"It's only in the last 50 years, with the invention of the aqualung that we've gone underwater to see what lives there," "We all love dolphins," "They're the playful, popular face of the ocean," "But most of what lives underwater is out of sight, and so, out of mind," "Even in the 20 years that I've been diving, there have been big changes in our seas," "It's clear that our oceans are now in real danger," "Flying over miles and miles of ocean, you get the impression that things aren't too bad, but below the surface there's a multitude of man-made problems," "0f all of them, probably the most destructive is fishing, and it's the WAY we catch fish that's the problem," "Blue fin tuna, king of the sea," "They are exquisitely designed for the open ocean," "They can grow up to three-quarters of a tonne, and can swim at 50 miles an hour, faster than any other creature in the sea," "apart from us," "They have few natural predators when fully grown," "It is believed that these blue fin are now endangered," "There's no place in the ocean where we can't pursue them," "They just can't escape us," "Fishing has become incredibly hi-tech, so much so that we can pretty much capture anything anywhere in the world nowadays." "These blue fin tuna boats beneath me have every mod con." "They have incredibly big engines, use depth sounders, GPS, and they even have spotter planes spotting the fish for them." "I got about eight fish over here." "They just went down." "They're on my left side." "So the blue fin tuna, traveling at 50 miles an hour, hasn't got much of a chance," "The moment it comes to the surface, somebody will spot it." "Go at 12 o'clock." "Five or six boats." "Here they're being hunted on one of their major migration routes," "It's thought they swim from the Gulf of Mexico up the eastern seaboard of the U,S, to Canada each summer," "Their routes are so predictable, that they can be caught year after year," "While these fisherman are still catching them, scientists are tagging the fish, trying to discover how many separate populations there are, what their movements are, and just how many fish are left," "Marine scientist and keen sports fisherman Carl Safina fishes off Long Island, New York," "He loves fishing for blue fin, but these days he has to target other species," "I've been fishing off shore since I was 12 with my fathers and my uncles, and we used to see lots of blue fin tuna - a lot of small ones and a lot of big ones." "Now, er...there are so few tuna, that people...sport fish for sharks now." "Safina is so concerned by this decline that he's campaigning with the National Audubon Society to try and save these tuna," "What we do know about blue fins in the western part of the Atlantic - the part of the Atlantic off the U.S. and Canada - is that, er...from the mid 1970s until the late 1990s, the population has declined" "by roughly 85 per cent." "In New England, where most of the Western Atlantic blue fin are caught commercially, fishermen just don't believe these government figures," "They claim there are mistakes in the analysis, so they're naturally very skeptical about the quotas the government imposes," "Scientific research in the ocean is expensive, and the politics surrounding this fish are complicated, but one thing is indisputable - these fish sell for vast amounts of money," "The blue fin tuna was worth a few cents a pound and often sold as cat food until some people realised that if they airlifted them to Japan - if they sent them to Japan in airplanes the price would go from a few cents" "to many dollars per pound." "Tsukiji market in Tokyo is the biggest fish market in the world," "Before I came to Japan, I'd heard a lot about it but I just wasn't prepared for the scale of it," "This warehouse is just the frozen section," "In another section, there are rows and rows of fresh tuna, and amongst these are a frightening quantity of blue fin," "The Japanese are by far the biggest importers of blue fin tuna in the world," "This is big business." "These blue fin are fetching £60 a kilo, so in today's auction, a dealer would expect to get £12,000 for this one fish alone." "But the market fluctuates madly, and some blue fin here have fetched more than £100,000," "Tuna fisherman don't accept the blue fin numbers are right down, but most scientists firmly believe that they are," "Many people want blue fin tuna listed as CITES Appendix I, in other words, a total ban on all fishing of them." "Unless this is done, there is no way that those involved in the market will give up - there's too much in it for them." "This market is not just about tuna," "There's every conceivable type of fish here," "Nearly 50 per cent of the food eaten in Japan comes from the sea, compared with the world's average of about 15 per cent." "They eat enormous quantities of fish, of every species imaginable, but unfortunately, some of those species are in deep trouble." "This is a swordfish," "In the Atlantic, its numbers have more than halved since the 1960s, and many restaurants have now taken it off the menu," "Marlin are a favorite amongst game fishermen, and some species are down by 90 per cent," "While shark meat is on sale in many Japanese markets, by far the biggest trade is in shark fins, and that trade is Asia-wide," "About 100 million sharks are caught every year," "Admittedly, this IS the biggest market, but there are hundreds of markets all over the world selling huge quantities of fish, and it's not just one day a week, it's day