Where have all our fish gone? (Last of Three Parts)

Text and Photos by Henrylito D. Tacio
While fish is not an important source of calories in the human diet, it does have an important role in food supply of many communities, especially in developing countries like the Philippines.
During his time, Jules Verne suggested that when the world reached the limits of food production on the land, man could turn to the oceans. Unfortunately, many countries have been doing just that over the past several decades.
“Between 1950 and 1989, the fish catch expanded more than four-fold, climbing from 22 million tons to 100 million tons,” Lester R. Brown reported in his feature, Facing Food Scarcity. “During the six years since then, the catch has leveled off. Contrary to the prognosis of Jules Verne, we reached the limits of the oceans first.”
And so it came to pass that the wealth of oceans, once considered boundless, has proven finite. Touted as “the poor man’s protein,” fish is now a resource coveted — and fought over by countries.
“We are running out of fish and running out of time. For a country known for marine biodiversity, there are very few fish left to catch,” Vince Cinches, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, was quoted as saying.
Fish are the “last wild meal” in the human diet. If the oceans are running low on many of humanity’s favorite fish, the solution would seem obvious: raise more seafood down on the fish farm, expanding the maritime version of agriculture known as aquaculture. After all, aquaculture has been a source of human protein for nearly 4,000 years, especially in Asia.
In recent years, aquaculture has become big business. Supermarkets in affluent countries are awash in scallops farmer-raised in China, mussels nurtured in New Brunswick and pen-reared cod from Newfoundland. One-quarter of the world’s shrimps is raised in ponds in 50 countries, with Thailand and Ecuador leading the harvest.
“The aquaculture harvest has doubled in the last decade, to 39.8 million tons, and now accounts for 30 percent of the global fish harvest,” reports Brian Halweil of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute. “By 2020, it could produce nearly half of all fish harvested.”
Fish farming is more advantageous than raising livestock. “For every kilogram of dry feed, we get one kilogram of fish meat,” said Dr. Uwe Lohmeyer of the Deutsche Gesselschaft fur Technische Zusammernarbeit (GTZ), a German Technical Cooperation. “This is far more favorable rate than in the case of say, pigs: to produce the same quantity of pork, a farmer – given the same quality of inputs – has to provide three kilograms of feed.”
Though a novelty in much of the world, aquaculture has been practiced through the ages. Oyster culture, for instance, thrived in ancient Rome and Gaul. But some records showed that aquaculture originated in China. According to historical accounts, net making and fishing methods were already developed during the reign of Fu Hi in 1953 B.C.
The Roman during the first century A.D. considered fish among the most highly prized delicacies. They built fishponds and stocked them with fish. Stocking of lakes and other freshwater units was also practiced.
It was the Malay emigrants who must have introduced the first fishponds of the Philippines long before the Chinese traders came to the country. “Our fishpond practices in most respects are similar to those of the Indonesians rather than those of Chinese,” said a Filipino marine expert.
“Aquaculture must grow faster than the current rate in order to supply up to 48% of the total food fish production,” urges Dr. Mahfuzuddin Ahmed, co-author of the report, Outlook for Fish to 2020: Meeting Global Demand.
The report projects that fish consumption in developing countries will increase by 57 percent, from 62.7 million tons in 1997 to 98.6 million tons in 2020. By comparison, fish consumption in developed countries will increase by only about four percent, from 1997’s 28.1 million tons to 2020’s 29.2 million tons.
“We can expect major shifts in supply and demand for animal protein from livestock and fish as a result of rapid population growth, increasing affluence and urbanization in developing countries on one hand, and stagnant population combined with a saturated market for fish in the developed countries on the other,” said the Kuala Lumpur-based World Fish Center.
In the Philippines, aquaculture contributed the biggest share to the total fisheries output at 49.80%, according to the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics. Bangus (milkfish), tilapia, tiger prawn and seaweed accounted 90.18% of the total aquaculture production.
But like most technologies, aquaculture has its shares of liabilities. For one, intensive aquaculture is in itself a source of pollution, releasing excess feed and feces in semi-enclosed areas and creating overnutritification and oxygen deficiencies in waterways.
SeaWeb, a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, says that aquaculture often has resulted in the introduction of non-native species. Sometimes such species are purposely released into the local environment to grow, reproduce, and be harvested. But in some instances, they can escape from their confined culture facilities.
In an article which appeared in Worldwatch in 1995, author Anne Platt McGinn noted: “In tropical freshwater systems, two-thirds of escaped fish species have become established.”
Aquaculture might also endanger native fish species by exposing them to diseases than run rampant in the overcrowded and stressful conditions of aquaculture facilities. The use of antibiotics to reduce diseases in the culture systems only adds to the potential environmental problems in natural waters. If sick fish escape, they can easily spread the disease to wild fish.
Some coastal aquaculture practices permanently alter natural habitats. For instance, shrimp ponds are often constructed by cutting down mangrove habitats along tropical coastlines. This activity has been responsible for the loss of two-thirds of mangrove forests in the Philippines.
When there is a problem, there is always a possible solution. As Dr. Mark W. Rosegrant, of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute pointed out: “It is possible to avoid trade-offs to the environment and the poor, while meeting growing global demand for fish. Environmental impacts of aquaculture can be minimized through environmentally friendly technologies.”