It is interesting to review the cycles that industry sectors develop through. After thirty years of near global devastation, the fishing industry has drastically changed, some may say reformed, and is receiving considerable investment mainly in the form of new, larger and more efficient vessels.
The other main marine protein producer, aquaculture, is now receiving the same kind of malign attention from green-left zealots and their fellow travellers among the bureaucracy and woke corporates that their fishing counterparts became used to. That is not yet destroying the industry but it is, sensibly, moving it further offshore.
Indeed, the further offshore and more out of sight that both sectors operate in future, the better. If they can't be easily seen, perhaps the malignant green glance will turn to the currently fashionable offshore wind farms with all their unforeseen environmental disadvantages. Just more of the collateral damage that results from green zealotry.
It is best to be invisible in the modern world. So, for maritime industries, it is safest to operate out of sight of land, say 20-plus nautical miles off. Practically, that means bigger fishing and aquaculture service vessels and much bigger and more seaworthy fish farms.
Given that other green fantasies like terrestrial fish farms are unlikely to happen, there is only one real solution to the problem of producing marine protein for the world's hungry billions who do not choose to be vegetarians. That is exactly what is happening as you will see from the vessels reviewed in Baird Maritime over the coming week.
Not only are they operating further out to sea but the vessels are cleaner and greener in themselves with several examples of electric and hybrid power and, despite what the green zealots say, clean LNG power.
The two sectors are far from dead but they are changing dramatically. Read how in Baird Maritime this week.
– "Scientists often do not account for the in-between time as a fish is transitioning from one stage of development to the next, nor do they consider the cumulative impacts across life stages."
– "The animal rights NGOs and some so-called serious journals have stepped up their demands for bigger no-take zones and for more sharks to be listed in CITES' appendices, regardless of their abundance and any ongoing mitigation strategies."
– by Eugene Lapointe, president of the IWMC World Conservation Trust and a former secretary-general of CITES
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Any news or views about the global commercial fishing and aquaculture industries? Send it through to editor@bairdmaritime.com ASAP (between now and November 5), so we can add it to this current edition of Fishing and Aquaculture Week!
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