In 2006, President George W. Bush created three marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean. Today, President Obama announced the dramatic expansion of these marine preserves to form the world’s largest marine sanctuary. Under the proposal, the Pacific Remote Island Marine National Monument would grow from almost 87,000 square miles to nearly 782,000 square miles — all of it adjacent to seven islands and atolls controlled by the United States. The sanctuary covers a broad swath of the central Pacific Ocean and will be off-limits to fishing, energy exploration and other activities. The proposal is slated to go into effect later this year and could double the area of the ocean globally that is fully protected.
“I’m going to use my authority to protect some of our nation’s most precious marine landscapes,” Obama said in a video to participants at a State Department conference, adding that while the ocean is being degraded, “We cannot afford to let that happen. That’s why the United States is leading the fight to protect our oceans.”
It is only a small step in the right direction but Obama’s action to expand the marine sanctuaries around these uninhabited islands deserves praise. The realities of the global fishing industry are mind boggling and the inefficiencies are bordering on the absurd. The combination of Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese drift nets cast every night in international waters reaches about 48,000 km, enough to encircle the globe. The greatest paradox is in the fact that nowadays 36 percent of all captured wild fish is processed into fish meal. Chickens and pigs consume two times more seafood than the Japanese, six times more than the Americans…
Currently, more than 99% of the world’s oceans are open to fishing; this should be reversed, and the open ocean should be closed to industrial exploitation. The continental shelves and coastal waters should be the privileged reserve of the small-scale fishermen who use low-tech gear and are coast-bound. It is estimated that the small-scale sector has the capacity to catch roughly the same amount as the industrial sector but it employs nearly 25 times more people.
Fishing should be the privilege of the poor rather than a right of the rich.
A wise move, too long delayed.
Pingback: Scheepvaartnieuws | Bootjesgek.nl