Time Bombs Under The Surface

Crusade to eliminate ‘ticking time bombs’ sitting beneath world’s waters

“We all have our own battles to fight and this is mine.” These are the fighting words of Terrance Long, founder and director of the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions (IDUM).

Based in The Hague, Long’s organisation is on a mission to rid the world of “millions” of tonnes of weapons rotting in seas and oceans across the globe.
The world’s waters, says Long, have become a dangerous “garbage dump” for these unwanted military munitions, ranging from highly explosive conventional ordnances to chemical weapons.

It’s a stark warning that Long doesn’t attempt to sugar coat. “If the underwater munitions aren’t neutralized or recovered from our waters in the near term then the ocean will die and we will cease to exist on this planet.”

A retired Canadian military engineer and an expert in explosive ordnance disposal, Long spent 20 years, both in the army and later for various NGOs, clearing land mines.
It was this experience that led Long to believe the same work could and should be done for the same weapons sitting at the bottom of the water.

“Because I’m a weapons expert, in my own mind I’m obligated to address this issue. There is something I can do about it, so I will.”

It’s a problem that has been ticking away for over 70 years. As Long explains, weapons, like most things, have an expiration date and need to be disposed of. By the end of the Second World War a solution was needed and during the Potsdam Conference of 1945 an agreement was made to rid stockpiled weapons by dumping them into the water, most notably the Baltic Sea.

According to Long, “That’s when a number of countries from around the globe started dumping their munitions, dating back from the First World World and continued doing so up until the 1970s.”

One of the biggest issues now facing Long and the IDUM is locating exactly where all the world’s munition dumping sites are located and exactly how many weapons there are.

“What we do know is that there are 400,000 tonnes of chemical munitions in the Baltic Sea alone. On a global scale, we estimate there are more than 10,000 dumping sites of chemical and conventional weapons.”

According to Long, these corroding weapons are posing an ever increasing danger to the environment and to us.

“They’re full of contaminates like lead, mercury, picric acid and TNT. Most are known carcinogens that we now have in our marine environment, that will persist there for 10,000 years. Our oceans cannot sustain that.”

He continued: “This really is a ticking time bomb. My greatest fear is that our international community will allow them to corrode to where we no longer have a means to detect the contaminates when the metals are gone.”

Despite the dire warnings, Long stresses there is hope: “This is absolutely a problem we can fix…in most cases if we remove the source contaminant, we remove the problem.

“But this issue needs to be addressed on a global scale, with a collective response, right now, with an urgent United Nations conference on all underwater weapons.”
In order to do this, Long and the IDUM continue to work for the creation of an internationally binding treaty on all classes of underwater munitions. The end game, says Long, is all about “protecting our oceans and saving them for our children.” More

 

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Management of marine resources requires radical change, according to FAO

The management of marine resources requires a new strategy to safeguard world food security while promoting sustainable development, says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) CEO, Jose Graziano da Silva.

Jose Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General

"Time for a sea change in the management of the oceans has come," said the FAO official during a meeting of high-level policy makers held in UAE.

Graziano da Silva stressed that it is necessary to make profound changes in the way we manage and use the planet marine resources, and it is important to ensure the welfare of coastal and island countries.

"We cannot keep using marine and aquatic resources as if they were endless. And we cannot keep using our oceans as a waste pool," he said in the context of the Blue Economy Summit, held between 19 and 20 January in Abu Dhabi.

The head of the FAO said that ocean health is seriously threatened by several factors, among which he mentioned pollution, overfishing, weather changes and rising sea levels caused by climate change.

On average, about 17 per cent of the animal protein consumed worldwide comes from fisheries-aquaculture sector. However, in many small island developing States that figure is much higher.

According to FAO, the livelihoods of 12 per cent of the world's population depend on fisheries and aquaculture, mainly in developing countries.

Nevertheless, experts estimate that 30 per cent of global fish stocks are overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion.

Several studies by FAO indicate that economic losses for marine fishing industry due to mismanagement, inefficiency and fishing represent a USD 50 billion annually.

Moreover, scientists warn that climate change poses new challenges to the people who depend on the oceans, by changing the distribution and productivity of marine and freshwater species, and altering food webs.

Although in the past 30 years about 80 agreements were signed to address threats to the oceans and their resources, Graziano da Silva emphasized that "We not only need to commit, we need to act."

Since Rio +20 Conference in 2012, the model of "blue economy" emphasizes conservation and sustainable management, and aims to ensure that small island developing States and costal countries in the developing world benefit equitably from their marine resources.

