Have you ever thought about what would happen if we ran out of fish?

Fishing has been part of Cayman life ever since these islands were first settled – in fact, even before settlement, merchantmen, navy and pirate ships stopped off to replenish their stocks with our turtle and fish.

At the top of just about every Cayman male’s list of priorities is a small fishing dinghy so he can escape the pressures of work and home. Taking the kids out fishinin’ on a weekend or a sunny evening after work is way up there on our list of to-do’s.

And it’s not so much a matter of catching anything – though a catch is always welcomed. It’s as much the peace of being comfortable on the sea that surrounds us, and the quiet that offers an escape from the hurly-burly that daily life here has become.

By the time our children want to take their children fishing, it could all be a thing of the past. So warn a number of stories that flashed across the world’s news media last week. From the BBC to the New York Times, the headlines pronounced: “Only 50 years left” for ocean fish.

Richard Black, the BBC website’s environment correspondent, reported on a major scientific study that predicts there will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century, if current trends continue.

It’s not hard to see how and why our fish stocks have collapsed. The warning signs started with North Sea cod 20 years ago and spread across the Atlantic to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, where industrialised methods of fishing reduced the millions of codfish to virtually nothing by the end of the 1980s.

On the west coast of North America, just about the only place salmon stocks are left more or less intact is Alaska. In the waters off Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, salmon have dwindled to only a few.

News throughout the world is just as grim. The BBC reports that stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

Loss of marine biodiversity

Writing in the journal Science, the international team of researchers said fishery decline is closely tied to a broader loss of marine biodiversity, but more use of protected areas could safeguard existing stocks.

“‘The way we use the oceans is that we hope and assume there will always be another species to exploit after we’ve completely gone through the last one,’ said research leader Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Canada. ‘What we’re highlighting is there is a finite number of stocks; we have gone through one-third, and we are going to get through the rest,’ he told the BBC News website.

“Steve Palumbi, from Stanford University in California, one of the other scientists on the project, added: ‘Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood.’”

The report is a massive piece of research which incorporates work from scientists from many institutions in Europe and the Americas and draws on four distinctly different kinds of data. The first is catch records from the open sea, which give a picture of declining fish stocks.

“In 2003, 29 per cent of open sea fisheries were in a state of collapse, defined as a decline to less than 10 per cent of their original yield,” the story states. “Bigger vessels, better nets, and new technology for spotting fish are not bringing the world’s fleets bigger returns – in fact, the global catch fell by 13 per cent between 1994 and 2003.

“Historical records from coastal zones in North America, Europe and Australia also show declining yields, in step with declining species diversity; these are yields not just of fish, but of other kinds of seafood too,” said the report. “Zones of biodiversity loss also tended to see more beach closures, more blooms of potentially harmful algae, and more coastal flooding.”

The story outlines experiments performed in small, relatively contained ecosystems which show that reductions in diversity tend to bring reductions in the size and robustness of local fish stocks. This implies that loss of biodiversity is driving the declines in fish stocks seen in the large-scale studies.

Protection brings back biodiversity

“The final part of the jigsaw is data from areas where fishing has been banned or heavily restricted.

These show that protection brings back biodiversity within the zone, and restores populations of fish just outside,” Mr. Black reports.

“‘The image I use to explain why biodiversity is so important is that marine life is a bit like a house of cards,’ said Dr Worm. ‘All parts of it are integral to the structure; if you remove parts, particularly at the bottom, it’s detrimental to everything on top and threatens the whole structure. And we’re learning that in the oceans, species are very strongly linked to each other – probably more so than on land.’”

What the study does not do is attribute damage to individual activities such as overfishing, pollution or habitat loss; instead, it paints a picture of the cumulative harm done across the board. Even so, said the story, a key implication of the research is that more of the oceans should be protected.

The extent of protection is not the only issue, according to Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the global marine programme at IUCN – the World Conservation Union. “‘The benefits of marine protected areas are quite clear in a few cases; there’s no doubt that protecting areas leads to a lot more fish and larger fish, and less vulnerability,’ he said.

“‘But you also have to have good management of marine parks and good management of fisheries.

Clearly, fishing should not wreck the ecosystem, bottom trawling being a good example of something which does wreck the ecosystem.’

“But, he says, the concept of protecting fish stocks by protecting biodiversity does make sense. ‘This is a good compelling case; we should protect biodiversity, and it does pay off even in simple monetary terms through fisheries yield.’”

Protecting stocks demands the political will to act on scientific advice – something which Boris Worm finds lacking in Europe, where politicians have ignored recommendations to halt the iconic North Sea cod fishery year after year. Without a ban, scientists fear the North Sea stocks could follow the Grand Banks cod of eastern Canada into apparently terminal decline.

Irrational decisions

“‘I’m just amazed, it’s very irrational,’ he said. ‘You have scientific consensus and nothing moves. It’s a sad example; and what happened in Canada should be such a warning, because now it’s collapsed it’s not coming back.’”

The report’s findings are summarised as follows:

Experiments show that reducing the diversity of an ecosystem lowers the abundance of fish.

Historical records show extensive loss of biodiversity along coasts since 1800, with the collapse of about 40 per cent of species. About one-third of once viable coastal fisheries are now useless.

Catch records from the open ocean show widespread decline of fisheries since 1950 with the rate of decline increasing. In 2003, 29 per cent of fisheries were collapsed. Biodiverse regions’ stocks fare better.

Marine reserves and no-catch zones bring an average 23 per cent improvement in biodiversity and an increase in fish stocks around the protected area.

One answer could be found in California, as reported by Gulf News recently, where the Nature Conservancy, the international environmental group best known for buying development rights from farmers, is looking to strike similar deals with fishermen to buy up fishing permits along the coast, in a pilot programme that it said could be replicated elsewhere.

The group has bought six federal trawling permits and four trawling vessels from fishermen in Morro Bay, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the story reports. “The tactic is designed to reward fishermen for forgoing fishing methods that can damage sensitive marine ecosystems.

Financial details weren’t disclosed, but each fisherman received ‘several hundred thousand dollars apiece’, said Chuck Cook, director of the group’s California coastal and marine program. Rather than punishing fishermen, Cook said, ‘you try to provide economic incentives for treating the habitats and fisheries well.’”

“The Conservancy said its acquisitions represent the nation’s first private buy-out of Pacific fishing vessels and permits for conservation purposes. The buy-outs are also part of its new, cooperative approach to protect the ocean and contrast with earlier campaigns that some fishermen saw as a financial burden.”

Here in Cayman we have a very successful example of preserving fish stocks in our marine parks.

However, the original concept behind the parks and replenishment zones was that they would be moved every few years to help stocks in different areas regenerate. This has not, in fact, happened, and it is a situation which needs to be remedied.

Perhaps we can, with our own coastal fisheries, provide fish stocks for our grandchildren. But we must change our ways. I know several people who are quite happy to go fishing every day, no matter what, and never catch-and-release. They take everything they catch. That’s fine now, but it doesn’t help protect our fish stocks for future generations.

If you wish to contact the Green Hornet directly, you can e-mail me at: caymanhornet@yahoo.com. All messages will be treated confidentially.