World Ocean Radio - Fisheries

This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with the topic of seafood consumption. While more than 3 billion people worldwide rely on wild-caught and farmed seafood as a significant source of animal protein, unsustainable and illegally caught seafood harvest threatens a major health crisis if we do not confront the issue through regulation and enforcement of best practice, change in social behavior and consumption, and new technological innovations toward a sustainable future.

In this brief series we're exploring disruptive technologies for aquaculture, specific initiatives and other advancements to improve efficiency and safety as a positive contribution to our future food supply and global health. This week we are discussing the challenges to aquaculture, the perils of some new unmanned technologies on the horizon, the pros and cons of offshore systems, and the spectrum of alternative projects that could alleviate the typical pitfalls of offshore aquaculture.

Fish markets are the noisy, colorful, exiting, authentic and lively centers of any coastal city, the place where mongers and customers, tourists and workers, auctioneers and bidders go to trade in the bounty of the sea. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we celebrate the allure of such places of commerce and connection, and their place in history and modern life.

This week on World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill highlights the dark side of what happens at sea in the context of a forthcoming book by Pulitzer Prize winning Investigative Journalist, Ian Urbina. Titled "The Outlaw Ocean", this compelling new book profiles the most urgent ocean issues facing us today: illegal fishing, human and arms trafficking, slavery at sea, illegal dumping, piracy, and so much more. Ian Urbina has spent the last several years reporting on lawlessness at sea for #TheOutlawOcean project. "The Outlaw Ocean", available for pre-order now, is the culmination of that investigative exploration.

Humankind has for centuries been connected to the cycles of the year for sustenance from land and sea. We have built our communities and our spiritual and social celebrations around the observations of the seasons and the changing light. In this episode of World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill discusses this rich history and today's troubling impacts of scale, global food production, climate change, and the resultant consequences of our consumption. And he praises the recent trends pointing toward a revival of local fishing and agriculture and the ways that we can benefit from investing in the health of our communities.

As fisheries worldwide are being depleted by over-fishing and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU), interest in an ever-expanding Arctic is growing exponentially. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill outlines a July 2015 meeting of five Arctic nations during which catch limits were imposed; and a follow-up meeting in April 2017 in which delegates from five additional countries took the agreement a step forward toward legally binding, an effort that would prevent commercial fishing in parts of the Central Arctic Ocean until science-based fisheries management measures could be put in place.

China is the world's largest consumer, producer, and exporter of every fish species caught by their vast industrial fishing fleet, at a rate on track to decimate the global fish supply in the not-too-distant future. Indifference to treaty quotas, illegal species catch, fishing outside of national jurisdiction, and other government sanctioned activities have propelled China to the status of largest consumer of natural resources on the planet. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we report on the problems generated by an insatiable appetite for fish, regardless of the global consequences.

A recent series of investigative stories entitled "The Outlaw Ocean" by Ian Urbina of the New York Times exposes the dark side of the deep sea, describing real abuses, crime and violence in international waters. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill summarizes the four-part “Outlaw Ocean” series, praising Urbina’s work to educate the public by exposing the labor, human rights, and environmental abuses occurring out of sight, on the high seas.

Fisheries crime is on the rise and the consequences are dire. In most instances of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), enforcement is a major issue: lack of personnel, commitment to prosecution, and the capacity to survey and arrest on the vast, open ocean. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill will discuss efforts being made by Interpol and other organizations to combat unreported fishing loss, the cost to the global economy, and the ever-shrinking core group of owners and corporate structures at the heart of this illegal activity. Photo courtesy of ISSF. Credit: Andy Maluche

Os crimes de pesca estão a aumentar e as consequências são terríveis. Na maioria dos casos de pesca ilegal, não declarada e não regulamentada (IUU), a fiscalização é uma questão primordial: falta de pessoal, de determinação para processar judicialmente, e de capacidade para supervisionar e proceder a detenções em alto mar. Neste episódio da World Ocean Radio faremos referência aos esforços em curso por parte da Interpol e de outras organizações, no combate à pesca não declarada, aos seus custos para a economia global, e ao núcleo cada vez mais concentrado de proprietários e estruturas corporativas que estão no cerne desta actividade ilegal.