New research suggests that number of fish caught for consumption it is double what has been reported, which can lead us to a bigger problem than we might think at first.
Between 1950 and 2010, FAO, underestimated the total number of fish caught in the world's oceans in half, according to a new book called the Global Atlas Of Marine Fisheries, which is the product of ten years of research.
Instead of total fish catches reaching the peak of 86 million tons in 1996, the number was currently 130 million tons. That means a serious decline in the numbers of these types of living beings since the mid-90s, even much more than scientists thought.
In fact, it is more than three times lower than was estimated, since there has been a reduction of 1,2 million tons in catches each year that has passed.
Daniel Pauly, principal investigator at the University of British Columbia, and one of the two authors of the aforementioned book, maintains that if the catch continues to decline, what will happen is that we will have fewer and fewer fish in the oceans. And above, we have climate change, which makes things even worse, especially in the tropics.
What happens is also that there are three types of minor fishing those that have not been included in these reports in the past decades, such as subsistence, recreational and artisanal reports. By omitting all of those factors, like legal fishing, which takes one in every 5 fish caught, you have seriously compromised the accuracy of your counted catches.
Another problem is that the oceans of the entire planet have absorbed the vast majority of excess heat of the atmosphere in recent years. The fish had to move to the poles at the same time as the climate change continues to hit, leaving countries in the tropics, without their main source of food.
One of the possible outputs is let it balance again the amount of fish in the sea reducing catches, which can achieve greater diversity, more resistance against changes and even against climate change.