World fisheries on precipice, fisheries minister admits
Canada's fisheries minister agrees with the authors of an international study that found world fish stocks are threatened with extinction.
However, Loyola Hearn insists Canada should not be pressured into signing on to an all-out ban on bottom-trawling, which environmentalists say causes ruin to fish habitat.
A study published this week in the journal Science found that human use of oceans is so intense that commercially fished species could be depleted as early as 2048.
Hearn said he believes that world fish stocks may soon pass the point of no return.
"We're trying to create an awareness — very much like the people who put out that study — [that] if we don't handle what's going on in the ocean, if we're not concerned about the ecosystem, we're going to do irreparable damage," Hearn told CBC News Friday.
"We're certainly headed that way and right now it's time to turn it around, and some of us, at least, are trying to do that."
Hearn, though, is refusing to bend to pressure to join an international pledge for a deep-seas ban on bottom-trawling.
Ottawa believes that such a ban would have implications for domestic fisheries that use trawling, or dragging, such as shrimp.
Hearn said Canada supports an approach that would allow for dragging, so long as gear is designed to be selective and avoid unwanted bycatches.
Richard Haedrich, a Memorial University researcher who has also written on threatened fish stocks, said action must be taken, and swiftly, to turn around current trends.
"The message is, unless things change, [that] this is where we're headed," Haedrich said.
"There's no scientist who's going to be publishing something like this and then sitting back and waiting for 2050, and then to say, 'I told you so,' " he said.
Hearn, meanwhile, said Canada will focus on strategies to reduce fishing, such as restrictions in sensitive areas.
Hearn has also ordered a review of fishing capacity in Newfoundland and Labrador, which has also been sponsored by the provincial government.
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