after day." "You might find some really strange creatures here, ones which are totally unfamiliar to us, but it's often the more common species that are threatened, and those you can find on sale at home." "This is Billingsgate Market, the largest fish market in London," "Here you can buy all the familiar fish which we love to eat, but in the UK, we're eating fish whose stocks are dangerously low," "Most of us have no idea that these fish are in trouble, even the most common ones such as cod," "At the moment, the worst problem is with cod in the Irish Sea which is really in a very, very depressed state indeed." "The north-east Arctic stock off the coast of Norway is not in very good shape." "The Canadian stock and the North Sea stock are not in good shape." "About the only one that's doing reasonably well is in Iceland." "And if that one goes the same way, there will be no Atlantic cod." "There simply will not be any cod for sale." "So is this a normal size for a cod these days?" "That's an average size, yeah." "(SHEPHERD ) When you buy fish in the supermarket or fish and chip shop, as a consumer you have no way to tell whether this is from a stock that is overfished or that isn't." " These are from the North Sea?" " Yeah, they're Scottish." "We know that fish stocks do collapse and sometimes they recover - the herring collapsed and recovered." "A stock of mackerel in the North Sea in the 60s and 70s collapsed under very heavy fishing pressure by purse-seiners, and it has not come back." "In 30 years, it has not come back." "Sole and plaice are fully exploited and could not sustain any further fishing pressure." "The herring also is fully exploited." "There's no room for expansion." "Now, with so much fishing pressure in surface waters, fishermen are going deeper and deeper to find fish for the market." "We're seeing things here that we'd never have heard of 20 years ago." "This is a black scabbard and it lives at about 1,000 meters." "So are these fish in trouble?" "It's hard to say, because like everything else that lives in the deep, very little is known about it." "Scientists don't really know what's going on down there, and they're only just beginning to find out," "Scientists from Tasmania are now using hi-tech cameras mounted on submersibles to study the effects of fishing on the deep sea," "Only in the last 30 years have we had the technology to fish the deep," "But in many places, the fishing pressure has been intense," "This particular fish is now on our menus," "These white fish are the fillets of a deep sea fish called orange ruffle." "You may have noticed them in your supermarket recently." "They can live at depths of 1,500 meters, and like a lot of deep sea fish, they live a very long time." "These ones could have been born during World War II." "They could even have been around during the Victorian era." "It's believed that orange ruffle can live to a staggering 150 years old." "As well as living longer, these fish mature later at about 30 years old," "If you take them out before this age, they won't be able to reproduce," "There won't be a future generation of orange ruffle," "For many years, the fishing pressure here was huge," "Thousands of tonnes were scooped up for the market, and sold around the world," "At times, so many were caught, there wasn't even the market for them, They were just dumped," "Fortunately, the New Zealand and Australian fisheries recognized the problem in time," "They now monitor the fish stocks carefully," "The fish may be safe, but the habitat they rely on isn't," "In the deep sea, there are animals so new to us and so strange, it's as if we are in another world," "Despite its remoteness, the deep sea habitat is now under threat, and once again, it's the method of fishing that is causing the real damage," "Deep sea fishing nets are huge," "They dredge up life indiscriminately," "Corals and sponges hundreds of years old are being ripped off the seabed and destroyed," "What a trawler does, particularly in the deep sea, where fishing effort is concentrated around sea mounts which are very hard rock, to protect the net from the rock, they have steel balls on them about half a meter in diameter." "That net is pulled along at say three knots, smacking into the rock, smack, smack, smack, smack." "So this net basically comes along and mows that thing down, just rips it off, it's history." "It's got no chance of living after that." "You can't see the damage done at depth, but if the same was done on land, you'd be horrified," "If we wanted to catch cows, for instance, we'd hang a net from a helicopter, and drag that through the paddock." "We'd not only catch a few cows, we'd catch the dog, the car, the farmyard, the barn, we'd catch the farmer's wife, we'd catch the stuff that we weren't going for." "0'Shea is concerned about many of the animals that are being brought up from the deep, most of them unintentionally," "He's monitoring the damage being done from his lab in New Zealand," "One of the most spectacular things we've received in fisheries' bi-catch is this large gorgonian." "It's like a black coral." "It's closely related, and this specimen is 700 years old." "So it was 700 years when the net ripped it off the bottom of the sea." "Now it's dead." "When you add up the pieces, you'd have three meters in height from the sea floor, and that must be the equivalent of an underwater forest." "It's tragic that this should be ripped from the floor." "This particular species was very common