
Redefining what sustainable fishing means - dnetesn
http://oceans.nautil.us/article/600/its-time-to-redefine-what-sustainable-fishing-means
======
cataphract
The authors seem to want to redefine "sustainable" to match their moral values
and policy preferences. They should get their own word — this only muddies the
discussion.

"Sustainable fishing" means just that the populations do not decline. "Zero
tolerance for marine mammal bycatch" has nothing to do with this. Taken
literally, it's also a completely unattainable goal, which makes me doubt the
authors' intentions. What's next? No mammal killing in agriculture? Good luck.
Even biological agriculture farms have snake shelters to keep the vermin
numbers in check.

~~~
netcan
> "Sustainable fishing" means just that the populations do not decline. "Zero
> tolerance for marine mammal bycatch" has nothing to do with this."

Environmental sustainability doesn't "scope creep" for the same reason as
other morality terms (eg justice). It scope creeps because of the nature of
environmental sustainability. Affecting non-target species (bycatch etc.)
tends to have unpredictable effects on target species... and longer time
horizons yield more complexity. That's what ecosystems are, interdependent
sets of population dynamics.

Anyway, at this point, "sustainability" means environmental decency in the
general sense. Like the term "literally," it has evolved with usage. If a beef
farm is poisoning a nearby lake and all its neighbors' farms, but could
theoretically continue doing so without a decline in beef production... we
wouldn't describe this as sustainable.

There's also a practical sense to it. Commercial fishing (and aquaculture)
gets away with a lot of environmental harm, for relatively little economic
size. This isn't oil & gas. In some places, even recreational fishing is a
bigger industry. This is not sustainable politically. Eventually, people will
just want to ban it... like most commercial hunting was banned, inland
fisheries retired, etc.

That's unsustainable in the literal sense. It will lead to the end of
commercial fishing.

~~~
BurningFrog
> _Anyway, at this point, "sustainability" means environmental decency in the
> general sense. Like the term "literally," it has evolved with usage._

The problem with this is, that now there is no way to talk about the original
meaning of "sustainable". Since that is an important concept, much is lost
when it can no longer be talked about.

~~~
newacct583
What would you like to talk about under the original definition of
sustainable, then? It seems to me like we're still discussing all this stuff
just fine. In fact, this whole subthread seems to be a deliberate attempt to
sidetrack discussion of important ecological policy with a pointless war about
linguistics.

Even taking all that, I don't see how we're breaking with the spirit of the
word anyway. If you have a fishery that preserves the population of one target
species, but is steadily depleting that of another (the bycatch), why should
we call that "sustainable", exactly?

~~~
BurningFrog
We're not discussing things fine if different people mean different things
with the word.

That is how communication dies and people misunderstand each other.

~~~
netcan
Exactly the opposite.

This is how human language works. Our brains are specifically designed to work
out these ambiguities. That's why NLP is hard. It's what the "L" means.

This is why you did not have any trouble understanding the author.

Humans are also good at creative problem solving. In your case, the problem is
that the article is well reasoned and hard to argue against. Semantics are
always easy to argue though. So, you argue that we must use the term
"sustainability" in in the way it was used back when no one used it.

I wonder why this even works. The author's usage is obviously and demonstrably
correct. It is a far more common usage than yours. Homonyms exist. Somehow
this nonsense makes top comment on half the threads on HN, and everywhere
else... derailing actual conversations about actual stuff.

I reckon it's the same brain bug that makes reality TV popular. The
conversation about nothing adjacent to the conversation about something.

~~~
BurningFrog
> _In your case, the problem is that the article is well reasoned and hard to
> argue against. Semantics are always easy to argue though. So, you argue that
> we must use the term "sustainability" in in the way it was used back when no
> one used it._

It's fascinating how you made all that up. The inner motivation of someone
you've never met. The claim that I argued against the article. What I'm
supposedly arguing for.

None of that is in what I wrote. It all happened in your mind.

------
jakewins
There is a frustrating catch-22 with "sustainable" fishing methods. Methods
that are more careful about bycatch in generally lead to less fish per gallon
of diesel, which is the primary driver of CO2 emissions for fisheries.

MSC certified line-caught fish will on average have double the CO2 emissions
of seine caught fish, see:
[http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/estimating_the_carbon_f...](http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/estimating_the_carbon_footprint_of_tuna_fisheries_9may2009.pdf)

It is confusing to me that MSC is fine with being the forcing function to
double carbon emissions - which is expected to have large effects on ocean
habitats - while ostensibly being interested in ocean habitat.

I guess the complexity is that.. there doesn't seem to be a good answer,
currently.

~~~
hnusrv8
> I guess the complexity is that.. there doesn't seem to be a good answer,
> currently.

Encouraging people to eat less fish might be the easiest (and thereby best)
solution.

I'm not saying humans should eat /no/ fish – indeed there are many human
communities which rely on fishing, and for which fishing plays a key role in
their culture. Similarly, some people may need to eat fish for health reasons.
However, it seems to me that /reducing/ consumption by cutting consumption of
fish for pleasure/taste would likely benefit both the environment and people;
for example, indigeneous groups which traditionally rely on fishing would face
less competition from industrial-scale fishing. From an environmental
standpoint, most things, even whaling it seems, are inherently sustainable in
smaller scales.

Again, I don't mean to say that everyone needs to comsume zero fish. But if
those of us who can, which likely includes many HN readers, cut down our
consumption it may benefit everyone at quite a small cost to ourselves; as a
middle class Northern European, I can testify that me not having consumed fish
in the last 5 years has had 0 immediate impact on my health or happiness
levels.

Note: Of course this is all assuming that there are more eco-friendly
alternative protein/fat/omegas sources available. Again, I do not mean to say
that this is applicable for everyone.

