Fwd: New York Times

[Edward Schreiber]

FYI


Begin forwarded message:

> From: "doug wilson" <dougw at rowecenter.org>
> Date: January 22, 2008 7:08:52 PM EST
> To: <dougw at rowecenter.org>
> Subject: yet another pinko editorial from the NY Times
> Reply-To: <dougw at rowecenter.org>
>
>


>
> January 21, 2008
> EDITORIAL
> Until All the Fish Are Gone
>
> Scientists have been warning for years that overfishing is  
> degrading the health of the oceans and destroying the fish species  
> on which much of humanity depends for jobs and food. Even so, it  
> would be hard to frame the problem more dramatically than two  
> recent articles in The Times detailing the disastrous  
> environmental, economic and human consequences of often illegal  
> industrial fishing.
> Sharon LaFraniere showed how mechanized fishing fleets from the  
> European Union and nations like China and Russia — usually with  
> the complicity of local governments — have nearly picked clean the  
> oceans off Senegal and other northwest African countries. This has  
> ruined coastal economies and added to the surge of suddenly  
> unemployed migrants who brave the high seas in wooden boats seeking  
> a new life in Europe, where they are often not welcome.
> The second article, by Elisabeth Rosenthal, focused on Europe’s  
> insatiable appetite for fish — it is now the world’s largest  
> consumer. Having overfished its own waters of popular species like  
> tuna, swordfish and cod, Europe now imports 60 percent of what it  
> consumes. Of that, up to half is contraband, fish caught and  
> shipped in violation of government quotas and treaties.
> The industry, meanwhile, is organized to evade serious regulation.  
> Big factory ships from places like Europe, China, Korea and Japan  
> stay at sea for years at a time — fueling, changing crews,  
> unloading their catch on refrigerated vessels. The catch then  
> enters European markets through the Canary Islands and other ports  
> where inspection is minimal. After that, retailers and consumers  
> neither ask nor care where the fish came from, or whether, years  
> from now, there will be any fish at all.
> From time to time, international bodies try to do something to slow  
> overfishing. The United Nations banned huge drift nets in the  
> 1990s, and recently asked its members to halt bottom trawling, a  
> particularly ruthless form of industrial fishing, on the high seas.  
> Last fall, the European Union banned fishing for bluefin tuna in  
> the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, where bluefin have been  
> decimated.
> The institution with the most potential leverage is the World Trade  
> Organization. Most of the world’s fishing fleets receive heavy  
> government subsidies for boat building, equipment and fuel,  
> America’s fleet less so than others. Without these subsidies,  
> which amount to about $35 billion annually, fleets would shrink in  
> size and many destructive practices like bottom trawling would  
> become uneconomic.
> The W.T.O. has never had a reputation for environmental zeal. But  
> knowing that healthy fisheries are important to world trade and  
> development, the group has begun negotiating new trade rules aimed  
> at reducing subsidies. It produced a promising draft in late  
> November, but there is no fixed schedule for a final agreement.
> The world needs such an agreement, and soon. Many fish species may  
> soon be so depleted that they will no longer be able to reproduce  
> themselves. As 125 of the world’s most respected scientists warned  
> in a letter to the W.T.O. last year, the world is at a crossroads.  
> One road leads to tremendously diminished marine life. The other  
> leads to oceans again teeming with abundance. The W.T.O. can help  
> choose the right one.
> Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
>
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> 1/18/2008 12:00 AM
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>

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