How the US stopped its fisheries from collapsing | Hacker News Reader

How the US stopped its fisheries from collapsing

vox.com

74 pointsdimitar19 comments

I'm still disappointed however that there is not greater public awareness about the problems of over-fishing. Infact, I'd go as far as to say there is zero public awareness about where fish actual come from. It sounds silly I know, but fish is consistently touted as a healthy food and how we should eat more and more fish because it's good for you. Correct, it may be good for us, but it's simply not sustainable to eat more and more. I'm always surprised when I ask my friends where they think the fish they're eating came from and they're nearly all unaware that there even was huge problem with fish stocks. I mean come one, Pacific Bluefin tuna has declined by 96%!!! and it's a similar story for North Sea Cod.

There should be a greater focus on 'sustainable managed fisheries' vs open sea fishing, in the same way as people are aware of the difference between factory farming and free range.

also, it wouldn't hurt if everyone ate a little less fish (and meat for that matter)

I'm pretty sure Billy Joel fans are well aware of the problem of overfishing, at least in the New England region.

Billy Joel - "Downeaster Alexa"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVlDSzbrH5M&feature=kp

The ocean is another place where climate change is really really obvious, but also largely unknown by the public.

The ocean functions as a huge reservoir for absorbing & trapping CO2. But absorption of CO2 turns into carbonic acid, and humans are producing so much CO2 that we are measurably changing the pH of the ocean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

One thing I found helpful is the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch iOS app[0]. Fancy some fatty tuna? Salmon? Look it up, find out if it's ocean-friendly. It opened my eyes to things I thought might be good (farmed salmon, right? Leaves the wild salmon alone?) that actually were quite bad (nope, salmon farms spew all kinds of nasty waste).

[0] http://www.seafoodwatch.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_iphone.a...

I'm not surprised. I work with a variety of NGO's that work in the fisheries and they're first rate scientists who are incredibly passionate about conservation. They understand the pushback from people fishermen, but take a long view of fisheries management-if we let you fish as much as you want now, with modern equipment, you'll have a few seasons of incredibly high yields which means your catch will be worth nothing, then the fisheries will collapse and you'll be broke and pissed that no one told you it was a bad idea.

Great to see that conservation efforts are not all doom and gloom, the thing that surprised me the most is that the US seemed to really be ahead of the curve on this one.

I wonder how Asia'll deal with this. I always hear about some salmon varieties being way too overeaten/overfished in Japan, and I have a hard time seeing how the government will convince local fishermen to cool their jets.

Something similar has been playing out in ICCAT [1], where the U.S. has been pushing for lower tuna quotas recommended by the NOAA as the sustainable yield, but Japan has kept them from going through.

[1] International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, but widely referred to derisively as the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna

The US is actually quite a bit ahead on serval conservation efforts related to wildlife. The only real areas that the US misses on is energy usage and that is mostly due to a few groups of very well funded groups that stand to lose their cash cows. So they are working hard to stop green energy movements.

Let me get this straight, government regulations corrected a disaster caused by unabated industry? I hope libertarians don't see this.

Good idea. Don't tell the libertarians. Otherwise they'll explain why you're an idiot.

Feel free to explain why I'm an idiot. I would love for you to prove that you're capable of thought beyond one line insults.

Repeat after me:

Libertarians are not anarchists. Libertarians are not anarchists. Libertarians are not anarchists.

that was your big follow up? Wow, you got me.

Well, everything you know about libertarians is wrong, so I had to start with the basics. Let me know when that sinks in and I'll give you another dose.

your insights are truly amazing. How do I subscribe to your newsletter?

Oh, I'm sorry. No newsletter for you. You failed the IQ test.

man your one liners are sweet

I am pretty much a Libertarian by default. But an economically-literate person understands when there's a commons for real and when there isn't.

This is some pretty dern well-crafted regulation - because the incentives for getting it right are with the right people and what could be done was very clear. The fish & wildlife bio. people are finestkind generally, so this works. It's also decidedly non-political.

In Japan, it's political.

This as opposed to say, banks. With banks, the incentives to build a robust and stable system are lacking; one need only compare and contrast with Canada. Charles Calomiris and Stephen Harber do this very thing in "Fragile By Design".

If all regulation worked this well, we'd all be better off. It is critical that we know why regulation that doesn't work, doesn't.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com