- Bottom trawling, dredging and destructive fishing practices such as the use of dynamite and cyanide, which lead to habitat loss or modification
- Degradation of coastal water quality. Nutrient runoff causes coastal eutrophication, zones of severely reduced dissolved oxygen and depleted aquatic life. Over four hundred dead zones have been identified in coastal areas
- Climate change will lead to warmer water and a more acidified ocean, with many impacts on marine fisheries. The IPCC projects a global loss of 18 per cent of the world’s coral reefs in the next three decades, shrinking a crucial fish habitat.
Inland Fisheries
- Infrastructure developments such as dam construction in river catchments are destroying or modifying inland fishery habitats. More than 50 per cent of the world’s large rivers have been fragmented by dams on their main channel and 59 per cent on their tributaries
- Land-use change and removal of vegetation cover leads to increased runoff, erosion and sediment pollution of water. Human activities have increased sediment flow into rivers by about 20 per cent worldwide
- Agricultural expansion disrupts connectivity between floodplains and rivers – floodplains provide some of the most productive habitat for inland fisheries.
- Agricultural runoff and domestic and industrial wastewater discharges are degrading the quality of many inland waters. Wastewater loadings to inland waters in Africa may increase by a factor of four to eight between the 1990s and 2050.
While the problems are many and varied, the report issues a raft of recommendations that can shore up the ecological foundations and create the conditions for sustainable food production.
“The solutions are to be found along the whole food value chain – from the farms that need to grow food more sustainability, through the large companies that need to certify that their products are from sustainable fisheries and farms, up to the consumer who needs to think seriously about switching to a sustainable diet,” said Mr. Alcamo.
“Of course, we have to deal first and foremost with all the socio-economic issues having to do with food security – questions of access and affordability of food, and so on,” he added. “But ultimately, we won’t have enough food to distribute unless we find out a way to produce it sustainably without destroying its ecological foundation.”
Recommendations
Among the key recommendations for ushering in more sustainable agriculture and fisheries are the following:
- Build centralized storage and cooling facilities for small-scale farmers to help get their produce to market faster; thus, avoiding food loss
- Promote sustainable diets to avoid that the trend that as consumers become more affluent their diet often becomes unhealthier, in particular promoting lower consumption of meat and dairy products in developed countries
- Re-consider quality standards for food that lead to unnecessary wastage
- Design sustainable agriculture, not only on individual farms, but scaling up to the landscape and national level. Examples are improving soil management, making agricultural water use more efficient and integrated nutrient management
- Sustainable agriculture can be scaled up by supporting farmers, extending land tenure rights to farmers to encourage stewardship and rewarding farmers and farming communities for ecosystem stewardship
- Economic strategies consistent with green economy thinking are also fundamental to scaling up sustainable agriculture, such as:
– Eliminating subsidies that contribute to overfishing (the global fishery sector receives up to US $ 25-30 billion) and habitat destruction, and redirecting funds into investment for sustainable fishery management and capacity building.
– Providing incentives for sustainable fisheries such as subsidies for conversion of fishing gears to less-damaging alternatives
– Introducing fiscal measures such as taxation and levies on harvest volume and increased fines on illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing
– Draw small shareholders into the global food economy and make them part of the system of certifying sustainable practices in agriculture and fisheries
- Where technically feasible, maximum sustained yields of marine fisheries should be calculated and adhered to with enforcement arrangements and economic incentives. In poorer countries and for small-scale marine fisheries, a “co-management” approach can work in which fishers might agree to fish size or species limitations, seasonal closures of fisheries.
- Establish networks of Aquatic Protected Areas
- Conserve marine fisheries by reducing land-based pollution sources that lead to “dead zones” in coastal areas
In summary, the scientists pointed out that hunger cannot be alleviated nor famines avoided by simply shoring up the ecological foundation of the world food system, but that to neglect this aspect would hamper efforts in the other four pillars of food security.
Source: UNEP.
