French-Canadian marine biologist Daniel Pauly warned Tuesday about the impact of fisheries and global warming on marine systems, according to the site futuro360.com.
Pauly said that “in the 50’s the industrialized parts of Europe and North America generated a great impact on the ecosystem.” This was due to the great exploitation of resources, causing negative effects on the marine ecosystem.
“Many species have become extinct and have been replaced by smaller species; on the seabed there was also a big impact due to fishing vessels,” he explained.
Previously, the specialist has pointed out that the only way to recover the ecosystem is the commitment to artisanal fishing and the end of subsidies to large industrial fleets.
Trajectory
The scientist is recognized for being a marine biologist and one of the world’s leading specialists in maritime resources. His research has focused on aquatic ecosystems, species research and fisheries management that he has developed in conjunction with other peers.
To date, he is the author of more than 1000 scientific publications and of general interest, which are used in educational processes on five continents.
He is co-creator of the website Fishbase.org, a database with the information of more than 30 thousand species of fish and is a principal investigator in the “Sea around us” initiative that works on the description of marine ecosystems.
Pauly began with a historical tour of the history of the fishery, which changed radically from 1880, when the British replaced sailing boats with steamboats to carry out fishing.
These ships first extracted resources from around the island and then began to work further and further away from it.
Towards the poles
The biologist also pointed out that, due to climate change, marine ecosystems have tended to move to the poles, in search of the temperature to which they are accustomed. He gave as an example that fish from Ecuador have tended to move towards Peru, and those from Peru towards Chile. All this has caused a strong impact on the extraction of natural resources or on the marine habitat itself, he warned.
“The fish are heading at temperatures they prefer. This can help us to interpret the change that is being experienced for example on the coast of Africa, in the south of Senegal and in North Africa, where these animals cannot adapt to different temperatures, they have to move towards those they are used to and all this is due to global warming, “he added.
According to the expert, in the future there will be a replacement in the fish community by others from tropical waters in areas where they were not previously found.
“This replacement requires fishermen to adapt to new fish, which will affect fisheries. However, in the tropics, where fishing is very important, the fish from those areas are going to leave and will not have a replacement,” he said.
For the scientist, fishing companies will not have an easy future, since it is not an easy problem to solve. Pauly added that “it’s not about providing subsidies, but about having marine protected areas.”
