A．change of climate.B．fish farms.C．pollutants.D．rapid d……
TEXT D
Fishermen on the high seas
have plenty of worries, not the least of which are boat tossing storms,
territorial squabbles and even pirates. Now Boris Worm, a marine biologist at
Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, has added another. After studying,
among other things, global catch data over more than 50 years, he and a team of
13 researchers in four countries have come to a stunning conclusion. By the
middle of this century, fishermen will have almost nothing left to catch. "None
of us regular working folk are going to be able to afford seafood," says Stephen
Palumbi, a Stanford University marine biologist and co-author of the study
published in Science. "It’s going to be too rare and too expensive."
Don’t tell that to your local sushi chef. Over the past three decades, the
fish export trade has grown fourfold, to 30 million tons, and its value has
increased ninefold, to $ 71 Billion. The dietary attractiveness of seafood has
stoked demand. About 90% of the ocean’s big predators like cod and tuna--have
been fished out of existence. Increasingly, fish and shrimp farms are filling
the shortfall. Though touted as a solution to overfishing, many of them
have--along with rampant coastal development, climate change and pollution
devastated the reefs, mangroves and seagrass beds where many commercially
valuable fish hatch.
Steven Murawski, chief scientist at the U.
S. National Marine Fisheries Service, finds Worm’s headlining prediction far too
pessimistic, Industry experts are even more skeptical "There’s now a global
effort to reduce or eliminate fishing practices that aren’t sustainable," says
industry analyst Howard Johnson. "With that increased awareness, these
projections just aren’t realistic."
Perhaps. Still, the
destructive fishing practices that have decimated tuna and cod have not declined
worldwide, as Johnson suggests. Up to half the marine life caught by fishers is
discarded, often dead, as bycatch, and vibrant coral forests are still being
stripped bare by dragnets. Worm argues that fisheries based on ecosystems
stripped of their biological diversity are especially prone to collapse. At
least 29% of fished species have already collapsed, according to the study, and
the trend is accelerating.
what’s a fish eater to do "Vote with
your wallet," says Michael Sutton, who runs the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood
Watch program in California. Since 1999, the aquarium has handed out pocket
guides listing sustainably harvested seafood. The Marine Stewardship Council has
partnered with corporations to similarly certify wild and farm-raised seafood.
Some 370 products in more than two dozen countries bear the British group’s
"Fish Forever" label of approval. Wal-Mart and Red Lobster, among others, have
made commitments to sell sustainably harvested seafood.
But
that’s just a spit in the ocean unless consumers in Japan, India, China and
Europe join the chorus for change. "If everyone in the U. S. started eating
sustainable seafood," says Worldwatch Institute senior researcher Brian Halweil,
"it would be wonderful, but it wouldn’t address the global issues. We’re at the
very beginning of this."
All of the following are mentioned as factors threatening seafood EXCEPT ______.
A．change of climate.
B．fish farms.
C．pollutants.
D．rapid development.