Therefore, the FAO is promoting a new Blue Growth Initiative, through which the organization will support countries in the development and implementation of agendas on blue economy and growth. More

 

Seychelles- a determined Island Nation

Dear people of Seychelles, Dear residents of Seychelles, Dear visitors to our country, A new year, a new chapter in our history. A new page that we all have to write together, guided by the experience of the preceding years, motivated by our tenacity to do more and better, inspired by our resilience and the values that unite us as a nation.

A small nation that is young and vulnerable. But we are a nation that is strong because of our patriotism, our solidarity, our resoluteness and courage to face challenges with enthusiasm and open mind. With intelligence and without fear. A small nation that has ambitions. It dares to realize its dreams in spite of the constraints it faces. A small nation that has reached an envious stage in its development and prosperity, always striving for an even better future for its people.

The start of this new year is a fitting occasion to look back at our past and draw the lessons that will enable us to chart our future. It has not always been easy. We encountered difficulties and obstacles. There were times when we made some errors. But we have learned our lessons. All this is behind us. We now have to look at the future.

History tells us that we are a resilient people. A nation forged by the flames of struggle and tenacity. This has made us strong and bold. Always ready to face the unknown. Always ready to take our own destiny and future in our own hands. No one else will do it for us. 2014 is the start of a new future. A future that we all help to build daily, in the spirit of sharing and solidarity. In a spirit of national unity and patriotism. In the spirit of the New Seychelles that unceasingly requires our love, our responsibility and our hard work in order to lead it toward the better horizon.

In all decisions we take, in all we do, the future of our homeland is more important than all else. The future of the New Seychelles comes first.

Small islands conjure up images of paradise on earth. They are small; they are beautiful! But small is also vulnerable. We are vulnerable to a host of threats ranging from climate change, to the plundering of the resources of our Blue Economy, piracy, trans-border organized crime. The challenges are many. But we, the inhabitants of one of the most beautiful small island states, have not allowed these to deter us from fulfilling our vision. It is a vision of a better world -- one of hope, justice, peace and opportunities. It is a vision constructed on our principles. A vision for the New Seychelles. A vision which has propelled us to the forefront of the fight for the cause of small island developing states.

For many years Seychelles has championed the cause of small island states. Our leadership role has long been recognised. And this year, our efforts and vision, along with those of others, have been vindicated. 2014 has been designated by the United Nations as the "International Year of Small Island Developing States".

The theme finds singular resonance with us. That is why we have adopted it as our national theme, while situating it in our own context. International Year of Small Island Developing States: Seychelles – A Determined Island Nation is our theme of the year 2014.

We are a truly determined island state. We are conscious of our weaknesses, our constraints … But we are a resilient small nation. A small nation that has proved its resolve and resilience on countless occasions in the face of vicissitudes. We have faced them, we have overcome them against all odds, and we have emerged stronger and bolder.

The New Seychelles is a reality. It is a modern and progressive edifice that continues to inspire us. We continue to strive for it. The New Seychelles is a small island state that is determined, courageous. Its eyes cast on the future, with plenty of hope and optimism. Our achievements are well documented and recognized worldwide. This makes us proud and happy. In our endeavour to bring more prosperity, greater wellbeing and a better standard of living to our people, we should never neglect the values that bind us together as a Creole nation. Our moral and spiritual values. The values and traditions we have inherited from our forebears. Values that define us as a nation but which, sadly enough, are in danger of being eroded by the social scourges which continue to afflict us.

It is for this reason that during this International Year of Small Island Developing States, we, as a determined island nation, have to continue to put emphasis on our diverse programs of education, re-education, cultural appreciation, rehabilitation, apprenticeship, etc. These programs should never lose their relevance, their raison d’être. Sustainable development cannot materialize without an ethos of hard work. It cannot happen without national unity and social harmony. Sustainable development thrives on respect -- for oneself and for one’s neighbor -- on responsibility, determination and hard work.

Let us in this Year of Small Island Developing States show to the whole world our mettle and determination. And let us cultivate and reinforce the values that define our small island nation.

In the face of all the challenges, opportunities and choices that the year 2014 will bring, let us make the resolution to live in peace, in harmony and in solidarity. Let us continue to remain steadfast in the building of our New Seychelles.

It gives me great pleasure in wishing all Seychellois, including our compatriots overseas, all residents and all visitors to our country, a Prosperous and Happy New Year 2014!

