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Indigenous Elders recently shared their dismay about the unprecedented decline in salmon populations in British Columbia’s three largest salmon-producing rivers. Research produced by my team found that the Coho salmon catch off the southern B.C. coast has declined to only about five per cent of the peak catch, which dates back to the early 1900s.

The decrease in fish stocks is a global problem. Cod stocks off Newfoundland, pilchard along the coast of Namibia, spring-spawning herring off Norway and sardines off California have all collapsed in the past five decades or so. Globally, more than 100 million tonnes of fish are plucked from the ocean each year, equivalent to over 100 million mature cows in weight!

According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 34 per cent of the world’s fish stocks are overfished. But other organizations, including the Global Fish Index, estimate that roughly half of marine fish stocks are overexploited.

These depletions are partly due to the way we value — or rather don’t value — nature. The inappropriate valuation of the goods and services nature provides us with is a fundamental reason why we have failed to take good care of the ocean and the environment at large. It is undermining humankind’s ability to achieve what I call “infinity fish”: passing on a healthy ocean to our children and grandchildren so they too can have the option to do the same.

Read more - https://theconversation.com/the-future-of-fishing-and-fish-and-the-health-of-the-ocean-hinges-on-economics-and-the-idea-of-infinity-fish-182749