http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20693369,00.html
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Fish, seafood 'will disappear by 2048'
From correspondents in Washington
03nov06
THE world's fish and seafood could disappear by 2048 as overfishing and
pollution destroy ocean ecosystems at an accelerating pace, US and Canadian
researchers reported today.
If current global trends continued, the loss of fish and seafood would
threaten human food supplies and the environment, according to the most
exhaustive study to date on the subject, published in the November 3 issue of
the US journal Science.
"Our analyses suggest that business as usual would foreshadow serious
threats to global food security, coastal water quality, and ecosystem
stability, affecting current and future generations,'' the international team
of ecologists and economists wrote in Impact of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean
Ecosystem Services.
The four-year analysis was the first to study all existing data on ocean
species and ecosystems and put them together to understand the importance of
biodiversity at the global scale.
"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's
ocean, we saw the same picture emerging,'' said lead author Boris Worm of
Dalhousie University, in Canada, said.
Mr Worm said the disappearance of species from ocean ecosystems had been
accelerating.
"Now we begin to see some of the consequences. For example, if the
long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to
collapse within my lifetime - by 2048,'' Mr Worm said.
"In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire
ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -
beyond anything we expected.''
At this point, 29 of currently fished species were considered
"collapsed'' in 2003, that is, their catches have declined by 90 per cent or
more, he said.
"It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating,'' he said.
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