between 700 and 1100 meters off our coast, but like everything, that is very fragile, and if we put a steel ball over it, it would be crushed to pieces." "0'Shea has a particular fascination for deep sea squid, but he's worried that many are disappearing before we've even had a chance to see them alive in the wild, let alone understand them," "This species used to be very common around New Zealand." "It's gone." "The only reason an animal like this is gone, is it's so stupid, it's so slow, it got attacked by a trawler net, and the trawlers have been going in the area for so long" "that we've made this animal extinct." "With every single dive to the deep ocean, scientists are discovering new species," "Some may have properties that could be invaluable to us," "Sponges are animals, but they're rooted to the bottom and can't get away from something that's trying to eat them or grow over them, so they produce chemicals to ward off predators or other encroaching sponges," "It's these chemicals that interest marine scientists in Florida," "They collect sponges from the deep, and take them back to the lab for analysis," "The challenge to us as drug discoverers and marine biologists is to figure out why the organism is producing it, and then apply that knowledge to figure out what might be an appropriate drug target for that chemical compound." "Pomponi's team is using chemicals from the sponges in trials," "They believe the chemicals will prevent the growth of cancer cells in humans," "Ideally, we want something that will kill a certain type of cancer cell, so it will be very specific for certain types of cancer, and, so far, the results are very encouraging." "So, yes, we think that this will be useful as a treatment for certain forms of cancer." "So far, we've only explored two per cent of the deep," "We could be in danger of losing a treasure-trove of species, before we've even discovered them," "(P0MP0NI) If we lose... that biological diversity that occurs in the deep ocean, and it does, then we lose that chemical diversity, and we lose the opportunity to discover new drugs." "It's not just the deep that's in danger, Shallow water habitats like coral reefs are having a hard time, too," "Part of the problem is the growing trade in reef fish, and it's often the market demand for luxury fish like groupers, coral trout and wrasse that's behind the problem," "They're being fished out at an alarming rate," "Fish on coral reefs that were once a staple food for local people, are now in high demand as a delicacy in major cities around the world," "The majority goes to mainland China and cities like Hong Kong," "It's a huge market and some 30,000 tonnes of reef fish come into Hong Kong every year," "The fishermen are having to go to coral reefs further and further afield as stocks dry up," "Some now travel 3,000 miles on a single fishing trip to find reefs with fish," "People like their fish fresh - very fresh, so much so that the cost of live fish is ten times the cost of fresh dead fish, and the fish in the marketplace are getting smaller and smaller," "Dr Yvonne Sadovy is worried about the amount of juveniles sold here," "This beautiful animal is a humphead wrasse, and he's called humphead wrasse because of his hump on his head." "The other one is the giant grouper." "This is a giant grouper." "There's several of them, and these are juveniles." "This one is probably a late teenager, but still not an old or well-developed fish, and the majority that we see of these species are young, juvenile fish." "Humphead wrasse should be able to live for more than 20 years, but they rarely reach that age," "They're taken out far too young," "If you have fisheries which take large numbers of juveniles, these animals have not had a chance to reproduce, so where's the next generation going to come from?" "If you take too many juveniles, slowly what happens is you don't get enough adults in the next generation, and slowly the populations decline in numbers." "So that's what my concern is, that if this is part of a trend - that we're seeing more and more juveniles being taken - then that does not augur well for these species." "But much more serious than the possible loss of a few species is the loss of an entire habitat, especially one which supports thousands upon thousands of species," "Coral reefs are the most diverse communities in our oceans," "Many of them have grown up over hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, and over that time, a fantastic number of animals and plants have evolved with them," "The intricate structure built by the corals themselves provides protection from predators, important breeding sites, and endless feeding opportunities," "But now the coral itself is under threat from man," "Today, dynamiting is commonplace," "It's an efficient way to kill the nearby fish, but just one blast will completely flatten a patch of reef," "There are lots of other threats to reef right across the world," "Sometimes it's pollution, they get covered by sediment, and global warming is certainly playing its part, too," "Here in south-east Asia, 80 per cent of reefs are either in danger of dying, or are dead." "A lot of it's been dynamited, but now a more sinister method of fishing is being used." "It's fast, it's effective, but it's highly illegal." "Fishermen are using the poison cyanide." "Fishermen squirt sodium cyanide into crevices where fish take refuge," "Cyanide starves the fish of oxygen, so they come out into the open