The South China Sea is one of the world’s most tense regions. But the entry of four Chinese coast guard vessels and 63 fishing boats into Indonesian waters in December, and again in January, still managed to shock and infuriate Indonesia.
The Chinese vessels were fishing in the Natuna Sea in part of Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone. In response, the Indonesian government sent its own coast guard, navy, private fishing boats and even four F-16 fighter jets to repel them.
It was a reminder that fishing rights are a big part of what’s at stake in the region not just territorial boundaries and access to oil and gas reserves.
The same pattern is playing out around the world, in waters from Africa to Antarctica. In some places, illegal fishing is happening on an industrial scale. In others, desperate fishermen are chasing species into their neighbours’ patches of sea. In many cases, fishing is a proxy for deeper power plays.
An estimated 59 million people worked in fishing or aquaculture industries in 2016, and 85 per cent of those people were in Asia, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). There were an estimated 4.6 million fishing vessels globally, from huge trawlers to unpowered boats. Again, 75 per cent of those were from Asia.
Global fish production peaked at about 170 million tonnes in 2016, with about 90 million tonnes from caught fish (including from oceans and inland fishing). The caught fish figure has been relatively static since the mid-1980s, even as distant water fishing fishing within the maritime zones of other countries has taken off.
People all over the world are eating more fish. Between 1961 and 2015, in per capita terms, consumption grew from 9 kilograms a person to more than 20 kilograms. It now accounts for about 17 per cent of animal protein consumed globally.
A study in the journal Nature, by the Sea Around Us initiative,suggested the FAO had underestimated the “peak” global fish catch from the world’s oceans. The figure was actually 130 million tonnes, it contended, not 86 million tonnes (in 1996).
But there has been a decline in ocean and inland fish catches, with a boom in aquaculture fish farming accounting for the growth in production. Even as the percentage of the world’s oceans being fished has risen from 60 to 90 per cent, the actual catch has declined dramatically from 25 tonnes per 1000 kilometres travelled in the 1950s to 7 tonnes per 1000 kilometres, according to another study by the Sea Around Us.
That’s not because fishing fleets or nations have become more ecologically conscious ? it’s because there are fewer fish to catch.
The Sydney Morning Herald