Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Fishing, Overfishing, and governments (finally) taking an interest.

It doesn't happen often, but occasionally a political party displays backbone and does something positive for the natural world.  This time, it was the Australian Federal Government, the Labour party, rapidly shoving through restrictions on a mammoth 'super-trawler' that was hoping to suck up vast amounts of fish in Australian waters.

Recreational fishers and the Green party are happy.  The 'business lobby' is apoplectic.  But the business lobby is consistently incredibly short sighted about their own interests.  If any of them had paid any attention to the history of the fishing industry, they would know how this works.  You take too many fish, all the fish are gone, everyone loses their jobs and your business collapses.  (For popular press coverage of this, see Mark Kurlansky's 'Cod' & 'The Last Fish Tale' detailing the collapse of European and US fisheries)  If there is anything this boat was going to do, it was take too many fish.

Old posts from LGM are relevant: Fish

Also from thinkprogress (linked in the LGM post): Top 5 fisheries stories of 2011

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