More than 70 per cent of all fish eaten by the Chinese will be from land, not sea, by 2010. Vice-Minister of Agriculture Niu Dun said China’s land production would rise to 60 million tonnes from 51 million now.
The wild catch, he said in the official press, will be put into reverse, have more closed seasons and fleet scrapping in order to cap wild catch at 12mt in 2010. Profitable wild fish fry catch for farms will also be stopped.
China’s neighbours, from mountain-locked Nepal [farmer at govt. fishfarm research institute above] to India and onto Iran and its neighbours, plus commercials in the Gulf and Africa are boosting farmed. Land product has easier logistics and can be cheaper than at-sea costs.
China’s strategy will increase pressure on fishermen worldwide in the consumer and conservation media battle. This is compounded by the US ban on caviare (which will increase poaching) from wild sturgeon in the Caspian and the Volga, plus threats to Yangtse sturgeon and rare, blind river dolphins in the Yangtse, India’s Ganges and the Brahmaputra. Tanzanian fishermen selling the rare coelacanth have caused another media challenge to deepwater trawling. Abundant 240 millions years ago, believed extinct 80 million years back, ‘Old Four Legs’ ‘resurfaced’ in 1938 off South Africa.
The consumer reaction should boost farming of everything from sturgeon to prawns and halibut to tilapia. Thousands of European fishermen have already quit their vessels for the land. Mr Niu said 14,000 Chinese fishing boats have recently been scrapped and workers put into new jobs.