May God continue to bless our beautiful small country and protect us. Thank you.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Asia Pacific Clean Energy / Islands & Isolated Communities Congress

The 2013 Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo will be held jointly with the 2013 Islands & Isolated Communities Congress at the Hawai‘i Convention Center starting tomorrow September 9th, and through September 11.

The event is the preeminent meeting place for international leaders and energy experts at the forefront of the clean energy movement. Securing energy independence and developing a clean energy industry that promotes the vitality of our planet are two reasons why it is critical to reaffirm already established partnerships and build new ones throughout the Asia-Pacific region and the world. The Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo and the Islands & Isolated Communities Congress provide a forum for the high-level global networking necessary to advance this emerging clean energy culture.

Islands and Isolated Communities are the planet’s vanguard societies facing imported energy dependencies, constrained resources, and vulnerability to climate change. Join global leaders developing solutions and projects; from island nations worldwide, to land-locked greening cities, to isolated military installations.

The sustainability and resiliency of island communities depends on best practices developed in energy, water, agriculture, security, resource and disaster risk management and societal actions. As island communities are facing these complex and interdependent challenges across the planet, the Islands and Isolated Communities Congress is focused on building a global movement to champion these solutions. The solutions developed on islands will lay the foundation for best practices world-wide.

Auyuittuq - The Land that Never Melts is Melting

Many Strong Voices (MSV) will be represented here by Nick Robson, D-G of the Cayman Institute who sits on MSV's Advisory Committee.

The goal of Many Strong Voices is to promote the well-being, security, and sustainability of coastal communities in the Arctic and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) by bringing these regions together to take action on climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to tell their stories to the world.

Coastal Erosion - Seychelles

The Arctic and SIDS are barometers of global environmental change. As they are on the frontlines of climate change, they are also critical testing grounds for the ideas and programmes that will strengthen the adaptive capacities of human societies confronting climate change.

Lessons learned through MSV support policy development at local, regional, and international levels. They provide decision-makers in the two regions with the knowledge to safeguard and strengthen vulnerable social, economic, and natural systems. More

 

The good news this week is that a new Pacific regional pact, the Majuro Declaration, calling for aggressive action to combat climate change has achieved a “major accomplishment” by gaining U.S. support, officials said Sunday.

The Majuro Declaration, endorsed by the 15-nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) at their summit last week, contains specific pledges on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Majuro, Marshall Islands

The PIF nations, some of which are barely a meter above sea level and risk being swamped by rising waters, have since received wide support led by the United States after presenting the document to more than two dozen countries at a post-forum dialogue.

U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced during the session a new climate change fund for Pacific islands vulnerable to rising sea levels.

“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time,” she said in launching the Pacific-American fund.

Separately, the U.S. was offering US$24 million over five years for projects in “vulnerable coastal communities” in the Pacific, she said. More

 

Seychelles shares experiences at World Economic Forum and engages in further discussions on Madagascar process

Leading Seychelles' delegation to the World Economic Forum, Foreign Minister Jean-Paul Adam, has highlighted a number of Seychelles' experiences as a basis for sustainable development at the event being held in Cape Town under the patronage of President Jacob Zuma of South Africa.

Minister Adam, and the Minister for Finance, Trade and Investment, Pierre Laporte, are representing Seychelles President Michel at the event which is being attended by a number of heads of state from Africa and around the world.

The forum traditionally provides a platform for innovative ideas to be shared among world leaders with a view to improving the state of the world economy and with a view to improving the global framework for development.

President Zuma opened the forum by noting that having the forum in Africa, was the “the right place, and the right time.”

Minister Pierre Laporte, the Minister for Finance, Trade and Investment, has taken the opportunity of the forum of leaders to illustrate the bold moves that Seychelles has taken, and is continuing to make, to make Seychelles more competitive and also to ensure that economic progress is sustainable.

In sessions on green growth, the Seychelles delegation has emphasized that investment in renewable energy in Africa is essential for its development. In the context of Seychelles, the purchase of fossil fuels are the biggest drain on foreign exchange in the country, and renewable energy allows Seychelles to further maximize the impact of foreign exchange earnings from the pillars of the economy - tourism, fisheries, and financial services.

Seychelles has also called for innovations in policies and the international framework to foster green growth. The initiative of Seychelles within the Global Island Partnership (GLISPA) to propose debt reduction through debt for adaptation swaps has been tabled in the forum as an innovative mechanism that can transform the development options of islands, but which can also eventually be very relevant for all countries with significant debt in the African region.

