China Full-Out On Trawling, Crushing Ocean Floor; Up To 2/3rds Of Fish Caught Too Small To Eat
Last edited Wed Aug 2, 2017, 08:36 AM - Edit history (1)
China’s appetite of seafood is is so voracious that by 2030 the nation will account for 38% of the world’s fish consumed by people, the World Bank has predicted (pdf, p. 16). In the quest to satisfy this demand, Chinese fishermen are also catching vast quantities of fish too young or too small to be consumed by humans, or “trash fish,” and selling them for fish feed.
To boost its marine economy, China has in recent decades been encouraging unsustainable fishing practices. Chief among them is trawling, in which fishermen drag nets along the ocean floor, despite this method killing coral reefs and other living things not being targeted. According to a recent Greenpeace report, the practice accounts for about half of China’s total marine capture, which reached 13.1 million metric tons (14.5 million tons) in 2015. Much of that capture—more than 30%—is trash fish (pdf, p.3).
For the report, Greenpeace conducted research and surveys in China’s eight main fisheries provinces. It found that the northern province Liaoning, which borders the Yellow and Bohai seas, saw the highest portion of trash fish captured via trawling. The southern Hainan province, which borders the South China Sea, came in second.
The use of trash fish in fish farming in the Asia-Pacific region has been increasing because of the relatively low cost, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. In 2014, fish feed consumption by China’s aquaculture industry was larger than (pdf, p. 3) Indonesia’s entire catch.
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https://qz.com/1041930/chinese-fishermen-are-destroying-the-ocean-floor-catching-trash-fish-no-one-even-eats/
