Brendan Rodda reports on the demise of the once teeming Southern Ocean fisheries. Marine life around the world is disappearing at an unprecedented rate, under attack from a modern mix of technology, greed and waste. The decline in marine life is not as visible as a felled rainforest or even as noticeable as climate change, so it is no surprise that it hasn t received much attention. The issue is, nonetheless, crucial to our future food supply and biodiversity.
Nobody disputes that it is already a serious problem.
A UN study in 1995 found that over half of the world s major fishing grounds were in serious decline and 70 per cent of fish stocks were under threat. In recent years, as major fishing grounds elsewhere have collapsed, the large-scale fishing industry has increasingly shifted its focus to the Southern Ocean, near Antarctica. The massive vessels of the industry, with their ability to stay at sea for months, their huge capacity for fish and their randomly destructive methods of catching them, have in the space of a few years depleted the ocean s bountiful stocks. Even at its best, such industrialised fishing places great strain on marine environments, but the situation in the Southern Ocean is made worse by what is called pirate fishing, industrialised fishing vessels that flout international fishing laws regulating catch areas and catch size. The Southern Ocean is the last marine wilderness, with great biodiversity, but at the current rate of exploitation it won t remain so for long.