Within the context of innovative mechanisms, the Seychelles delegation has also spoken of its experiences in securing grant components as part of major infrastructure projects on a public private partnership basis (PPP) that would not otherwise get off the ground - the example of the Undersea fiber-optic cable was cited.

Seychelles has also insisted on the importance of “the blue economy” for sustainable development, and that more attention needs to be given to the development of oceanic resources and management of these resources. Within this context, Minister Adam remarked that more African ownership was required of the oceanic space: “We need to be more engaged with our seas. We need to have better laws governing oceanic management. And we need more African-owned companies involved in oceanic development - whether it is fisheries, maritime trade, or tapping into resources on the ocean floor."

Governance also featured prominently in the discussions of the WEF as a key element of sustained economic development. Notably the Mo Ibrahim Index on Governance has hailed Seychelles’ strong record on governance in the continent.

“We must all start by recognizing that there are many areas that we must improve. And we must also recognize that good governance reforms have no end date, as we should always be seeking ways to better engage with our citizens. This is the core of our governance compact in Seychelles - to put the citizen at the center of development," Minister Adam has stated.

In terms of gender equality, the need to ensure that women are not marginalized in political and economic decision making has been highlighted as a cross-cutting issue across themes, and Seychelles experiences also provided a positive reference point.

In the margins of the forum, Minister Adam has also engaged in discussions with the SADC leadership with a view to ensuring that the elections planned for Madagascar go ahead as smoothly as possible. Seychelles has stated its regret at the decision of the President of the Transition to renege on his previous commitment not to stand in forthcoming elections, however, the Seychelles delegation has stressed that the most important element remained to ensure free, fair, and credible elections were held in Madagascar.

PHOTO: Minister Adam with former President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, SADC mediator on the Madagascar crisis / Photo from Seychelles Ministry of Tourism and Culture

 

MEDIA CONTACT: seychellesupdatednews@googlemail.com

 

Climate, Environment, and Conservation: Remarks at the Arctic Council Ministerial Session

Remarks at the Arctic Council Ministerial Session

05/15/2013 08:08 AM EDT

Remarks

John Kerry
Secretary of State

Kiruna City Hall

Kiruna, Sweden

May 15, 2013

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Thank you very much, Minister Bildt, and thank you for hosting this important event. I’m pleased to be joined at the table by our senior Arctic official Julia Gourley and I’m pleased also to have Senator from Alaska, Senator Lisa Murkowski, a good friend of mine from the Senate, who cares about these issues enormously.

It’s an honor to be here in Kiruna, and I begin by saying that there are many areas where the eight Arctic states’ interests overlap significantly. And despite our different sizes and our different cultures, and many of the varied interests that we’ve heard today from permanent participants, we share many values and priorities. But there is nothing that should unite us quite like our concern for both the promise and the challenges of the northern-most reaches of the earth.
What makes this organization so important is that the consequences of our nations’ decisions don’t stop at the 66^th parallel. And that’s especially true today, when the threat of climate change is as ominous as ever, its effects are as tangible as ever, and the courage – literally, the courage – that we summon in the coming months and years is as crucial as ever. This is one of the most obvious shared challenges on the face of the planet today. I don't think there’s any one of us here who hasn’t visibly noticed with our own eyes or experienced the changes in fragile ecosystems.

When I was a senator, I worked with the late Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska in order to end driftnet fishing on the high seas. And more than once I rewrote America’s fisheries laws, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, to try to protect our fisheries. But the truth is that today fisheries all across the planet are challenged with too much money chasing too few fish. Today, as Secretary of State, I come here keenly aware that the long list of challenges – acidification, pollution, ice melt, rising sea levels, disappearing species, and indiscriminate development practices – all of these carry even more challenges downstream, so to speak, to each of our economies, to our national security, and to international stability.

So Carl, I applaud the Arctic Council, which addresses these challenges, and your exemplary leadership of the last two years in tenure. And I’m pleased to look forward to Canada’s leadership.

I’m pleased that President Obama, just a few days ago, released the U.S. National Strategy for the Arctic Region, reaffirming that a secure and well-managed Arctic marked by international cooperation and conflict – an absence of conflict – is a key policy priority of the United States. And we look forward to filling out the details of that with all of you over the course of the next few years.

