert the global catastrophe we are heading to.
May there be millions more of square kilometers that will soon be protected, including committed contribution from Cebu and the Philippines, dubbed the “center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity in the world”, for the Ocean and for our children and their children.
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