6 ms·

Commercial fishing at sea should be banned IMHO. It's unsustainable, and even if quotas could make it sustainable, they are all but unenforceable.

lupire 4y ago
Are you going to go to war with the Chinese Communist Party to stop them from fishing world seas?
superchroma 4y ago
Yeah, looking that way. Biggest contributor to plastic in the ocean, directly killing it too.
uppt 4y ago
User23 4y ago
Banning is just setting a quota of zero, which you've already agreed is effectively unenforceable. Obviously control has to be on the demand and not the supply side. Banning the sale of fish, or punitively taxing it, would be two options to make commercial fishing economically unattractive.
- ceeg 4y ago
  A full ban, or "a quota of zero" is much more observable and enforcable than keeping track of individuals' permits and catch limits. Not here for enabling more violence on behalf of the enforcer class, but this argument didnt make much sense to me
- jacknews 4y ago
  I think indoor/raceway farmed fish is the future, once we work out sustainable food sources, eg insects. I'm not sure how credible that is for marine species, but I'm sure it's possible for some, and we don't have to completely cut fish from our diets. In the meantime, I agree, we should be banning the sale/import of some species of fish.
  - ars 4y ago
    Why insects? Tilapia eat plants, and other fish eat tilapia.
    - jacknews 4y ago
      Then that should work too. I think current practice is often to feed larger carnivorous fish with smaller wild-caught fish, which doesn't really solve the problem.
    - jxramos 4y ago
      Wow a vegetarian fish, I never contemplated such a thing. What kind of plants do they eat anyways?
      - ars 4y ago
        They eat basically anything. They are a very non picky fish. Algae is a favorite.
  - pstuart 4y ago
    Black soldier flies harvest themselves. The omega 3 fatty acids in fish come from algae. Duckweed is one of the fastest growing plants out there and is protein packed. The above is the combo I think would be the path to support such a raceway system. One of many crazy dreams I have is to start a trout farm based on that.
- p1necone 4y ago
  A full ban would be much much easier to enforce. You see a fishing boat? It gets a military escort out of your national waters. You see the same boat again? It gets blown up. Compare with having to board a random sample of boats (and there'd be a lot, because a lot of them would be legitimate), check documents, check catch totals etc.
  - beachy 4y ago
    Yes, because blowing up a boat crewed by poor third world sailors trying to make some money to feed their families back home is a truly proportionate response.
    - reedciccio 4y ago
      You should remove the people aboard before blowing up the fishing vessel :)
      - beachy 4y ago
        The comment I was replying to proposed blowing up the boat as an alternative to "having to board a random sample of boats (and there'd be a lot, because a lot of them would be legitimate), check documents"
    - superchroma 4y ago
      Yes, it is. Because these people think that destroying the entire ocean is their right, and they're basically cutting throats to get ahead, and they'll never be on the hook for all the nets they cut and dump in the ocean, all the vulnerable fish they ravage and all the other damage they do.
      - beachy 4y ago
        Perhaps a fair comment about the boats owners or the fishing company's shareholders. Not so much about the poor saps that crew it.
  - 4y ago
ars 4y ago
It's already slowing going away anyway, being replaced by fish farms: https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-aquaculture https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-aquaculture I can't seem to find any source with data past 2015. Aquaculture is already cheaper than wild caught. In stores (judging by labels) wild caught is already becoming marketed as a "premium" product, with prices to match, which will reduce demand.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  I would never eat Norwegian farmed salmon. Norwegian fish farming is on par with US pig farming.
  - therealdrag0 4y ago
    Most Americans eat farmed pigs, so I guess they can eat Norwegian farmed salmon! Problem solved :)
    - philliphaydon 4y ago
      https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/141028-hog-farms-waste-pollution-methane-north-carolina-environment https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/141028-ho... https://youtu.be/ayGJ1YSfDXs https://youtu.be/ayGJ1YSfDXs
      - therealdrag0 4y ago
        I wasn’t defending it. I’m just saying (short term) converting the median eater, who doesn’t care about pig welfare, to factory farmed salmon will be easier and more environmentally impactful than trying to make them vegetarian.
  - vegardx 4y ago
    Is it any different from other farmed fish? And what is the danger here?
    - 4y ago
dukeofdoom 4y ago
Oceans have been terribly overfished, but people need to eat. Many poorer countries rely on fishing to help then feed their populations. Banning commercial fishing would be like banning commercial chicken. A huge loss of a major cheap source of protein, and nothing to replace it with.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Commercial chicken is not hunted in the wild, so I'm not sure how that comparison makes any sense. The oceans are already being depleted of fish in a highly unsustainable way so if you care about that protein source, shutting down large-scale fishing altogether is exactly what you should do.
  - dukeofdoom 4y ago
    The logistics of what you are proposing is just not there, unless you're cool with committing another man made famine like the Holodomor. I actually find it disturbing with the ease you're willing to starve the poor of the world. Ocean fishing requires very little energy input, but provides huge amounts of ready to eat food output. You can't replace that in many parts of the world. Not every place has good farm land for one, or the technological infrastructure, or even political stability. Give you and example. Egypt went from a population of 8 million to 80 million in the last century. Do you think they can grow all that food in the desert? or do they rely on fishing and on global imports of food items...like grain from Ukraine. How will the poor do when you take out one of their sources of food. While simultaneously the price of energy is sky rocketing and global trade is under threat do to conflict and as countries begin to hoard fertilizer and food for their own populations, in anticipation of the the coming winter.
    - wumpus 4y ago
      > Ocean fishing requires very little energy input So all of those studies pointing out that most ocean fishing only happens because of subsidized fuel are wrong?
m00x 4y ago
I used to live in a lobster/crab fishing town near the Atlantic. Crab fishermen would meet First Nations people halfway to sell them the crabs that were over quota at a cheaper price since they don't have a quota, and they would sell it bootleg at the reserves. We used to go down and buy 12 lobsters for $40 when I was a kid (20 years ago). It was the best deal ever. When I left town, the fishermen started attacking First Nations boat because they realized they(FN) could just do it themselves and just cry colonizer oppression if they got caught. Crab supply got extremely scarce and the gov started cutting down licenses and lowering quotas. Many fishermen lost their 1-2M/y for 3 month of work businesses. There's still violence to this day, some FNs and some fishermen get killed every once in a while, and boats get burned.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  Huh never heard the precolonial societies on the Atlantic side referred to as First Nations Does all of Canada use that terminology now? I think that term only bleeds over across the border into the US in the Pacific Northwest, since some tribes there overlap borders and have a special cross border ID that allows employment (some cross border tribes in New England but theyre just split in two)
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    "First nations" is the common term in Canada to refer to the people living in the area now known as Canada before Europeans arrived, similar to "Native American" in the US.
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      I think we’re saying the same thing, just had not confirmed it was all of Canada saying this for all pre-european civilizations within Canada.
shafyy 4y ago
There's no sustainable amount of large scale commercial fishing. Quotas are a joke. Labels are a joke.