dazed and much easier to catch," "Not all these fish are for food, Many of them are for the aquarium trade," "They're purely a luxury item," "The corals themselves die in just a few weeks, and the whole reef becomes smothered in algae," "That was a reconstruction, but this is real life," "Members of the International Marine Alliance in the Philippines are trying to save their few remaining reefs," "They suspect these men have been fishing illegally, and want to find out where they've been fishing, but the fishermen are wary," "They are afraid to tell us where the places are because there might be some retaliation from the other villagers in this village." "They hide the bottles underneath the boat, and when...another boat approaches, they just ditch this so that nobody could see it." "These men know they could end up in jail," "It's so hard to police the coastal area of the Philippines because it's a very long coastal area." "Also, if you jail them, you don't have enough room in jail." "We were taken to a jail on the island of Koron," "These men have been arrested for illegal fishing, and they're awaiting trial," "They've been locked up for months, but the trader, the middle man, is still free," "I don't think we can lump all the blame on the fishermen, because first is that, er... they do not know anything better." "They are afraid of being caught, but they say there's no other method to catch fish." "When they've been squirted with cyanide, fish don't die immediately, but the damage HAS been done and their internal organs gradually pack up," "The trader has to move them fast as they will die in just a few weeks," "Cruise is sure that the importers know when cyanide has been used because the mortality rate is so high, but they simply choose to ignore it," "An importer would know immediately that there's something wrong with his fishes, but they keep on importing from the same exporter in the Philippines or in other countries." "The majority of tropical fish caught in Indonesia and the Philippines are exported to America and to the UK," "Fortunately, responsible importers like the owner of this shop refuse to buy fish that have been caught by cyanide." "A customer can't tell how a fish was caught." "The responsibility lies with us to check with the shopkeeper." "And if you don't, it may only take a couple of weeks before your ornamental fish is as dead as the reef it came from," "(BING CROSBY) # Gone fishin'" "# By a shady, wady pool... #" "(L0US ARMSTRONG) # Shangri La, really la!" "# I'm wishin' I could be" "# That kind of fool (Shall I twist your arm?" ")" "# I'd say no more work for mine (Welcome to the club!" ")" "# 0n my door I'd hang a sign" "# Gone fishin'" "# Instead of just a-wishin'" "# Bah-boo-bah-bah-boo-bam... # 0h, yeah!" "#" "This abandoned net is made of tough nylon which won't easily disintegrate," "If it isn't removed, it could carry on killing like this for years to come," "If one small net on one reef can cause this much damage, imagine what fishing nets do on a global scale," "Our fishing methods today ensure that we catch more and more, but a lot of what is caught is thrown away - simply chucked overboard, usually dead," "Modern fisheries are very destructive." "They catch what they're after - and everything else." "The United Nations tells us that up to 30 million metric tonnes a year are caught and then thrown overboard dead or dying." "That's one quarter to one third of the annual catch around the world." "I'm talking about not just non-target fish species but turtles, marine mammals, birds such as albatrosses, even whales on occasion." "No matter how magnificent, no animal is spared in our hunt for food," "But what's even more ridiculous, is that often the fish that we would eat are thrown away if the boat is targeting a different species," "And there's one particular fishery where the waste is phenomenal," "Prawn or shrimp trawling is the most destructive fishery in the world." "Prawn or shrimp trawling occurs throughout the tropics." "The nets are dragged along the bottom where the shrimp live." "Those nets hoover up everything in their path." "Up to 15 pounds of other species are discarded for every one pound of shrimp that's caught." "Worse still are the quantities of juvenile fish that get thrown away," "Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of young fish are discarded every year, fish that would otherwise grow to become an important and valuable source of protein," "And all this for just a handful of prawns," "The fishermen recognize the problem and asked for help, so Dr Steve Keneally is looking at the prawn fishing industry in New South Wales, Australia," "Here, the industry is huge," "They catch over a thousand tonnes of prawns a year," "Keneally has invented a bi-catch reduction device - a BRD - which lets smaller, immature fish escape from the net," "This cording gets towed along at the back of the net, at the back of the whole operation." "The catch that enters a trawl net ends up at the back of this bag." "We did some trials and experiments and found that, at a certain point where this material changes, you get a back pressure of water, and by putting in open square meshes just at that point where that back pressure of water is occurring," "the water will flow up and out through that square mesh panel." "Little fish inside this net feel that back pressure of water and immediately head upwards and out through the open square mesh panel." "Keneally is experimenting with