This episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast discusses a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization revealing that more seafood is now farmed than caught in the wild. Despite this shift, overfishing continues to be a problem and sustainable fish stocks are declining. Andrew Lewin, highlights the importance of staying informed about ocean issues and taking action to protect marine life.
Past episodes:
Aquaculture in 2022: What you need to know: https://www.speakupforblue.com/show/speak-up-for-the-ocean-blue/aquaculture-in-2022-what-you-need-to-know/
The educational importance of the Salmon People Podcast: https://www.speakupforblue.com/show/speak-up-for-the-ocean-blue/the-educational-importance-of-the-salmon-people-podcast/
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One of the key points discussed in the podcast episode is the significant shift in seafood production, where more seafood is now farmed than caught in the wild for the first time. This shift highlights the growing importance of aquaculture in meeting the global demand for seafood. However, despite this shift, the challenges of overfishing and the decline in sustainable fish stocks continue to persist.
The increase in aquaculture production signifies a shift towards more controlled and sustainable methods of seafood production. Aquaculture has the potential to enhance global nutrition and provide a reliable source of protein for a growing population. This shift is crucial in ensuring food security and meeting the dietary needs of communities around the world.
On the other hand, the ongoing issues of overfishing and the decline in sustainable fish stocks underscore the importance of effective fisheries management. Despite the rise in aquaculture, overfishing remains a pressing concern that threatens marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of those dependent on wild fish populations.
The FAO's Blue Transformation Strategy aims to address these challenges by improving the sustainability of aquaculture and fisheries management. The strategy emphasizes the need for political commitment, investment, and effective governance to ensure the long-term health of marine resources.
Overall, the podcast episode highlights the complex dynamics of seafood production, where aquaculture plays an increasingly significant role in meeting global demand. However, the persistence of overfishing and the decline in sustainable fish stocks serve as a reminder of the ongoing challenges that must be addressed to ensure the health and sustainability of our oceans.
The FAO's Blue Transformation Strategy is a key initiative aimed at enhancing the sustainability of aquaculture by tackling various challenges in fisheries management, political commitment, and investment. The strategy recognizes the importance of addressing these issues to ensure the long-term viability of aquaculture practices and the health of aquatic ecosystems.
Fisheries Management: The FAO's strategy emphasizes the need for improved fisheries management practices to prevent overfishing and ensure the sustainable use of aquatic resources. By implementing effective management strategies, such as setting catch limits and implementing ecosystem-based approaches, the FAO aims to promote the responsible stewardship of marine resources.
Political Commitment: Political commitment plays a crucial role in driving sustainable aquaculture practices. The FAO's strategy calls for increased political will to prioritize the conservation of aquatic ecosystems and the promotion of sustainable fishing practices. By engaging policymakers and decision-makers, the FAO aims to create a conducive environment for the implementation of policies that support sustainable aquaculture.
Investment: Adequate investment is essential for the development and advancement of sustainable aquaculture practices. The FAO's strategy highlights the importance of investing in research, technology, and infrastructure to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of aquaculture operations. By attracting investments from both public and private sectors, the FAO aims to foster innovation and growth in the aquaculture industry.
Overall, the FAO's Blue Transformation Strategy serves as a comprehensive framework for improving the sustainability of aquaculture by addressing key challenges in fisheries management, political commitment, and investment. Through concerted efforts and collaboration, the FAO aims to promote the responsible and sustainable use of aquatic resources for the benefit of both present and future generations.
One of the key points highlighted in the podcast episode is the urgent need for action to replicate successful policies and reverse declining sustainability trends in fisheries management. The episode emphasizes that despite some improvements, there are still significant challenges facing global fisheries and aquaculture.
The report discussed in the episode reveals that sustainably fished marine fish stocks have declined to 62% from a previous high of 90% in the 1970s. This downward trend is concerning, especially considering the importance of maintaining sustainable fish stocks for both environmental and economic reasons.
To address this issue, it is crucial to replicate successful policies that have proven effective in promoting sustainability in fisheries management. By learning from and drawing inspiration from initiatives that have achieved genuine sustainability, it is possible to reverse the declining trends and ensure the long-term health of marine ecosystems.
The podcast also mentions the importance of investing in better data collection and monitoring efforts to improve the understanding of fish stocks and their sustainability status. By dedicating resources to gathering accurate information, policymakers and stakeholders can make informed decisions to manage fisheries more sustainably.
Furthermore, the episode underscores the need for increased political will, both at the national and international levels, to prioritize sustainable fisheries management. Collaboration between governments, organizations, and industry stakeholders is essential to implement effective policies and regulations that support sustainable fishing practices.
