Fwd: FW: [Food-news] Fishing Industry's Fuel Efficiency Gets Worse as Ocean Stocks Get Thinner

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> *Editor's Note: ** **The report addressed in the

> article below describes

> the exorbitant fuel consumption on behalf of the

> fishing industry. **As

> fisher folk extend further and further into waters

> in search of

> dwindling fish stocks, they consume ever greater

> amounts of fuel,

> leaving them especially vulnerable to soaring energy

> costs.

> Furthermore, as with livestock production, catching

> fish consumes far

> more energy than it yields in terms of consumption.

> These findings**

> support the need to **alter the quantity of fish

> caught and the energy

> inefficient ways in which they are caught. ***

> *To comment on this or other posting, please visit

> www.foodnews.ca*

>

> The New York Times, December 20, 2005

> *

> **Fishing Industry's Fuel Efficiency Gets Worse as

> Ocean Stocks Get Thinner*

> By CORNELIA DEAN

>

> If the fishing industry were a country, it would

> rank with the

> Netherlands as the world's 18th-largest oil

> consumer, a team of

> fisheries scientists is reporting.

>

> In 2000, the scientists said, fisheries around the

> world burned about 13

> billion gallons of fuel to catch 80 million tons of

> fish. And although

> the fish-per-gallon ratio varies widely from species

> to species, they

> said, it is getting worse over all because boats

> must venture farther

> and farther out to sea in search of dwindling

> stocks.

>

> " This is the only major industry in the world that

> is getting more and

> more energy-inefficient, " said Daniel Pauly,

> director of the Fisheries

> Center of the University of British Columbia and one

> of the report's

> authors.

>

> While other researchers have compiled fuel data for

> particular species

> of fish in particular regions, this report is the

> first to sum up the

> global picture, experts said.

>

> As such, the new report " adds to the list of

> concerns about fishing as a

> destructive practice, " said Ellen K. Pikitch,

> director of the Pew

> Institute for Ocean Science, who was not involved in

> the report.

>

> But it also shows how vulnerable fishing is to

> increases in fuel costs,

> said Peter H. Tyedmers, an ecologist at Dalhousie

> University in Nova

> Scotia, who led the work. European experts predict

> that as much as 30

> percent of Europe's fishing fleet may remain at the

> dock this winter

> because of fuel costs, he said, adding that the

> industry's sensitivity

> to fuel costs is alarming given the importance of

> fish in the world's diet.

>

> In the report, the scientists said fisheries

> accounted for about 1.2

> percent of global oil consumption, and they use

> about 12.5 times as much

> energy to catch fish as the fish provide to those

> who eat them. Their

> report is in the current issue of Ambio, a journal

> of the Swedish

> Academy of Sciences.

>

> Fattening beef in feedlots and even growing fish in

> aquaculture pens can

> be less energy efficient than fishing, Dr. Pauly

> said in an interview.

> But fishing is " a far-from-trivial player " in global

> oil consumption,

> the researchers wrote.

>

> Dr. Tyedmers said in an interview that cost was not

> the only issue.

> " Yankee whalers did a pretty fine job of depleting

> many populations of

> whales just with sail and human power, " he said.

> " But it's the wide

> application of fuel that has allowed fleets to

> expand and really has

> underpinned much of the overfishing of stocks and

> deterioration of

> aquatic ecosystems. "

>

> If global fishing efforts are reduced, Dr. Pauly

> said, stocks may

> rebound and fewer boats will probably bring in just

> as many fish. " You

> could catch the same amount for one-third the energy

> use, " Dr. Pauly said.

>

> Dr. Tyedmers said that researchers at Dalhousie

> showed that 60 or 70

> years ago Nova Scotia fleets used only a quarter of

> the fuel they use today.

>

> The researchers based their conclusions on data from

> " a wide range of

> published and unpublished sources " on fishing

> vessels in use, the gear

> they typically carry, how much fuel they use and the

> size and

> composition of their catches.

>

> They concentrated on data from 20 major countries

> that account for 80

> percent of the world's fish catch, Dr. Pauly said.

>

> But the scientists said their overall fuel-use

> estimates were almost

> certainly low, because their data omit freshwater

> fisheries, illegal or

> unregulated fisheries and the cost of transporting

> fish on land.

>

> The researchers also noted that people fishing for

> species like herring

> and menhaden, usually turned into fish oil, use less

> fuel per ton of

> catch than people fishing for high-value species

> like tuna, swordfish or

> even

> shrimp.

>

> Boats seeking those species often carry so much fuel

> " they leave the

> dock lower in the water than when they return with

> a hold full of

> fish, " Dr. Tyedmers said.

>

> Dr. Tyedmers said he thought fuel studies might one

> day be used to

> compare the effort required to catch different kinds

> of fish, whether it

> involves lines in the water or lobster traps or

> other methods. " It has

> always been a real challenge to compare, " he said.

>

> The new analysis, while striking, is still crude,

> Dr. Pikitch said.

>

> " It's a great starting point, but a starting point, "

> she said. She

> added, " You have to start somewhere. "

>

>

>

> --

>

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