UN Reports One-Third of Fish Caught Wasted




According to the Guardian:


Fish Consumption Outstrips Population Growth

Global fish production reached a total of 171 million tonnes in 2016, about half of which was farmed, according to the FAO. The capture of wild fish has stagnated since the late 1980s, and aquaculture accounts for the subsequent increase in fish production.



According to the FAO’s press release summarising the report’s highlights:



Increase in Overfished Species







Yet as reported in Undercurrent News:











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  1. PlutoniumKun

    It should be said that poorly designed regulation has a major role in wastage – it incentivises fishermen to throw away fish that don’t come within their quotas.

    Another problem of course is that fishing worldwide is heavily subsidised by governments. Banning subsidies would have an immediate and dramatic impact on reducing catches.

    But the only real solution is to buy up fishing boats. In Ireland, inshore (and very unsustainable) coastal fishing for wild salmon only stopped when the government bit the bullet and bought out every fisherman and their boats (the latter to discourage illegal fishing). The stocks now are finally starting to recover. A cousin of mine who was a salmon fisherman said he lost a lot of money from this as for years he was understating his catch to avoid tax. But the buyout was based on previous years reported catches…

    I think a key issue in this – and I’ve no solution for this – is that the coastal and concentrated nature of the fishing industry gives fishermen a disproportionate amount of political power in many countries – you can see this factor from Norway to Spain to Japan. Japan is a case in point – the whaling industry is minuscule, but has a firm grip on Japanese politics due to the key electoral districts in the north and coastal areas. I think only hard cash will solve a problem like this – buy the boats out.

    1. Jerri-Lynn Scofield Post author

      The report had a section discussing how too many fisherfolk– and too many boats– are chasing too few fish. Due to lack of space, I didn’t discuss this. Yet with that in mind, your solution is spot on.

  2. Isotope_C14

    I had a friend who is now deceased – self inflicted shot to the head, who when robbed of a PhD ended up working on a fishing boat based out of Alaska.

    His job was as a biological observer.

    He would count the number of endangered species, or off-season fish scooped up in the trawler net. If he reached a certain number, he would have to tell them to stop fishing, and then the boat would return.

    He told me everything that was sucked up would be either dumped back over the side of the boat, or ground up into cat food.

    Think about that when you feed a cat.

    Anyway, this is the mentality of capitalism. Destroy what you can to get the small amount of what you want. I only eat fish I personally catch, which is almost never, so I encourage all of you, before thinking about going out for sushi, think about a nice vegan meal or at least vegetarian somewhere.

    Or actions are annihilating the planet.

  3. freedomny

    “Think about that when you feed a cat”….or any carnivorous pet. I’m “mostly” vegan – I still have the occasional ice cream, butter, cheese – but I do buy meat/fish for my pets. I don’t know if you can feed a cat or dog a vegan diet…..

    1. Isotope_C14

      I am opposed to pet ownership, on a variety of levels. I used to work with the guy who was in charge of formulating petsmart food. He said you wouldn’t feed an animal it if you knew what it was made of.

      City dwellers with dogs and plastic bags. Horrifying how much plastic is used for that.

      1. Arizona Slim

        Sotto voce: Isotope_C14, count me as another NC-er who is opposed to pet ownership. Especially in cities.

        1. freedomny

          Why? Just curious. Where would all these animals go? Should we just kill them all….right now?

          Forget the intellectual argument and tell me what is the difference in caring for another living creature and caring for a family member – because that is how most view their pets.

          Give me one frigging good reason why we should not care for our fellow living beings. Do it.

          Sotto fucking voice

          1. Isotope_C14

            So you first say, “forget the intellectual argument”, and immediately talk about caring for another living creature.

            I do not have the ability to make an argument based on emotion, do you?

            You are welcome to disagree that millions of plastic bags daily hold a hunk of poop in them and then end up in landfills.

            You can explain to me how outdoor cats kill birds, rabbit young, and all kinds of native fauna, and that’s just fine with you.