lupire 4y ago

Are you going to go to war with the Chinese Communist Party to stop them from fishing world seas?

superchroma 4y ago

Yeah, looking that way. Biggest contributor to plastic in the ocean, directly killing it too.

uppt 4y ago

User23 4y ago

Banning is just setting a quota of zero, which you've already agreed is effectively unenforceable. Obviously control has to be on the demand and not the supply side. Banning the sale of fish, or punitively taxing it, would be two options to make commercial fishing economically unattractive.

ceeg 4y ago
A full ban, or "a quota of zero" is much more observable and enforcable than keeping track of individuals' permits and catch limits. Not here for enabling more violence on behalf of the enforcer class, but this argument didnt make much sense to me
jacknews 4y ago
I think indoor/raceway farmed fish is the future, once we work out sustainable food sources, eg insects. I'm not sure how credible that is for marine species, but I'm sure it's possible for some, and we don't have to completely cut fish from our diets. In the meantime, I agree, we should be banning the sale/import of some species of fish.
- ars 4y ago
  Why insects? Tilapia eat plants, and other fish eat tilapia.
  - jacknews 4y ago
    Then that should work too. I think current practice is often to feed larger carnivorous fish with smaller wild-caught fish, which doesn't really solve the problem.
  - jxramos 4y ago
    Wow a vegetarian fish, I never contemplated such a thing. What kind of plants do they eat anyways?
    - ars 4y ago
      They eat basically anything. They are a very non picky fish. Algae is a favorite.
- pstuart 4y ago
  Black soldier flies harvest themselves. The omega 3 fatty acids in fish come from algae. Duckweed is one of the fastest growing plants out there and is protein packed. The above is the combo I think would be the path to support such a raceway system. One of many crazy dreams I have is to start a trout farm based on that.
p1necone 4y ago
A full ban would be much much easier to enforce. You see a fishing boat? It gets a military escort out of your national waters. You see the same boat again? It gets blown up. Compare with having to board a random sample of boats (and there'd be a lot, because a lot of them would be legitimate), check documents, check catch totals etc.
- beachy 4y ago
  Yes, because blowing up a boat crewed by poor third world sailors trying to make some money to feed their families back home is a truly proportionate response.
  - reedciccio 4y ago
    You should remove the people aboard before blowing up the fishing vessel :)
    - beachy 4y ago
      The comment I was replying to proposed blowing up the boat as an alternative to "having to board a random sample of boats (and there'd be a lot, because a lot of them would be legitimate), check documents"
  - superchroma 4y ago
    Yes, it is. Because these people think that destroying the entire ocean is their right, and they're basically cutting throats to get ahead, and they'll never be on the hook for all the nets they cut and dump in the ocean, all the vulnerable fish they ravage and all the other damage they do.
    - beachy 4y ago
      Perhaps a fair comment about the boats owners or the fishing company's shareholders. Not so much about the poor saps that crew it.
- 4y ago