I also look forward to joining my fellow ministers in signing the oil agreement that we will reach today. That’s an important framework for cooperation in the event of an emergency. And as the United States was reminded painfully in the Gulf of Mexico three years ago, we need strong partnerships and shared operational guidelines before a disaster occurs in order to make sure that we’re able to respond. So we need to prevent crises from happening in the first place, and that frankly brings me back to climate change.

Just last week in one of the major newspapers in the United States, the New York Times, it was reported that the atmospheric levels of CO2 exceeded 400 parts per million for an entire 24-hour period for the first time in recorded history. That is the highest level of CO2 in three or four million years. Temperatures we know in the Arctic are increasing more than twice as fast as global averages, and they are endangering habitats and they are endangering ways of life.

Last September, the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic reached a record low, threatening marine mammal life and the indigenous and local communities that depend on them. As many of you – or all of you – know, warming also erodes the natural barrier of ice that shields Alaska’s coast from hostile waters, and that causes homes to fall into the sea, it causes pollution. And the thawing of the permafrost, which is increasingly releasing methane, which is 20 times more damaging than CO2 – that has led to the first Arctic wildfires in thousands of years.

So the scientific research in each of our countries is more imperative than ever in order to protect the atmosphere, the global economy, the food chain, and the air we breathe. And we need to do more – all of us – urgently. The businesses investing in the region are obviously crucial to bringing new industries, jobs, and people to the Arctic to promote, but we need to make sure that we are promoting that growth in responsible ways. And we’ve heard from our friends and the permanent participators today about the urgency of that.

So I want to confirm that in all of these efforts, and so many more that we look forward to discussing in the next years, the United States is committed to being a productive and engaged partner. And we look forward to the Canadian chairmanship that begins today. We’re also planning ahead for the U.S. chairmanship from 2015 to ’17. And I greatly respect the hundreds of generations of tradition, culture, and expertise that has been built by the indigenous communities who have called this extraordinary place home for thousands of years. They shape this council’s work and they guide our decision-making, and they should.

America became an Arctic nation only about 150 years ago, when another Secretary of State, William Seward, had the vision to purchase Alaska, dramatically changing, not only our map but our choices, our landscape, our resources, and our identity as a nation. So we’re proud to join you today in the important work of protecting and preserving our shared Arctic, not just for the nations that touch it, but for the way that what happens here, for the stewardship that we have responsibility to execute, for the way that it touches every single person around the world and our way of life.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

PRN: 2013/ T06-04

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Pacific islands look for model to combat changes due to global warming

With islands and atolls scattered across the ocean, the small Pacific island states are among those most exposed to the effects of global warming: increasing acidity and rising sea level, more frequent natural disasters and damage to coral reefs.

These micro-states, home to about 10 million people, are already paying for the environmental irresponsibility of the great powers.

"Pacific islands are the victims of industrial countries unable to control their carbon dioxide emissions. The truth of the matter is that we have no option but to accept this and adapt," says Dr Jimmie Rodgers, the head of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), a regional development organisation. At the initiative of France's Research on Development Institute (IRD) and New Caledonia University, 30 or so scientists from the Pacific basin spent a week at the end of April discussing the design of asustainable development model suited to local conditions – in particular, pressure from the climate on ways of life that reach back several millennia.

In a study published by the journal Nature Climate Change, the SPC and IRD draw attention to the considerable impact of global warming on food security on these islands. Fish stocks, the main source of protein for islanders and the basis for development, will be particularly affected. Currently about 1m tonnes of tuna and tuna-like fishes are caught every year in the region.

For the Kiribati group of islands, fishing accounts for 40% of GDP, whereas on the Marshall Islands fisheries and fish processing represent a quarter of overall revenue. "The rising temperature of surface waters, which is greater in the western part of the ocean basin, will encourage tuna to migrate east towards Polynesia," says Johann Bell, principal fisheries scientist at SPC and one of the authors of the study.

Melanesian countries, such as Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands, will suffer most. "PNG has a large canning industry, but in a few decades it will have to import tuna to keep it running," Bell adds. "Fortunately it can count on favourable international agreements to buy [fish] wherever it likes, with low customs duty." But the disappearance of the tuna shoals could mean major financial losses for smaller economies such as Tuvalu or Kiribati.

The effects for coastal fisheries are likely to be even more dramatic, due to damage to the coral reefs. The population density of live reefs is expected to drop from 40% at present, for the Pacific as a whole, to 10% or 20% by 2050, the scientists explain. The decrease in the fish stocks in the lagoons coincides with high population growth, particularly inMelanesia.