            Cat litter, I’m sure there’s no carbon footprint there, and lets see what landfill that goes to.

            Dog food: not environmentally sound in any way shape or form.

            People should stop breeding all domesticated “pets”, especially the deeply inbred kinds that have crippling genetic defects.

            Of course, western selfish capitalists should be able to be so rich that they have pets that live in their house, better than 10% of the people in their country, and perhaps 50% better globally, because animals are cute and cuddly, and homeless people, well it’s “their” fault.

            “Give me one frigging good reason why we should not care for our fellow living beings. Do it.”

            You don’t actually care. If you did, you’d realize the impact of animal domestication and agriculture and come to the conclusion that we are the cause of the sixth mass extinction, having animals is NOT helping, especially “ornamental” ones.

            You see, a mass extinction event includes all pets and people. I’m hoping the bacteria will have a chance to survive.

            1. Ralph

              And how pure are you on all these fronts? Do you order coffee that has a plastic sippy cup lid? Buy veggies in a store, where you are pretty much required to use a plastic bag so your portion can be weighed? Buy take-out food, which often is packaged in plastic?

              You can buy cat litter made of corn. It also happens to smell better than a lot of other cat litters. So bye bye your landfill argument. And indoor cats don’t eat birds.

              As for pets, if you have a small pet (<30 lbs) it eats less than a human child, will live less long than a human, does not need toys. to use electricity beyond what its household uses (as in for electronic devices for school and entertainment), to be driven to school and play dates, or to take up a seat on the airplane if its humans decide to schlepp it with them.

              Now I can see the case against buying purebreds, since this encourages the production of more animals. But what about shelter animals?

              In other words, if you are going to make an ecological argument against pets, the ecological argument against children, oh, and elderly adults, is even stronger. So where do you propose to draw the line?

              1. Isotope_C14

                “So where do you propose to draw the line?”

                Well, I don’t have children, pets, or use disposable plastics for my day-to-day. I don’t travel, don’t take planes, and only use public transit. I have some plants. I’m trying to take some CO2 out of the air, for all the good it will do.

                Here in Berlin we have plenty of no-plastic markets, very easy to reuse old plastic containers as well, if you choose to. We also have returnable-reusable glass bottles, for beer, juice, soda, and even water. Pepole often carry around a separate veggie bag so the glass bottles don’t smash the soft things.

                I do love that meme showing the guy in a well with his head popped out saying “But you support blah blah blah” while speaking against say, industrial capitalism.

                I’d opt for the Native American approach to life, rather than the wholesale destruction of the planet and all non-bacterial life on it. Unfortunately in the global capitalist system all land is “owned” by someone rich. Sorry I can’t off-grid, that isn’t allowed by the oligarchs.

                If your argument is “where do you draw the line” – I ask you do we let the western selfish mentality kill the planet? Or do we make the tough choices to get our population under control, and stop the endless consumerist waste?

                I don’t honestly think elderly adults are the problem. I think the problem is that from cradle to the grave you are taught that buying trash is freedom and that you need X dogs and a big pickup truck and a couple guns for the American dream.

                I see elderly folk all the time in Germany biking, and only buying what they need, and living a more sustainable existence than the vast majority of Americans.

                And there is an ecological argument against Children. Don’t have them. That’s the best way to save the planet.

  4. lyman alpha blob

    I was recently in Bermuda and saw lots of parrotfish which are quite beautiful and essential for healthy coral reefs. The locals told me that the fish population had only recently bounced back after regulations were passed limiting the catch. I got conflicting stories – one person said that the regulation stopped all the fish pots within a certain radius of the shore set out by small fisherman. Another said it was the large factory boats sweeping up everything, not the locals, that were the problem. That made more sense but I’m still not sure what caused the problem and it could be a combination of both the corporate boats and the small fishermen. In Greece years ago I heard of local small time fishermen who fished with dynamite, which obviously is far from a sustainable method.

