The bulk of this year's 876 page Ocean Yearbook 25 deals with law applicable within the EEZ. Other themes are Ocean Governance, Living Resources, Environment and Coastal Management, Maritime Transport and Security, and Book Reviews, which here and there are relevant to marine fisheries. But the first chapteris all about fisheries*. Even though I'm its author, I'd like to share with my readers some of its highlights.

The world's population forecast for 2030 is 8.32 billion. As the demand for fish rises, and the yields of wild marine and freshwater species at about 90 million mt a year are stagnant or declining, the supplement must come from aquaculture. The global demand is now exceeding the 140 million mt yielded in 2007, so that with capture fisheries and its share of industrial fish constant, to maintain the current consumption of 16-17kg per capita aquaculture needs to produce 80.5 million mt by 2030 and it has been fast developing accordingly. But, to feed 50 million mt of farmed fish, plus poultry and cattle husbandry, some 30 million mt of marine prey fish and fish offal are needed.

Side effects

The spiraling rate of fish farming development also produced undesirable ‘side effects’, which caused loud protests on the part of environmental lobbies and some capture fisheries. The capture fishery is looking with a wary eye on the impact of parasites and diseases spreading in the densely stocked fish cages and coastal marine ponds that are carried by around two million of escapees to wild populations in the Atlantic, and on the possibility of inter-breeding of farmed varieties with wild stocks. Sea-lice spreading to wild fish may lethally increase their lice burdens, especially where cage farms set on the migration routes of wild salmon.

Other negative effects are the denuding of mangrove areas by the expanding shrimp farming, which has allegedly affected the adjacent artisanal catches, and more recently, was blamed for part of the damage caused all over the Indian Ocean by the 2004 tsunami. Poorly run land-based fish farms, floating fish cages, and feeding pens pollute the environment with unutilised protein, nutrients and fecal matter, causing increased turbidity, and over shallow bottom - desertification.

Notwithstanding such detriments that no doubt should and would be attended to, the problem to be solved is not how to prevent aquaculture from harming the marine environment,buthow to develop aquaculture that’s environment friendly. This can evolve, with most of the negative ‘side effects’ avoided, and provided such development is appropriately planned with attention to timely remedies and adequate money and efforts duly invested. Willy-nilly coastal and onshore habitats would be affected, but the fact is that our whole civilisation has been based on man-modified ecosystems both on land and in water, and that further modifications are required to take care of the badly mishandled needs of the expanding world's population and the sustained destitution of many. Therefore, as long as it can produce fish at prices people are ready to pay, aquaculture will keep expanding.

Here to stay

It is beyond question, therefore, that in spite of its shortcomings and contention with other stakeholders, marine fish farming is here to stay, develop and expand. Restraining its growth is not in the best interest of protein-hungry mankind, and any such attempts, including those flying the banner of sustainability, will eventually prove futile. The world is in need of a progressive development approach that would focus on how marine fish farming could expand while mending its ways, so that its present and future structure and development would cause minimum environmental and social damage and maximum social and economic benefit.

The chapter concludes with a series of recommendations, some of which are summed up below.

For the sake of rational management and sustained modus vivendi both, marine aquaculture and capture fishery, should be administered by the same legal and enforcement authorities: Cage farms should not be set on traditional fishing grounds, especially those of small-scale and subsistence fishermen, and on the way of massive migrations of wild fish populations; they should be operated according to clear and strictly enforced rules aimed at minimising their effect on the neighbouring habitat, designed to prevent escapement of fish and contain or re-cycle residual feed. Application of drugs, pesticides, hormones and antibiotics, should be regulated, monitored and the ensuing rules strictly enforced; coastal aquaculture farms should not be set on environmentally sensitive, in particular mangrove-covered coastal areas. Exotic species should not be bred, except if established by specific research that their escape into the wild would not be detrimental to the local ecosystem and the use of small forage fishes and fishmeal should be minimised.

There are no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions, and there is no panacea for every problem encountered by fish farmers, fishermen, and authorities in charge of fisheries (capture and aquaculture) management throughout the world. Every environment, every fishery, every fish species, and every site impress their specific conditions and requirements. It is not always‘fish first’, whenever the managers find themselves in doubt as to what to do. Ecosystem management must also target pollution on all its sources, and recovery and prevention of destruction of habitats essential for fish reproduction. It must take into account the dynamics of marine climate, and the various physical, chemical and biological factors that may affect the farmed fish. Fish are farmed for the sake of people, thus the strategy of ‘taking no risk whatsoever’ may be detrimental to human societies even more than to fish.

*Ben-Yami, M. 2011. Marine Farming: Perspectives on its Inevitability and Sustainability. In: Ocean Yearbook 25. A. Chircop, S. Coffen-Smout, and M. McConnel (eds). (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers), 2011. 876p