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China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

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31–40 of 106 posts

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#31

And it does so on seas that aren't even remotely close to China. They're looting the entire Pacific Ocean.

The article only talks about visible fishing activity. But China operates many “dark fleets” where many unregistered boats sail along registered boats. They are fishing way more than the 44% that is being reported. These fleets will no doubt destroy ecosystems beyond repair. https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chin... https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-19/how-china-is-plunderi... https://time.com…

Thankfully with satellites and machine learning nothing is dark these days.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#34
post #25

FWIW, China also produces enormous (enormous) quantities of seafood from caged underwater oceanic farms. It's the future of fishing IMHO. The rich, everywhere in the world, will continue to seek wild-caught though. (While they publicly rail against the poor eating wild-caught. Such is how the wheels turn.).

Tasmania produces a lot of caged salmon. It’s bad for the salmon (in terms of animal welfare) and it’s wrecking the local ecosystems. It’s not any sort of panacea. We need to stop destroying ocean ecosystems, not just shift the damage around. Overfishing of wild stock, habitat destruction through bottom-trawling and intensive fish farming all need to be properly looked at.

> We need to stop destroying ocean ecosystems, not just shift the damage around. Overfishing of wild stock, habitat destruction through bottom-trawling and intensive fish farming all need to be properly looked at.

You criticise, yet don't provide any suitable recommendations or alternatives.

People like to eat fish and have done so since the beginning of our species.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#35
post #34
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tasmania produces a lot of caged salmon. It’s bad for the salmon (in terms of animal welfare) and it’s wrecking the local ecosystems. It’s not any sort of panacea. We need to stop destroying ocean ecosystems, not just shift the damage around. Overfishing of wild stock, habitat destruction through bottom-trawling and intensive fish farming all need to be properly looked at.

> We need to stop destroying ocean ecosystems, not just shift the damage around. Overfishing of wild stock, habitat destruction through bottom-trawling and intensive fish farming all need to be properly looked at. You criticise, yet don't provide any suitable recommendations or alternatives. People like to eat fish and have done so since the beginning of our species.

Sometimes things need to be addressed whether there’s an alternative or not, because they are damaging.

Onshore fish-farming is being developed. I don’t know enough about it to have any idea whether it can be made compatible with animal welfare or environmental responsibility.

But it also doesn’t matter. Sometimes you’re just going to need to stop wrecking the place.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#36
The scale of Chinese fishing is massive, along with the labor needs to process what is caught.

There was a story [0] that ran in the New Yorker a year ago that detailed how North Koreans are sent to Chinese seafood plants in forced labor.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39504981

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#37

I wonder about engineering yourself a productive fishery instead of exploiting wild stocks. Most of the ocean is practically a desert. The only productive places are near land, where deep water up wells and returns sunken nutrients back to the surface. I'm sure we could study and engineer some sort of nutrient dumping and cycling scheme. I bet you could make vastly more food while leaving a lot of ocean alone.

A lot of their species interests can’t be fish farmed. Some can but it’s not exactly economical to shark farm or squid farm. Mussels, shrimp/prons, clams, salmon, some tuna, trout, and smaller fish can be farmed effectively.

While China dominates the fisheries, Japan is still whaling. The oceanic deserts are getting worse every day.

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#39

I wonder about engineering yourself a productive fishery instead of exploiting wild stocks. Most of the ocean is practically a desert. The only productive places are near land, where deep water up wells and returns sunken nutrients back to the surface. I'm sure we could study and engineer some sort of nutrient dumping and cycling scheme. I bet you could make vastly more food while leaving a lot of ocean alone.

the bay between shenzhen and hong kong is basically a giant oyster farm which they say also helps clean up the water. so people do it with some stuff

Re: China Dominates 44% of Visible Fishing Activity Worldwide

#40
The 44% mentioned in the data is actually composed of a large number of small family-run fishing boats, whose actual catch volumes are very low.In fact, China’s offshore catch (2.3 million tons in 2023, accounting for only ~10% of the global total and declining for three consecutive years) is far lower than its domestic aquaculture output (58.1 million tons).
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