In conclusion, urgent action is required to address the declining sustainability trends in fisheries management. By replicating successful policies, investing in data collection and monitoring, and fostering political commitment, it is possible to reverse the negative trajectory and ensure the future viability of global fisheries.
A new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the FAO, reveals that for the first time, more seafood is farmed than caught in the wild. But despite this, overfishing persists and sustainable fish stocks decline. We're going to talk about the results of this report on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up with the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And this is quite an interesting report. I found it on manga bay news, which I look at almost daily. And if you are looking for more manga bay news articles that I don't cover on the podcast, you can go to manga bay.com or manga, manga bay dot, sorry, that's not right. Yeah, manga bay.com. You can go to manga bay.com and find those articles. But you can also sign up for our newsletter. If you sign up for our newsletter, you get newsletter sent Monday to Friday into your inbox with ocean news, ocean jobs, and the latest from our podcast. So if you want to sign up for that newsletter, you can go to speakupforblue.com/newsletter, that's speakupforblue.com/newsletter. With that said, I didn't post earlier today, which is Wednesday, normally post Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. It was candidate weekend last weekend. I didn't get all of my weeks. I usually try and batch batch record. And I didn't get it all done before that weekend. And so because I've been extremely busy these days. And so Wednesdays wasn't ready. I usually if they're not ready, I'll usually record the night before, which is a Tuesday night. And I just wasn't feeling the greatest feeling really crappy. And then my daughter has this really great and exciting opportunity to go to Costa Rica for a month to learn great 11 biology, which I thought was quite an exciting venture. And so she's off right now. So we got her ready and spent some time with her on Tuesday night. So I just didn't get anything ready, have a lot of excuses. But I usually I hate not posting, but I'm going to post this. This is your episode you're listening to is going to be on Thursday. And then we'll have a regular posting on Friday. So we don't lose any episodes and you still get access to all the information that you need. And speaking of which this information is is quite interesting. I'm going to talk about some of the highlights of this report. You can go to MongoDB and use I'll put the link in the show notes for the full article because there's a really great article written by Elizabeth Fitt. It was posted just recently in July 3. And just a really great report. This report's been going on since 1995. And it really provides an accurate a fairly accurate overview of, you know, what the fisheries looks like from an aquaculture perspective, as well as wild fisheries. It's not the greatest, but it's really interesting in terms of like where we're at in terms of feeding the wild, like the world's populations, where we're with with protein and fish, where we're at with, you know, figuring things out in terms of one of the UN sustainable development goals, 14, which is life under water. And so it's, it's, you know, where is everything at? What's the stock? What's the assessment of, you know, fisheries? What's the assessment of aquaculture? And I wanted to cover this as an overview because there are some specific stories in different pockets around the world that, you know, paint different lights of aquaculture, paint different lights of fisheries. But this is a good overview to look at where we're going with all of this stuff. You know, I know in Canada, we have a real controversial, really, a real controversy in salmon, open pen, aquaculture, where people where the government has just announced that they're going to take away all of the licenses by 2029, I believe, that's happening on the west coast in, in, in BC, in British Columbia. That's a big controversy, because obviously the fishers, the, the, the aquaculture farms are worried, you know, it's jobs. It's a lot of, it's a, I think it's 1.2 or over $1 billion in, in revenue from the salmon industry. But it's also a lot of, you know, indigenous rights in, in, in, in all intertwined with that. It's also the, there's, there's reports or there's assumptions that the disease that happens in the aquaculture pens are getting at the lice, the fish lice are getting on the wild populations, which I can't confirm or deny that I haven't read the papers yet. But there are apparently papers saying that that's not true. But then there's this big controversy because the government of Canada is putting out some of these reports, but they're also involved in promoting aquaculture. So there's obviously a big controversy there in regards to what's put out. They've, they've apparently lied before. If you want to check anything out, you can go to the salmon people podcast. They have a really great series on this. And it's something that I think you should check out. But also do your research on that. I'll be, hopefully, I've had people on, you know, looking at both sides of the aquaculture industry, and I'll probably, I'll try and highlight those and put the pop those links into the show notes because I think it's something that needs to be said. Aquaculture is not perfect. It's getting better. We're learning more, but still not perfect. There's a still, like, you know, profit and greed that's, that's driving those. We don't know, but something to look over. But regardless, there are many stories around the world that talk about different fisheries, whether they're sustainably managed, whether they're not. But some of the highlights here is where one, we've seen a historic shift for the first time, more seafood is farmed than caught in the wild. So according to this FAO 2024 report, something off to the side as a tangent. FAO is referred, like the, the food and agriculture organization is referred to as FAO in North America. But it's referred to as faux in, in Europe, in European standards, I guess, in, in the Europe. And I don't know if it's in Africa and