South Africa must act to stop its marine resources disappearing in a world where the biggest consumers of fish products are cows and pet cats, warned environmentalists on Monday.
The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) said South Africa’s ”excellent” environmental laws should be enforced and warned that plans to develop mariculture and open up one of the country’s oldest marine protected areas (MPAs) could have serious implications.
”The government of South Africa, faced with tremendous pressure to deliver on poverty reduction, economic development and equity in coastal areas as well as to address the ever-dwindling marine life in our waters and meet international commitments, has already entered dangerous waters,” said EWT director Nick King.
He warned that marine resources are under pressure around the world, saying environmentalist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ”states that the largest marine predator on Earth is now the cow, with over half the fish catch serving as fish-meal feed for domestic livestock”.
”Domestic house cats are apparently eating more fish than all the world’s seals combined and some 50 to 60 marine fish are caught to raise one farm-raised salmon.”
King said South Africa ”seems not to have noticed our marine resources disappearing”.
He said the country’s first large-scale, fin-fish marine aquaculture ventures — the I&J Hatchery — was launched in April and, while the government is promoting aquaculture as a way of meeting the increasing demand for fresh seafood and even help rebuild wild stocks, it is not a quick-fix solution.
”Technological ‘solutions’ to existing environmental disasters are seldom sustainable solutions and invariably contribute to the problem.”
King said a mariculture industry should be based on sound social, ecological and economic criteria and monitored properly.
He warned against plans to open the Tsitsikamma MPA, saying scientists have identified it as ”an extremely important nursery area that sustains the entire line-fish industry of the southern Cape”.
”Given that only two of approximately 150 line-fish species in South Africa are considered still exploitable — the rest falling into the categories of collapsed, threatened or overexploited — any protected area contributing to the regeneration of fish stocks should be assigned extra protection, not less.” — Sapa