Ecological Footprint Of Sea Food Consumption

The consumer market for freshwater ornamental fish and related products in the US exceeds $700 million annually and is growing at a rate of nearly 9% per year

This market failure exists because the market price for Bluefin Tuna undervalues the full social cost of unrestricted consumption of this once plentiful fish. When negative environmental externalities exist, the private equilibrium price and quantity, as determined by free market supply and demand, is not the same as the social equilibrium. Since social costs are not priced into the individual or organization decision making, when accounting for the intrinsic costs to society (see graph 1), the socially efficient quantity while decline and the socially efficient price will increase. Because overfishing is so widespread and pervasive, coordinated global intervention is necessary through a combination of market-based corrective policies in order to adequately address this market failure.

New England Seafood Company executives face a potential two-stage plan to move into the freshwater catfish market because of the banned oyster harvesting along much of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, and increased competition from foreign producers.  These factors have resulted in significantly lower yields for New England Seafood.  In order to stay in business, New England Seafood Company needs to look at harvesting and processing something other than seafood.  New England Seafood Company looks to

Driven by such high prices, many fishermen, chefs and business owners depend on the bluefin tuna industry for a way to support their lives. Respectively so, without sustainable fishing practices and stricter regulations for the bluefin tuna, neither Japan, nor the rest of the world will even have the choice on whether or not eating and fishing bluefin tuna should be an option (Crockett).

The influence of the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulfstream in Southwest Florida Waters make the temperature just right for literally hundreds of different kinds of fish. In 2011, “Florida’s recreational anglers caught roughly 121 million marine fish, 74 million of which were released.” These statistics support the notion that fishing may be one of the most loved hobbies. Since fishing efforts have been drastically increasing over the years, dozens of species are threatened with extinction and many more are experiencing serious population declines. In order to ensure that a fish’s populations will remain sustainable for future generations, anglers need regulations that will sustain the existence of a fish population.

The world’s largest food fishery is on the verge of collapse. Pollock, used to make McDonald’s fish sandwiches,

The fish are not available in California due to state regulations that ban biotech aquatic organisms (GloFish, 2011). In addition, Singapore – where the fish was originally engineered – has been reluctant to approve its sale (Ely, 2004). This places an additional limit on potential marketing and distribution strategies.

The availability of seafood in Canadian and Argentinean waters is also dependent on the total allowable catch allocated to Clearwater in a given area. Although the totals allowable catch in these areas and Clearwater 's enterprise allocations have been largely stable, fishery regulators have the right to make changes in the total allowable catch based on their assessment of the resource from time to time. Any reduction of total allowable catches in the areas from which Clearwater sources seafood, or the reduction of stocks due to changes in the environment or the health of certain species, may have a material adverse effect on Clearwater 's financial condition and results of operations.

Alaska’s largest economic-sector employer, commercial fishing is a dominant contributor to employment and wages. The fishing industry employs tens of thousands of individuals producing billions of pounds of seafood for the US and the world. Alaska commercial fisher- men, when speaking in terms of what encompasses success depends on which oceanic species commercial fisheries are concentrating. These range from king salmon, chinook, herring, halibut and black cod, and snow crab.

Obviously mismanagement is a factor overfishing itself, and is the result of the limit for cod placed by the federal government. As well, the the advancement in geotechnology, like radars, sonars and satellite navigation systems helped find large fish bodies, all rapidly collected with trawlers. Another undiscussed matter, is climate change; over the years it has played a significant change in driving away fish populations because of dropping temperatures and changing of salinity. One idea discussed by the article is the monitoring of cod numbers, as well as monitoring the seal population. The article states to limit seal population to keep the fish alive; the textbook states “They contend that the greater number of seals ate larger quantities of caplin, a small fish that is a major food source of groundfish,” (pg 285). I find that bringing back the sealing industry could help maintain cod numbers, functioning as a way to bring back 2 banned commercial

According to a study done by Living Planet Report in 2015, 29% of the world’s fishing stocks are considered overfished and an additional 61% is fully exploited with no possibility to produce more fish. Our environment is currently afflicted by a number of different problems, one of which is overfishing. Overfishing is defined by FishOnline as, “Fishing with a sufficiently high intensity to reduce the breeding stock levels to such an extent that they will no longer support a sufficient quantity of fish for sport or commercial harvest.” The overfishing situation is being exacerbated by non-sustainable and destructive fishing practices and unfair fisheries partnership agreements; while there are currently attempts being made at fixing these problems and their effects on overfishing, nothing has been extremely effective.

Delgado, C. L., Wada, N., Rosegrant, M. W., Meijer, S., & Ahmed, M. (2003). Fish to 2020: supply and demand in changing global markets. Retrieved from http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/pubs/pubs/books/fish2020/oc44.pdf

Many breeds of fish are being captured at a faster rate than they can reproduce. Some species such as orange roughy fishing became popular in New Zealand in the 1970’s. Over time, it spread to many countries around the world. In the last 20 years, there has been a decline in catch up to 75%. It is no longer common to see in grocery stores as well as restaurants. The amounts of fish that are captured and distributed around the world are alarming opposed to the rate the fish can multiply.

    World production of fish is 146,27 million tons 3,36 million tons of fish produced in the

In today’s global economy sustainability is very important; from the biological aspect to the industries they all play a role on the marine environment. As world population increases the demand of fish rises causing overfishing. Certain laws have been placed to limit the amount of wild fishing to reduce the risk of endangerment. To meet the demand of the population, fish farms are introduced. Pollution and health related issues are part of the challenges of fish farming. Sustainability also affects social areas such as beaches.