~~~
PeterisP
I was under impression that it was a green policy to recommend people eat
_more_ fish, acting as a replacement for e.g. beef which (if I recall
correctly, I'm not certain) has more harmful environmental effects than
fishing.

~~~
masklinn
It often feels like we _think_ fishing is less environmentally harmful but we
don't actually _know_ it, because the ocean is extremely opaque to us, and has
very high buffers both ways.

Numerous stocks have crashed and most times the collapse has been extremely
brutal, similar to the passenger pigeon, going from "it's everywhere" to "it's
nowhere" in a few years.

And even with what we _know_ at least 1/3rd of current stocks are being
overfished.

------
anemoiac
I agree with the sentiments expressed by the author, however redefining
sustainable fishing before it’s been implemented widely seems a bit premature.
Not that we can’t pursue that implementation alongside efforts to raise the
bar, but, at current rates of exploitation, many parts of our oceans may not
even survive long enough to see the impact of that redefinition.

------
11235813213455
I'm not vegan or anything, but I just didn't eat any fish or meat since at
least a year, I have more than enough with fruits and vegetables (locally
foraged - I've no garden, even if I live in an urbanized environment, there
are plenty figs for example currently, or at local producer), and some rice

~~~
shirakawasuna
Join the dark side. Drink some oat milk. Eat some soy.It gives you special
powers.

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jacknews
I don't think hunting wild fish is sustainable at all, just the same as
hunting bison, etc. It's maybe OK as a hobby, but not as mass a industry.

For food, we should be farming fish, in indoor, controlled environments.

~~~
OneGuy123
This creates severely "de-nutrinized" food, so much that it one might argue
this kind of food is junk.

Many fishes are fed with grains, this destroys their nutritional value, which
begs the question if it even makes sense to eat fish who are fed with food
they wouldn't eat at all in a natural environment.

~~~
jacknews
This may be the case now, but it's not intrinsic to 'farmed fish'.

We can craft nutritious, similar-to-natural, or even better, fish foods. If
the incentives are correctly aligned.

~~~
wmeredith
> We can craft nutritious, similar-to-natural, or even better, fish foods.

Citation needed. There have been trillions spent on meal
replacements/supplements for humans and it never beats eating a variety of
raw, unprocessed foods, like fruits and veg.

~~~
netcan
you are right but "citation needed" isn't a polite way of responding to a
comment. This isn't a wikipedia editing battle.

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AnonymousRider
I am in favour of the immediate cessation of all commercial fishing worldwide
until such a time as the world can come together to build a system with the
primary goal of protecting the fish and ancillary goals of providing a fair
allotment, executing poachers, & educating children about extinction.

~~~
AnonymousRider
It’s an extreme position, I know, but the collapse of ocean ecosystems is the
collapse of mankind.

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lifeisstillgood
Has fishing ever struck anyone else as plain weird.

Imagine we farmed cattle by flying about in Zepplins, lowering giant nylon
nets and dragging across the ground.

Fish Farming seems more sustainable. Maybe less economic but then perhaps just
don't eat the fish if we cannot do it economically.

~~~
bigzen
It doesn't seem all that different from scaring a herd of buffalo into running
off a cliff. No reason that we need to by flying to spring the trap on wild
resources.

> Fish Farming seems more sustainable.

It does seem like any major market should be required to farm their resources
rather than taking from the commons.

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warmcat
There won't be sustainable fishing unless illegal Chinese fishing fleet is
banned and destroyed.

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ThomPete
Aquafarming is an amazing emerging trend and will help us create a sustainable
environment for fish and reduce collateral damage on marine wildlife.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture)

~~~
shirakawasuna
This has a ton of its own massive problems, including large impacts to
ecosystems. Hotbeds of fish diseases and algal blooms, for example.

It's not necessary to eat fish. We can just do without.

~~~
ThomPete
It's not necessary to be alive either yet here we are. I am not sure what
happened to rationals about humans and the environment but it's taken a really
dangerous twist into something very very antihuman. Thanks but not thanks.
I'll eat my fish with pleasure.

~~~
shirakawasuna
I think we can all agree that whether a human lives is not comparable to
jamming fish in one's gullet.

~~~
ThomPete
its part of it and a reality for many.

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lota-putty
Accept previous generations messed up(greed & pride). Even now, most powerful
& wealthy are respected more than most wise people. Often power/wealth is
mistaken for wisdom.

\- Precise definition of territorial waters depending on mainland's size &
population \- Hands-off fishing in international waters; farm & eat marine
food within mainland marine territory

No international body out there is strong enough to protect sea-life.

