Sustainable Fishing

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Sustainable Fishing and the Global Market

Throughout the world the demand for fish as a consumable food product is growing at a rapid pace. To meet these demands commercial fishing companies have been catching and farming massive quantities of fish at levels many consider unsustainable. The impact that both catching wild fish, as well as aquaculture, the process of raising fish in captivity, have on the ecosystem seems to be detrimental. While ocean overfishing has driven specific species to population numbers a fraction of what they once were, commercial fish farms risk diseased and parasite infected fish escaping and contaminating wild fish. However while the solution appears to be as simple as reducing the production of seafood, there …show more content…

According to World Bank, “in 2030, 62% of the seafood we eat will be farm-raised to meet growing demand from regions such as Asia, where roughly 70% of fish will be consumed.”[1] It’s pretty clear that as global consumers more and more people are purchasing seafood. This demand from all over the world provides incentive for companies to both catch massive quantities of fish from the ocean, and overproduce fish within aquaculture facilities. What I find so interesting about this subject is that ultimately the consumer is the most impactful part of this …show more content…

Because not all coastal regions of the world are the same many countries have differing amounts of influence when it comes to the impact these practices have on the environment. A study funded by the European Union found that in any given year, “Nearly 3 million tons of seafood came from the West African Coast – an amount worth over 7 billion USD.”[3] There are a number of countries who rely on fishing in it’s various forms for a means to help their economies and feed their people. A number of these polices that global institutions want to impose need to consider that better fishing practices such as, maintaining more responsible fishing seasons and operating safer, cleaner fish farms, are practices that are much easier to implement in countries that have to means to do so. However these new sustainable methods can offer many benefits in the long run, they hard part is finding solutions that can be implemented in a constructive way over

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