Monday, September 28, 2009

Greenpeace on Fisheries, Sustainability and the Oceans.


I just got the latest fund raising letter from Greenpeace and thought I'd share the news.
Tuna: A Favorite Fish Faces Dangerous Depletion ... Commercial Fishing Disaster Declared as Salmon Stocks Plunge ... Billion-dollar, ‘Best-managed’ Fishery a Disaster ... Fish Study Delivers Grim News ...

The headlines are dire for global fish stocks - over two-thirds of the world's wild fish stocks are currently fished at or above maximum sustainable levels. It is clear that we are on the brink of irreversible damage to our oceans. Greenpeace has a real solution to ensure the protection of our oceans. In a paper published in the leading scientific journal Science, marine biologists projected that most commercial fisheries would collapse by 2048 if current trends continue.


Marine reserves - areas closed to fishing, drilling, and other extractive uses - are the greatest hope for protecting and restoring the health of our oceans. A recent follow up to the 2048 paper, identified the effectiveness of marine reserves as a hopeful sign that recovery is still possible.

Our oceans cover over 70 percent of the planet, but only 0.5 percent are protected - compared to 13 percent of protected lands around the world. We're calling for a network of reserves to encompass 40 percent of our world's oceans.

For most of human history, the vast majority of the ocean was a de facto marine reserve, too far offshore or too deep to exploit. Today, with fishing vessels the size of ocean liners plying gear large enough to ensnare skyscrapers and guided by fish-finding technology developed for the military, fish have no place left to hide.

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