ars 4y ago

It's already slowing going away anyway, being replaced by fish farms: https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-aquaculture https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-aquaculture I can't seem to find any source with data past 2015. Aquaculture is already cheaper than wild caught. In stores (judging by labels) wild caught is already becoming marketed as a "premium" product, with prices to match, which will reduce demand.

philliphaydon 4y ago
I would never eat Norwegian farmed salmon. Norwegian fish farming is on par with US pig farming.
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  Most Americans eat farmed pigs, so I guess they can eat Norwegian farmed salmon! Problem solved :)
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/141028-hog-farms-waste-pollution-methane-north-carolina-environment https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/141028-ho... https://youtu.be/ayGJ1YSfDXs https://youtu.be/ayGJ1YSfDXs
    - therealdrag0 4y ago
      I wasn’t defending it. I’m just saying (short term) converting the median eater, who doesn’t care about pig welfare, to factory farmed salmon will be easier and more environmentally impactful than trying to make them vegetarian.
- vegardx 4y ago
  Is it any different from other farmed fish? And what is the danger here?
  - 4y ago

dukeofdoom 4y ago

Oceans have been terribly overfished, but people need to eat. Many poorer countries rely on fishing to help then feed their populations. Banning commercial fishing would be like banning commercial chicken. A huge loss of a major cheap source of protein, and nothing to replace it with.

zozbot234 4y ago
Commercial chicken is not hunted in the wild, so I'm not sure how that comparison makes any sense. The oceans are already being depleted of fish in a highly unsustainable way so if you care about that protein source, shutting down large-scale fishing altogether is exactly what you should do.
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  The logistics of what you are proposing is just not there, unless you're cool with committing another man made famine like the Holodomor. I actually find it disturbing with the ease you're willing to starve the poor of the world. Ocean fishing requires very little energy input, but provides huge amounts of ready to eat food output. You can't replace that in many parts of the world. Not every place has good farm land for one, or the technological infrastructure, or even political stability. Give you and example. Egypt went from a population of 8 million to 80 million in the last century. Do you think they can grow all that food in the desert? or do they rely on fishing and on global imports of food items...like grain from Ukraine. How will the poor do when you take out one of their sources of food. While simultaneously the price of energy is sky rocketing and global trade is under threat do to conflict and as countries begin to hoard fertilizer and food for their own populations, in anticipation of the the coming winter.
  - wumpus 4y ago
    > Ocean fishing requires very little energy input So all of those studies pointing out that most ocean fishing only happens because of subsidized fuel are wrong?

m00x 4y ago

I used to live in a lobster/crab fishing town near the Atlantic. Crab fishermen would meet First Nations people halfway to sell them the crabs that were over quota at a cheaper price since they don't have a quota, and they would sell it bootleg at the reserves. We used to go down and buy 12 lobsters for $40 when I was a kid (20 years ago). It was the best deal ever. When I left town, the fishermen started attacking First Nations boat because they realized they(FN) could just do it themselves and just cry colonizer oppression if they got caught. Crab supply got extremely scarce and the gov started cutting down licenses and lowering quotas. Many fishermen lost their 1-2M/y for 3 month of work businesses. There's still violence to this day, some FNs and some fishermen get killed every once in a while, and boats get burned.

yieldcrv 4y ago
Huh never heard the precolonial societies on the Atlantic side referred to as First Nations Does all of Canada use that terminology now? I think that term only bleeds over across the border into the US in the Pacific Northwest, since some tribes there overlap borders and have a special cross border ID that allows employment (some cross border tribes in New England but theyre just split in two)
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  "First nations" is the common term in Canada to refer to the people living in the area now known as Canada before Europeans arrived, similar to "Native American" in the US.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    I think we’re saying the same thing, just had not confirmed it was all of Canada saying this for all pre-european civilizations within Canada.

shafyy 4y ago

There's no sustainable amount of large scale commercial fishing. Quotas are a joke. Labels are a joke.