World Wildlife Fund President Describes Fisheries Crisis

Carter Roberts, president of the World Wildlife Fund

Roberts, the president of the World Wildlife Fund, spoke last week at the Marine Environmental Research Institute.

“There is a true crisis in the world around the conservation of marine resources,” Roberts told a packed house, “but there is hope for the future.”

According to Roberts, the increase in the number of “overfished and collapsed fisheries” has accelerated over the past 50 years. The increase has been so significant that some scientists have predicted that, by 2048, all of the world’s fisheries will no longer be commercially viable.

If those scientists are correct, the results for mankind could be disastrous. The world’s commercial fisheries are “a resource that millions rely on for their livelihood,” Roberts said “A billion depend on fish for their primary source of protein.”

The decline in the world’s fisheries and the accelerating consumption of its other natural resources is only magnified by several other economic, demographic and climatalogical factors, Roberts said. Responsible economists predict that China will overtake the United States in terms of its gross domestic product (GDP) by the year 2050, and India “is close behind. That great sucking sound you hear is China pulling resources out of the Third World.”

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