Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

OK, so since we began seriously fishing for blue fin tune in the 40s, the fish's breeding populations have dropped to 5%. Thats a pretty shocking drop in stock levels, so, the industry has got together in Bali and made a new management plan to get stocks back up and try to save the fish from possible extinction.

The plan is to get the stock levels back to about 20% of the 1940 levels by 2035, great, sounds like a good start doesn't it? Now how are they going to go about this, to help get the stocking levels back up, to bring them back from the brink of extinction?



I really don't quite get it myself...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-13/n ... =melbourne

too much Bintang during their "meeting"

Greed

Makes perfect sense to me - lets leave it for the next generation to sort out. </sarcasim>

maybe its a reduced increase compared to what the usually increase
the problem with fisheries management is that there is a delay in stock assesments and indicators of collapse, so a species might have been fished to below a minimal sustainable population and we wont even know.

the only way to quickly, effectively and properly restore biodiversity in any ocean ecosystem is to protect in the form of a no-take marine reserve. Atleast 30% of everything must be protected to ensure that biodiversity has a chance of recovering. species specific management rarely works to restore populations, because marine food webs are so damn complex.

IMO we should have stopped fishing for SBFT along time ago. unfortunately the japs like it too much. just the same as the whales and the dolphins in taiji.

If you like tuna, try buying skipjack, it tastes the same, and the reproduction rate is much higher so it is sustainable. I'm pretty sure that the IGA or coles 'home brand' tuna is skipjack, because it it a cheaper fish!

I had a fisheries scientist the other day tell me that we should remove all the big fish in the ocean, to make room for the smaller ones. Im still trying to figure his logic out. then he went on to say that WA fisheries rarely conducts thorough and scientifically robust stock assessments because it takes to long, is hard, and they often cant be bothered because the are so busy (he contracts out to fisheries WA). That left me very fearful for the future of our precious oceans.

I read a scientific study a few years ago saying that if Australia banned fishing in 50% of its waters, fish stocks would be almost completely replenished in 10 years time.

The game fishing clubs went nuts over it, saying it was a stupid idea.
To me it makes perfect sense.
I would think that fishing clubs would want to increase fishing stocks.

This is the same logic to me as tree loppers complaining that they will be out of a job if we reduce old growth logging, and cant think about the bigger picture.

as a conservation scientist, the number one complaint we get when advocating marine reserves is fishermen (and women) proclaiming that we are trying to stop them fishing, and there wont be any fish for them to catch. it is SO frustrating that these people dont see the bigger picture, or read the literature where marine reserves improve catch rates for rec. and commercial fishers!

Reserves wont stop the illegal boats that come from up north.

Unfortunately what makes sense isn't always what gets done.....

neither will reduced fisheries quotas or any form of species management

alteast with a MPA you have a geographically defined area to manage, and exclude fisheries. it must be easier to exclude fisheries from a small area, rather than trying to manage the entire ocean

Yes you are right there Freo

Around here, when the headlines say such-and-such a politician is cutting the budget for any much-loved program, if you run the actual numbers most of the time you find they're actually increasing the budget. Maybe the tuna industry meeting used the same math as those journalists?