    The point is simple though – the fishery was regulated, certain fishing stopped completely, and the population rebounded in a fairly short period of time. It may have done to keep the snorkeling tourists happy moreso than to help the fish, but whatever works I guess.

    I believe the wastefulness is due to the convenience factor that the Western world insists on. Rather than having a temporary shortage of anything, or god forbid, making people wait in line, we overproduce just about everything now and can have it delivered within hours. if it doesn’t sell, throw it out. This has to stop.

    1. 4corners

      So true. But I don’t know how consumers can promote seasonality when suppliers are convinced that they can make a steady profit year-round. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some certification process out there trying to address this.

      I volunteered for a nonprofit one summer in Jamaica, and was invited out fishing several times with a local stonemason. We would head out to the reef (where his outboard motor would reliably go unreliable) and drop our lines in unbelievably clear water. I could peer over the side and watch the most beautiful fish (mostly) ignore our bait. I was a little unsettled at how this guy would keep anything and everything, until I understood it was all going in the pot at home to feed his family. That fishery was clearly depleted and there were people like my friend still trying to eke out a meal wherever they can find it. It was another reminder to me about how poverty creates really knotty problems in resource management.

  5. Louis Fyne

    pretty much the assumption has to be that any seafood from outside the EU or US is from an unsustainable fishery.

    Trawler registered in lax country A >>> fishing in international waters >>> fish processed in onboard or in lax country B >>> exported to the US/EU/China, frozen or canned or as protein meal for industrial fish food/livestock feed.

    tragedy of the commons 21th century style.

  6. Synoia

    UN Reports One-Third of Fish Caught Wasted

    Worse than Drivers. /s.

    We are doing a poor job of taking care of this Earth.

  7. Carl

    Love that suggestion to eat local fish. Here in Texas we are warned not to eat the fish caught in any of the rivers, lakes or streams, because of the high mercury from, oh, I dunno, emissions from coal-filed electrical plants, or something.

    1. 4corners

      There’s a lake in Utah (not coincidentally, named Utah Lake) where the waters have long been fouled by a nearby steel mill. It was well known that no one should consume fish from this lake. But that didn’t stop some enterprising local from trying to get a permit to harvest carp for export and consumption in China. The scheme actually got pretty far before someone in the local legislature paused to consider ethics and shut it down. Hopefully the golden rule applies to both sides of the Pacific, but that seems childlike in its naïveté.

    2. Isotope_C14

      Usually they break it down by breed. Globally most fish is contaminated.

      Non-Asian carp, and catfish are usually on the do not eat list. Your state DNR will have local guidelines on all the other species.

      Smaller fish are less contaminated as well, and they tell you which it is in the guide.

      You an also do home aquaponics. I would if I lived in Texas. I would do a local fish type though in case of flood or tornado. :)

  8. The Rev Kev

    I suppose that if perhaps you cut back all quotas by say, 25%, then fishermen would be pressured to be more efficient with their fishing practices and not so quick to throw away so many fish. Might relieve some of the pressure on fish stocks too if the takings were reduced by 25% as well. I am not so sure if the solution is to buy up those fishing boats as they are only little guys. Instead, make illegal those huge floating fishing factories that vacuum up anything and everything. Had one of them come south a few years ago wanting to vacuum up everything in the waters south of Australia which caused a hell of a ruckus which forced it to go elsewhere.

    1. PlutoniumKun

      A big problem with quotas is that what happens in reality is the fishermen catch all they can, then select the most valuable from the catch in terms of size and condition to fit with their quota, then throw the rest away. So unless you have a 100% honest inspector on every boat, thats no real solution.

      From my reading on the topic, the only thing that will work is a combination of no-fish reserves (which fishermen often support, because these reserves boost overall fish stocks), along with boat buy-outs. Well thought out boat buy-out schemes (say, tie it to bigger pensions for older fishermen) can help fishing communities and reduce pressure on stocks.

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