other places in the world, but I think many places in the world call it faux. Here in North America, we call it FAO. So it's something I just learned recently on the Beyond Josh podcast, but I thought that was something that was, that was interesting. Anyway, so that's the first time. So more seafood is farmed than caught in the wild. However, the, the, there has been a slight increase in wild fish populations, like fishing wild fish populations, which is not good because the sustainability of that usually is not managed very well when we talk about new species or other species. So that is a challenge. Overfishing issues, despite the rise in aquaculture overfishing and, and the decline in sustainable fishing stocks, which I just talked about continue, the FAO's blue transformation strategy aims to improve the sustainability of aquaculture. And the report highlights issues in fisheries management, political commitment, and, and investment. And then the potential benefits, aquaculture has the potential to enhance global nutrition, which is always, which is always great. So this is, you know, a report that provides these, these five big highlights, right? So we're looking at a historical shift from, to aquaculture, from wild populations, even though the overfishing issues are still prominent, that the, the FAO strategy as a strategist been working since 1995 to address the SDG goal 14 of life underwater challenges that we face is the issues in fisheries management, political commitment, and investment. And then potential benefits as aquaculture could provide is a potential to enhance global nutrition. We have a rising population. There's no doubt about that. I don't know if that will ever change. I don't know if we'll ever decrease. I just don't see that happening. We have to feed the population if we want to make sure that everybody is healthy. It has to be not only their present, but it has to be equitable, right? We have to be able to feed the entire population, especially in certain areas where, you know, 60% of people require fish as their, as their, their protein source. So that's a, that's a big, big thing. And so it has a lot of, it has a lot of ambition, this FAO report, you know, for a blue transformation. It says it's necessary, admirable, and ambitious. This is Bryce Stewart, senior research fellow at the UK based Marine Biological Association says it appears to have resulted in improved data and higher profile blue foods from fisheries and aquaculture as a key way to addressing global issues around inadequate nutrition and inequality, which is always, which is always good. So here's some of the key takeaways of the actual report, because this is something that's, that's been, you know, done every two years since 1995, I believe. And so this brings data in that became available since the 2022 report. So an estimated 600 million people will rely at least partially on small scale fisheries and aquaculture for their livelihoods while people relying on direct employment in the sectors increased by 4 million to almost 62 million since the 2022 report. Women make up 24% of fishers and fish farmers of 3% since this is the last report and a stay and a stable 62% of processing workers. So that stayed the same. More than three quarters of the global fisheries and agriculture workforce is based in Asia, which continues to dominate both wild fisheries and aquaculture accounting for 70% of the global aquatic animal production and more than 90% of aquaculture. Fisheries and agriculture production rose by more than 4% to an all-time high of 223 million metric tons worth a record of 4, 472 billion dollars. Aquaculture drove growth pulling ahead of capture fisheries in aquatic animal production to 51% of the global total. Almost 63% of farm aquatic animals and plants came from inland waters and 37% from marine and coastal areas. So the number of sustainably fished marine fish stocks fell to more than fell more than 2% down to 62% from the last report in 2022. That's not good. This continues striking long term decline from 90% so we're down to 62% from 90% in the 1970s and that is particularly worrying. So given the definition of food and aquaculture organization used to determine sustainability, this decline is likely an understatement. This was by Ashley Wilson of the Philadelphia-based public policy group the Pew Charitable Trust International Fisheries Project. Sustainably fished include stocks that are maximally sustainably fished, which make up half of the global total and under fished, which have rallied from just 7% to in the 2022 report to 12%. The remaining 38% of the stocks are defined as overfished up from 35% in 2022. So when it comes to the 10 fish species we land the most, the picture is a little brighter. Around 79% of these were fished within biologically sustainable levels higher than the global average, which shows these important stocks are better managed than most and the conservation efforts can be effective according to the report. Urgent action is needed to replicate successful policies and reverse declining sustainability trends. A lot of these things, if you go back to the Ocean of Canada report on their report card for the fish stocks assessments in Canada, a lot of it has to do with just getting information and dedicating resources to getting information on the stocks, on the types of fish that are fished and being able to understand whether they're sustainably fished or whether they're not. It's not just about ignoring those fish, it has to do with managing those fish properly and by making sure that we are actually able to say, hey, you know what, we know about these fish, we know more about these fish and to keep improving that information. Without that information, it's really difficult to make any kind of resulting progress to understand what the progress is or the decline is in those fish populations. At some point, you almost wonder, you know, maybe people don't want to know because they're worried about the decline and they don't want to know about the decline. They just want to know about progress. Good progress has been made in terms of countries agreeing to monitor and report across biological social and economic sustainability dimensions and on agreements to combat harmful fishing practices according to the report. Now, I know