Word: fishermen
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Fortunately, scientists are figuring out ways to fish sustainably. One method is a quota system that guarantees individual fishermen or cooperatives a prearranged share of the total catch for, say, Alaskan halibut. These catch shares eliminate the incentive to overfish. And a recent study in Science found that catch shares can halt fishery collapses--defined as fish populations falling to 10% of historic highs--and even reverse the trend over time. "It's truly a win-win situation," says Steven Gaines, a marine biologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara and one of the study's co-authors...
...first run-in with Iceland. The so-called Cod Wars over fishing rights in the North Atlantic led to hostile engagements between British and Icelandic fishing fleets and naval vessels, with nets being cut and boats being rammed, ending in the 1970s with an agreement that many British fishermen still blame for limiting their catches. If Brown fails to retrieve British cash from Iceland, a wider swath of the population - all British taxpayers, in fact - will feel the effects this time around. His chancellor, Alistair Darling, promised U.K.-based private investors on Wednesday that the government would cover their full...
...Faina's cargo, he demanded $35 million, although that figure was later reduced to $20 million. But he likes to cast it as also a protest. "We were forced into this work," he argues, speaking from the Faina's bridge at anchor off the village of Hobyo. "We were fishermen. I used to work in the sea every day. But ships from other countries fish our coasts illegally, destroy our nets and fire on whoever approaches them. We were refused the right to fish. They even dump toxic waste. We couldn't work. So we decided to defend ourselves...
...evidenced by the handful of countries that practice them, catch-share programs remain controversial. In New Zealand, where they've been in place for decades, fishermen complain that the practice leads to unfair consolidation: as large companies buy and amass quotas, smaller operators can't compete with the low prices those big firms can afford to set because they're selling more. Others have raised concerns about the privatization of what has traditionally been considered a public resource. But Knapp says the biggest problem with fish quotas is figuring out how to allocate them fairly in the first place...
...photos of Australian fishermen's hunt for tuna here...