Post by spindrift on Nov 10, 2012 8:22:44 GMT 10
A simple fact not many know....fish farming is depleting the oceans, and equvilent to whaling.
Make a environmental and ecological ethical choice ...do not buy farmed fish.
Peru cuts commercial fishing quota
Updated 11:46 AM Nov 05, 2012
LIMA - Peru has slashed its commercial fishing quota as warmer water temperatures and controversial practices deplete stocks of anchovy in one of the world's richest fisheries.
The government cut its quota for this summer's anchovy season by 68 per cent to 810,000 tonnes, the smallest allowance in 25 years. Anchovy is rarely eaten fresh but is dried, ground up and exported as a protein-rich feed for livestock and farmed fish.
The stricter quota will allow just enough anchovy to swim into spawning season, reproduce and keep the size of the fishery more or less stable, according to a report by the government marine institute IMARPE.
"Technically we should have said the quota is zero. That's how bleak the panorama is," Production Minister Gladys Trevino told reporters last week.
The anchovy population has shrunk by 41 per cent since last summer and is 28 per cent smaller than the average of the past 12 years, IMARPE says.
The quota for the November to February fishing season could push the price of fishmeal up even further. The price of the commodity has more than doubled over the past decade and rose some 20 per cent in the past year, according to data from the World Bank.
Peru is the world's top fishmeal exporter, producing about a third of worldwide supply. Last year it shipped abroad more than US$2 billion (S$2.5 billion) in fishmeal and fish oil.
The anchovy pulled from Peru's Pacific Ocean is sold as fishmeal that feeds pigs in China and farmed salmon in Europe. It is also squeezed into increasingly popular Omega-3 supplements.
The government could impose additional restrictions if the warmer waters that IMARPE predicts reach Peru in coming months.
IMARPE said Peru is experiencing the effects of a mild El Nino and that the warm waters that the climatological phenomenon brings produced a mass die-off of anchovy earlier this year.
El Nino phenomena have been linked to extreme weather globally.
"But we can't just blame what's going on in the environment," said Mr Arturo Gonzales, director of the sustainable fishing advocacy group CeDePesca. "There are a lot of questions about how much this is driven by the industry's discarded catches, and that's something we can control."
IMARPE says that industrial fishermen at times return young fish they catch unintentionally back to the sea to avoid fines the government has set to try to protect them. The fish are already dead by the time they are thrown back into the water. REUTERS
Make a environmental and ecological ethical choice ...do not buy farmed fish.
Peru cuts commercial fishing quota
Updated 11:46 AM Nov 05, 2012
LIMA - Peru has slashed its commercial fishing quota as warmer water temperatures and controversial practices deplete stocks of anchovy in one of the world's richest fisheries.
The government cut its quota for this summer's anchovy season by 68 per cent to 810,000 tonnes, the smallest allowance in 25 years. Anchovy is rarely eaten fresh but is dried, ground up and exported as a protein-rich feed for livestock and farmed fish.
The stricter quota will allow just enough anchovy to swim into spawning season, reproduce and keep the size of the fishery more or less stable, according to a report by the government marine institute IMARPE.
"Technically we should have said the quota is zero. That's how bleak the panorama is," Production Minister Gladys Trevino told reporters last week.
The anchovy population has shrunk by 41 per cent since last summer and is 28 per cent smaller than the average of the past 12 years, IMARPE says.
The quota for the November to February fishing season could push the price of fishmeal up even further. The price of the commodity has more than doubled over the past decade and rose some 20 per cent in the past year, according to data from the World Bank.
Peru is the world's top fishmeal exporter, producing about a third of worldwide supply. Last year it shipped abroad more than US$2 billion (S$2.5 billion) in fishmeal and fish oil.
The anchovy pulled from Peru's Pacific Ocean is sold as fishmeal that feeds pigs in China and farmed salmon in Europe. It is also squeezed into increasingly popular Omega-3 supplements.
The government could impose additional restrictions if the warmer waters that IMARPE predicts reach Peru in coming months.
IMARPE said Peru is experiencing the effects of a mild El Nino and that the warm waters that the climatological phenomenon brings produced a mass die-off of anchovy earlier this year.
El Nino phenomena have been linked to extreme weather globally.
"But we can't just blame what's going on in the environment," said Mr Arturo Gonzales, director of the sustainable fishing advocacy group CeDePesca. "There are a lot of questions about how much this is driven by the industry's discarded catches, and that's something we can control."
IMARPE says that industrial fishermen at times return young fish they catch unintentionally back to the sea to avoid fines the government has set to try to protect them. The fish are already dead by the time they are thrown back into the water. REUTERS
