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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).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weekly multi-ton carbon-footprint private jet trips for me, cardboard drinking straws for thee.
Its not the billionaires advocating for cardboard straws
https://science.thewire.in/environment/big-oil-hijack-carbon...
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
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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
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.
It may be in the future that fishing joins that list.
Abolition is the only alternative to immoral and unethical actions, but in terms of nutrition, there are plenty of ways to get the same nutrients, and ways to use seaweed to replicate some of the flavors.
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…
Five years ago, China was assessed to have 17,000.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
We can do this for, say, all the airfields in Russia, today. But the world is a much bigger place.
As laser communications equipment becomes more standardized and the LEO comms and LEO remote sensing constellations continue to grow, this will slowly expand in scope. But tracking and deconfliction of moving objects is just an inherently difficult thing to do with any confidence; It wouldn't be feasible at all without various AI algorithms. There are far lower hanging fruit as yet unpicked.