The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Needs to Wake Up!

Commentary by Paul Watson
Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has responded to the Dalhousie University study published in Science magazine with an angry dismissal of the report.
 
The study predicted that accelerating overfishing and pollution could collapse all commercial world fisheries by 2048.
 
"The conservation status of fish and crustaceans published by Science magazine is unacceptable," said FAO Fishery Resource Director Serge Garcia.
 
"Such a collapse... would require reckless behavior of all industries and governments for four decades and an incredible level of apathy of all world citizens," according to Garcia.   
Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Captain Paul Watson was not surprised. "Garcia is a bureaucrat who needs to get on a ship and find out for himself what is happening in the world's oceans."
 
"The reason we are where we are now with diminished fisheries and collapsed populations of cod, orange roughy, and numerous other species," said Watson, "is because we have had four decades of reckless behavior by fishing industries and governments and four decades of incredible apathy by world citizens."
 
Sea Shepherd views the recent report in Science as confirming what the Society has been predicting for the last decade.
 
"The information in that report was not surprising to us," said Sea Shepherd International Director Jonny Vasic. "Everything in that report has been common knowledge to marine conservationists for many years. What is surprising is that the fishing industry did not suppress the report." 

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