we've covered reports before where certain countries are trying to crack down on IUU fishing, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. And so we've seen more and more countries dedicate more resources to that and make more in an effort to decrease that type of fishing, IUU fishing. But actual implementation of these measures is lagging. It says an official sustainability continues to drift from its target. So too little investment from the public and private sectors, lackluster political will, and insufficient international collaboration, or was preventing better fisheries management, Stewart says, the good news is that we have the knowledge and expertise to do what it takes. We need to highlight learn from and draw inspiration from those fisheries and aquaculture initiatives that have achieved genuine sustainability and delivered benefits in an equitable way. So that's where we're at in terms of the highlights of the report and some of the major findings of the report. We still have a lot of over fish populations. Our aquaculture is increasing. Good or bad, we're able to feed the population. That's a big thing. That's a thing that we need to do. We need to find ways to feed the population without putting pressure on wild stocks. Because if we had to feed the population just with wild stocks, those wild stocks would probably have already disappeared if not or on the brink of disappearing, which some of them are already are, especially when you look at shark species. But the good news is that when we focus on specific species, we can manage them properly because the 10 fish species that we land the most is a little bit brighter. Around 90% of these were fish within biologically sustainable levels. Now, 79% is okay. There's an improvement to be made here, but we're starting to see better management for species that are actually, where there's a focus on their protection and their conservation. And I think that's the good news of this report. There still needs to be better news coming out. We still need to see changes. But it's a big thing. We need to be able to produce more foods. And it's not going away because there are climate adaptations to this or climate benefits, climate change benefits to this because this is a aquatic foods play a key role in mitigating the impacts of climate change, partly because future terrestrial food production will struggle to deliver food security. And at the same time as the effects of climate change and testify, intensify and global demand for blue food economies increase, it will it continues to increase. It will become even more difficult, but more important to manage fisheries more sustainably. So the cope with the changes that will become that will be coming upon us. This is this is Peter Thompson from the the ambassador of the Fiji and special ocean envoy to the UN. He says, I have a little doubt that we'll be will be turning increasingly to oceans for solutions to our problems. So you may not hear a lot about agriculture. When you talk about food, you talk about climate change mitigation, because a lot of times when we talk about, you know, food and we talk about the oceans, we talk about fisheries and wild fisheries and how it's not very sustainable, we need a lot to do a lot more work to make sure that those overfish populations go from 38% down, you know, to 0% eventually. Unfortunately, it's very hard to monitor. There's a lot of challenges when it comes to that and people when they see when they hear this, it becomes really difficult, you know, becomes really difficult to take this seriously. But apparently it is better for climate change. It is an area that we're going to need to focus on more in the future. The ocean will provide a solution as well as the ocean could be our biggest enemy. As as I'm recording this podcast, there's a hurricane that's headed towards Jamaica. If not already landed in Jamaica, it just hit another, I think it's a hurricane. Burleigh, I think it's called, but it basically ravaged a small island just north of Grenada. It went through Barbados. It's now a category for hurricane, maybe even five at this point going over Jamaica. And, you know, this is the this is only July. This is the this is the it's a record for a hurricane being at this highest category for ever. This is we've been recording hurricanes. So that's over 100 years. Climate change isn't going away, folks. And we need to be able to mitigate it. And we need to be able to say, Hey, you know what, we need to figure out what are the benefits and how we're going to supply people with food, but also to decrease climate change and look at ways for food security to be more secure in the future. So that's where the this episode ends, folks. It's a it's a long battle. These reports are very, very insightful. These reports are an important part of fisheries management. And I'm glad the food and agriculture organization is writing these reports every two years. And I think it's something that we need to follow. We need there are really good goals to say, Hey, you know what we're doing what we're doing better, but we're not there yet. We need to be doing even even better. And I think these reports allow us to make that measurement, keep us accountable and move forward in the future. So something that I would like to see more of in the future. And I'm looking forward to that. But that's the episode for today. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this FAO report or the FOW report. And just hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. And if you think somebody that you know is interested in fisheries or food security or anything like that, send it, send them this episode. You know, make sure that you share the wealth of knowledge that we're able to provide here. It's something that I always like to be able to do when, you know, when I will, we can share episodes with other people. And that's how we grow. That's how we get the conversation moving. I'm starting this conversation. I'd love to hear you continue it either with me or other people. So share that, hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean and sign up for the newsletters to get more information that's at that speakofforblue.com/newsletter that speak up for blue.com/newsletter. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.