With an increase in rainfall, the SPC is advocating the development of fish farms and freshwater fisheries. On Fiji, Vanuatu and Samoa, farms have recently started raising Nile tilapia, an alien species. To reduce pressure on the reefs and allow coastal residents to catch tuna, there are also plans to build floating pontoons to attract the fish.

On land, life must adapt to the changing conditions too. On Fiji, the Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees has set up a department to focus on adapting staple crops.

"Climate change brings new constraints for crops, which are subject to unpredictable ecological pressures such as drought, higher salt concentrations, extreme temperatures and erosion," a representative explains. Thousands of varieties of manioc, taro, sweet potato and banana have been screened in order to offer farmers new, more robust varieties. "We are promoting these seeds," says Henry Puna, prime minister of the Cook Islands (population 12,200), which have been hard-hit by coastal erosion. More

 

Taking Stock: World Fish Catch Falls to 90 Million Tons in 2012

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects that the world’s wild fish harvest will fall to 90 million tons in 2012, down 2 percent from 2011. This is close to 4 percent below the all-time peak haul of nearly 94 million tons in 1996.

The wild fish catch per person has dropped even more dramatically, from 17 kilograms (37.5 pounds) per person at its height in 1988 to 13 kilograms in 2012—a 37-year low. While wild fish harvests have flattened out during this time, the output from fish farming has soared from 24 million tons in the mid-1990s to a projected 67 million tons in 2012.

Over the last several decades, as demand for fish and shellfish for food, feed, and other products rose dramatically, fishing operations have used increasingly sophisticated technologies—such as on-vessel refrigeration and processing facilities, spotter planes, and GPS satellites. Industrial fishing fleets initially targeted the northern hemisphere’s coastal fish stocks, then as stocks were depleted they expanded progressively southward on average close to one degree of latitude annually since 1950. The fastest expansion was during the 1980s and early 1990s. Thereafter, the only frontiers remaining were the high seas, the hard-to-reach waters near Antarctica and in the Arctic, and the depths of the oceans.

The escalating pursuit of fish—now with gross revenue exceeding $80 billion per year—has had heavy ecological consequences, including the alteration of marine food webs via a massive reduction in the populations of larger, longer-lived predatory fish such as tunas, cods, and marlins. Unselective fishing gear, including longlines and bottom-scraping trawls, kill large numbers of non-target animals like sea turtles, sharks, and corals.

As of 2009, some 57 percent of the oceanic fish stocks evaluated by FAO are “fully exploited,” with harvest levels at or near what fisheries scientists call maximum sustainable yield (MSY). If we think of a fish stock as a savings account, fishing at MSY is theoretically similar to withdrawing only the accrued interest, avoiding dipping into the principal.

Some 30 percent of stocks are “overexploited”—they have been fished beyond MSY and require strong management intervention in order to rebuild. The share of stocks in this category has tripled since the mid-1970s. A well-known example of this is the Newfoundland cod fishery that collapsed in the early 1990s and has yet to recover.

This leaves just 13 percent of oceanic fish stocks in the “non-fully exploited” category, down from 40 percent in 1974. Unfortunately, these remaining stocks tend to have very limited potential for safely increasing the catch.

These FAO figures describe 395 fisheries that account for some 70 percent of the global catch. Included are the small minority that have undergone the time-consuming and expensive process of formal scientific stock assessment, with the remainder being "unassessed" fisheries. There are thousands more unassessed fisheries, however, that are absent from the FAO analysis. In a 2012 Science article, Christopher Costello and colleagues published the first attempt to characterize all of the world’s unassessed fisheries. The authors report that 64 percent of them were overexploited as of 2009.

The top 10 fished species represent roughly one quarter of the world catch. Nearly all of the stocks of these species are considered fully exploited (most of these fish have more than one geographically distinct stock), including both of the major stocks of Peruvian anchovy, the world's leading wild-caught fish. Stocks that are overexploited and in need of rebuilding include largehead hairtail—a ribbon-like predator caught mainly by Chinese ships—in its main fishing grounds in the Northwest Pacific. (See data.)

Despite the unsustainable nature of current harvest levels, countries continue to subsidize fishing fleets in ways that encourage even higher catches. Governments around the world spend an estimated $16 billion annually on increasing fleet size and fish-catching ability, including $4 billion for fuel subsidies. Industrial countries spend some $10 billion of that total. More than $2 billion is spent by China, whose 15-million-ton catch is nearly triple that of the next closest country, Indonesia. More