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New book charts decline of UK marine wildlife and fish stocks

Posted on 11 September 2007

A new book unveiled today at the BA Festival of Science at the University of York documents 1000 years of decline of British marine life due to fishing and hunting.

The Unnatural History of the Sea: The Past and Future of Humanity and Fishing (published on 11 September by Gaia Books) pieces together the devastating effects of commercial fishing and hunting on Britain’s marine life over the last millennium.

The book reveals how the oceans - once brimming with fish, marine mammals, and other life - have been depleted and, in many places, left barren. The author, Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York, says the history of destruction underpins a compelling argument for bold action now to restore ocean wildlife and protect what remains of ocean habitat.

The seas that today’s generations have grown up with would be unrecognisable to our predecessors in Middle Ages Britain

Professor Callum Roberts

Professor Roberts relates an extraordinary history of ocean life in words and pictures. Using centuries-old, first-hand accounts of sea adventures from explorers, fishermen, pirates, merchants, and travellers, he brings to life hundreds of years of exploration and exploitation of the sea. The book relives the discovery of an ocean teeming with whales, seals, giant fish and mighty shoals of herring, cod and haddock.

"European seas once supported an astonishing abundance of life that is almost unimaginable to today’s generations and has largely been forgotten," he says.

"The seas that today’s generations have grown up with would be unrecognisable to our predecessors in Middle Ages Britain. Centuries of intensive fishing and hunting have degraded and despoiled our once rich waters, but to us they seem normal."

The book shows that the impact on Britain’s marine wildlife is much greater than people generally appreciate, including many of those charged with protecting marine life and managing fisheries. Though people think of declining fish stocks as a modern phenomenon, fish have, in fact, been in decline since at least the middle of the 19th century.

Professor Roberts says: "The fishing industry responded to falling catches by fishing further afield, and targetting previously unused species. But today we are running out of options. We fish nearly everywhere, and in many places, the only commercially viable species left are prawns and scallops. When they are gone, the fishing industry will disappear with them."

The book warns that the end of UK fisheries is already in sight and that current fisheries management in Europe is unsustainable, and it calls for a series of measures to conserve stocks.

Professor Roberts says: "We should scrap the present quota system and replace it with limits on fishing effort. That fishing effort should be cut to around half the amount we have today to give stocks a chance to rebuild."

He calls for fishers to be required to land their entire catches, rather than forcing them to discard vast quantities of dead and dying marine life, and they should use the best available fishing technologies to prevent habitat damage.

Professor Roberts adds that control of fishing should no longer be a political responsibility but managed instead by a commission that is both independent of government and industry, and respects scientific recommendations.

He says a network of marine reserves should be established covering 30% of UK waters, where fishing is banned permanently to allow marine wildlife and their habitats to recover.

But Professor Roberts says: "The fishing industry would gain from marine reserves too. Reserves would increase fish stocks many times over within their borders, and would supply nearby fishing grounds with young to replenish those caught. We can get more from the sea by fishing less."

ENDS