The New Nation - Internet Edition

ACCORDING to the latest UN report released the other day, the world's major fishing grounds, depleted already by over-harvesting and pollution, are now severely threatened by climate change. Warmer water and acidification caused by the seas' absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide are disrupting fragile natural cycles and threaten a dramatic collapse in fish stocks. 'What we do over the next decades has the potential to affect ocean chemistry for tens of thousands of years, and marine life for millions of years,' marine scientist Ken Caldeira one of the authors, was quoted to have said. The UN report was unveiled at an international meeting of environment ministers in Monaco focussing on global warming.

Over-fishing, pollution and now climate change have had catastrophic impacts on the world's wild fish populations, the report said adding previous studies showed that 90 per cent of many of the ocean's big fishes - including tuna, marlin, swordfish, some sharks, cod and halibut - have disappeared from the seas due to industrial exploitation. Virtually all of commercially fished wild species are on decline. Stocks were also threatened in areas that were once thick with fish.

More than 50 per cent of the fish extracted from the sea comes from only seven per cent of the planet's oceans. The marine scientists sounded the alarm over a discovery that global warming could imperil an ocean circulation system that has allowed fish stocks to replenish despite intensified industrial fishing. These 'natural pumps', dotted across the world including the Arctic and the Mediterranean, bring nutrients to fisheries and keep them healthy by flushing out wastes and pollution. Scientists apprehend seriously that if this system stops, collapse of major fishing grounds in the world would be the outcome. A dramatic fall in fish yields has more than an economic impact - over 2.6 billion people depend on them as their main source of protein.