shrinking fish stock Archives

Conflict/Dispossession

Ishaan Tharoor: How Somalia’s fishermen became pirates

15th June 2019

From Time Magazine: Ever since a civil war brought down Somalia’s last functional government in 1991, the country’s 3,330 km of coastline —the longest in continental Africa— has been pillaged by foreign vessels, freezing out the country’s own rudimentarily-equipped fishermen. The first pirate gangs emerged in the ’90s to protect against the aggressive foreign trawlers….

Vizhinjam, Kerala, where the Adani Group is building a mega port

CLIMATE CRISIS

The coast is unclear: on the 2018 CRZ notification

2nd February 2019

From The Hindu:This government has unleashed several extremely unimaginative developmental policies that target ecologically valuable areas and turn them into sites for industrial production, despite abundant evidence for such policies’ damaging effects. The latest instance of this is the 2018 CRZ notification, which, among other things, increases the vulnerability of coastal people to climate disasters….

Volunteers taking readings to map the shoreline

ALTERNATIVES

A tide turns: Coastal community resilience in the age of climate change

21st March 2018

From ICSF: In the face of climate change and disastrous development projects like Sagarmala, stewardship of coastal land is the primary challenge for coastal communities. Sea level rise and increasing climate unpredictability require local communities to play an active role in creating knowledge-bases for appropriate action, to reduce disaster risk and recreate a healthy coastline….

Coral reef in Papua New Guinea's Kimbe Bay. Almost all coral reefs may experience bleaching by 2050

David Doubilet/National Geographic

Conserve/Resist

The oceans can’t protect us anymore—here’s why

27th June 2017

From National Geographic: Our waters have borne the brunt of global-warming for decades, but dying corals, extreme weather, and plummeting fish stocks are signs that it can handle no more. And people are already experiencing direct consequences, such as more extreme weather events, says a new report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature….

(From left) Johnson Jament, Lisba Yesudas and Robert Panipilla

Facebook

CLIMATE CRISIS

Speech by representatives of indigenous fisher folk at the first UN conference on oceans

8th June 2017

Friends of Marine Life (FML), is a Kerala-based organisation that specialises in seabed ecosystem studies and also helps promote sustainable fishing. Three of it’s members, who hail from the state’s indigenous fishing community, the Mukkuva, were recently invited the first UN conference on the world’s oceans. The text of speeches they delivered at the conference….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Do you really know your fish? Presenting the Fish Calendar

4th June 2017

Fish are the last wild food, but our oceans are being picked clean, giving marine wildlife little chance to regenerate. Amrita Gupta speaks to the team behind a new seafood calendar. Until now, there was no such resource for fish eaters, yet the need for awareness about the seafood we consume has never been greater….

Breakwater being constructed for Adani's Vizhinjam port

Dredgingtoday.com

Conflict/Dispossession

Sagarmala: The Rs 10 trillion project that is wrecking India’s coast

24th May 2017

From DNA: Sagarmala is the Indian Government’s Rs 10 lakh crore programme to build Coastal Economic Zones (CEZ) and industrial clusters around 14 key ports. But, the Sagarmala plan document lays out its goals as if the coast has been an empty or unproductive space, and is now poised to be a “gateway” to growth….

The fishing community in Vizhinjam, Kerala, now threatened by a port being built by the Adani Group

Conflict/Dispossession

‘If we go on like this, the entire mass of small fishers will be wiped out.’

12th April 2017

The Indian coastline no longer belongs to its traditional custodians— the small fisher people. A jamboree of development —cities, SEZs, power plants, ports, sand mining— is eating up the coastline and eroding it beyond repair. Debasis Shyamal of the National Fishworkers’ Forum speaks to Sayantan Bera on the present and future of India’s traditional fishers….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Red alert: Fish under threat from ocean oxygen depletion

22nd February 2017

The Guardian reports: A new study shows that oxygen levels in oceans have fallen 2% in 50 years due to climate change, which threatens future fish stocks and the habitat and behaviour of marine life. Related: Amitav Ghosh warns that the Bay of Bengal’s depleted fish stocks and huge dead zone signal a tipping point….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Study: 47 of 68 fish species in India under threat

22nd December 2016

More fish species on the east coast, especially in the waters off Odisha and West Bengal, are highly vulnerable to climate change, according to a first of its kind assessment by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI). That vulnerability stems not only from changes in climate but also from fishing pressure and lower productivity….

CLIMATE CRISIS

News update

2nd April 2014

Climate change a threat to security, food and humankind – IPCC report The report from the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change concluded that climate change was already having effects in real time – melting sea ice and thawing permafrost in the Arctic, killing off coral reefs in the oceans, and leading to heat waves,…