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Bad News and Good News The Bad News is
- This sounds near catastrophic and the report has already been widely cited but is it true? The Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N. has catch statistics for world fisheries on their website going back to 1961. Here is what they show: The global catch for pelagic fishes in 1961 was 7.3 million tonns. It showed an increasing trend until the late 1980s and has remained at around 40 million tonns since then. The peak year was 1994 at 44.5 million tonns. The most recent year for which statistics were available was 1999 at 40.4 million tonns. The catch for demersal fishes was 9.7 million tonns in 1961. This rises to around 20 million tonns in the early 1980s and peaks at 21.9 million tonns in 1987. The figure for 1999 is 20.2 million tonns. Breakdowns for various groups of fishes from 1994 through 2000 show similar patterns for tunas, sharks, flounders, and herrings with catches for 2000 at or near all time highs. Only the cods show a moderate decline from 10.7 million tonns in 1996 to 8.7 million tonns in 2000. A global decline of
90% in populations would have to result in significantly reduced
catches. The statistics do clearly show a leveling off over the past
decade and a strong case can be made for reduction in pressure on
many stocks but such extraordinary claims are unhelpful. They are
sure to be strongly rejected by the fishing industry, are contrary
to actual catch results and almost certain to be disputed and
ultimately discredited. For FAO statistics
see: and
the Good News is - In recent years
there has been a proliferation of new channels of media but the
time, money, and interest we have to expend on them remains much the
same as it always was. It's a zero sum game with every new medium or
channel only dividing the pie into smaller and smaller pieces with
audience attention becoming an ever scarcer commodity. Increasingly
we are overwhelmed with a confusion of generally overpriced choices
and often end up not buying anything. An innovative new advertising section will include interesting advertorial content and direct web links to advertisers own websites at prices they can afford. For more info on this see: http://www.goldendolphin.com/adinfo/adinfo.htm . Contributors share will also apply to advertising revenue. If you are an underwater photographer with work you would like to see in the next DVD edition now is good time to get in touch.
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