SLOW wave is a regular forum of 23º Slow confederation communities. It explores, debates and documents the challenges of environmental and industrial change on marine life and the food communities traditionally sustained by fishing. Slow wave seeks to influence governments to take sustainable, remedial action to protect southern hemisphere fish stocks from over-fishing.
Oceans of food? In most southern Pacific islands, the collective wild fish catch feeds home-nations and with some to spare. Half a globe away, despite the extraordinarily rich marine waters off Madagascar, Malagasy people have one of the highest hunger rates in the world. American author Mark Kurlansky described fish as ‘the poor man’s meat’. By 2020, the developed world is projected to demand, in net terms, 2.8 million tonnes of food fish per year more than its own wild fisheries can produce. Europe, the United States and Japan will record net deficits in food fish production. In other words, the yield or catch of these region’s national fleets will be outstripped by demand in their home-port countries amounting to 6.6 million tonnes per year. In the ‘other developed’ world – such as Canada, Australia, South Africa and Latin America – and in the developing world, which will supply the difference, the pressure on wild fish stocks is forecast to mount dramatically. Fish will become more expensive. The poor who relied on fish will have to find milk and meat as protein substitutes, in turn demanding higher livestock yields from limited arable farmlands. As world food academic and activist Raj Patel asks: ‘When the seas are empty and fishing communities unemployed, is it likely that the avarice and profiteering of the large-scale fishing industry will be held to account?’