Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake
Based on the comments in this thread, I bet most in this forum also believe the
recent estimate that 40% of our oceans need to be protected to replenish fish stocks is also way too extreme. I think there are very few here that actually realize how extreme of an impact we have on the environment, and that massive measures need to be taken before there is nothing left.
Who cares that fish stocks are at roughly 1-5% of what they were 200 years ago anyway? Or that sea otters used to call the coast of BC home? 25 more years of hunting seals at the current intensity and there won't be many left.
Congrats though, it takes an impressive level of stubbornness to say all of Europe is being stupid. It must be hard to ignore all the researchers that keep telling everyone that what we are doing is not sustainable.
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My personal stance is that sustainability should be the first priority when determining how we interact with any other species or ecosystem. Obviously this is something that we as a civilization haven't been very good at over the past 100 years, but are starting to realize right now. We completely screwed up the grand banks with overfishing, and then started very heavy restrictions on fishing in the early 90s. Unfortunately, cod stocks have been surprisingly slow to recover. The seal cull was an attempt to stop the seal population from decimating what's left of the cod stocks.
It's questionable what would happen if we stopped the cull: either the seal population stabilizes at slightly above where it's at now, or it expands to the point where it completely overruns its food source, and the entire grand banks fish population collapses, and the seal population starves and collapses as well. I'd hate to see that happen, but perhaps that would be what it takes for Ottawa to gain the clout to get some serious restrictions posed on fishing in the international portion of the grand banks.
The dilemma for me (and fortunately I'm in no position of authority so it's only a very hypothetical one) is when we've screwed up nature so completely, is it better to try to artificially keep the ecosystem in balance, or is it better to be hands off and let the ecosystem correct itself, knowing there's a danger that it collapses completely? We know from the fossil record that species go extinct all the time and ecosystems suffer catastrophic collapse, sometimes from outside influence and sometimes from reaching an internal tipping point. There's no guarantee that the things we've screwed up will ever recover if we let nature take it's course.