two different nets," "This first one is a conventional prawn fishing net," "0K, this is the catch from the control cording - that is the conventional cording without any BRD in it." "As you can see, there's quite a lot of small fish in the catch, and, hopefully, in the other cording with the BRD installed there'll be a lot less fish and still the same quantity of prawns." "This is the net with his bi-catch reduction device in it," "It's immediately obvious that fewer fish have been accidentally caught," "So that's the difference in bi-catch." "Most of the smaller fish have escaped, so at least they should have a chance to breed," "You just have to look with your own eyes and there's no doubt that there's a 60 per cent reduction or more in bi-catch." "Keneally's device has gone a long way to reducing the waste, but he knows that it's not the whole answer," "I don't think we can ever have a situation where we only catch the things we're trying to catch." "With just about every fishing method, you're going to catch undersized organisms of the target species." "To get to the position where we don't catch any bi-catch for prawn and shrimp," "I don't think we'll ever get to that point, at least not in the foreseeable future." "But there is possibly another way - one where there may be no bi-catch at all," "It's fish farming or aqua culture," "Already it's producing huge quantities of fish," "Could fish farming be the solution?" "At the moment, one in every four fish that we eat is farmed, but over the next 25 years, it's thought that figure will double so that half the fish we eat will be farmed." "So is this the answer?" "Can we really protect our fish stocks, the juveniles, the fragile marine habitats?" "Is fish farming the solution to all our fishing problems?" "If aqua culture is one of the answers, then surely the people with the highest incentive to get it right are the Japanese," "They're already very advanced in farming fish," "They're even trying to raise large predatory fish like tuna, and in particular, blue fin tuna," "Here in Koshimoto in western Japan, they're going for broke." "Swimming around beneath me in this enclosure, there are 50 fully mature blue fin tuna," "These tuna were caught in the wild and are now being fattened up for market, They're fed generously so they'll be in prime adult condition when they're sold," "Here they've taken tuna farming to the next stage," "They're not just holding them, they're breeding these blue fins," "They hope that these fish will breed in three years' time, and so complete the whole life cycle in captivity," "Then, they won't have to take any more blue fin tuna from our oceans," "(INTERPRETER) Japan is the largest tuna consuming nation in the world." "And we're also very concerned about diminishing stocks of blue fin tuna in the wild." "Aqua culture has its own set of well-known problems," "Most worrying are pollution and the mixing of captive-bred fish with wild stocks," "But there's another issue," "These tuna are fed a staggering amount of fish every day," "They're being fed valuable protein which should be food for the poorer people of Asia, so now the Japanese are trying to develop a substitute feed either from vegetable matter or from animal products," "(SPEAKS JAPANESE)" "(INTERPRETER) And we hope further development will enable us to use more artificial feed in the future." "But they haven't succeeded yet, and they still take huge quantities of low value fish to feed one big luxury fish," "In other parts of Asia which are poorer than Japan and where fish stocks are heavily depleted, they are also turning to aqua culture," "And tiger prawns are the biggest money earner," "More than half a million tonnes of prawns are produced a year, nearly all of which are exported," "It's big business and it employs a lot of people," "But just like tuna, the prawns are carnivorous and need to eat fish - fish that have been ground into pellets," "When they're farmed as intensively as they are here, they need a lot of feed," "If you have, er... three square meters of pond for one tiger prawn, that's extensive - nature will feed the prawn - but if you have 30 of them in one square meter, then you have to provide some kind of food." "I think the latest figures are about two - two kilos of fish - to produce one kilo of prawn." "Substitute feeds may help, but they could come too late," "In the meantime, low value fish are fed to prawns which are then exported to the West," "These fish should be feeding local people," "It's the... little fish that's there that's being bought by...people, by Filipino families for their food, by low income families and middle income families, that will not be available to these families." "But there's another issue," "Thousands of intensive farms have been built in coastal areas, destroying a valuable marine habitat - mangrove forests," "Mile upon mile of mangroves have been cut down," "The coastline has been stripped of its natural protection," "And there are many important ecological reasons why mangroves should be protected," "To many people, mangroves are just a mass of gnarled roots where the bottom is sludgy, and the air is full of mosquitoes, but get underwater, and it's a very different world." "The intricate root system provides a natural nursery for young fish," "They spend their later life on coral reefs or in the open sea," "The roots provide protection from predators which is vital for small, vulnerable fish," "In the shelter of mangroves, fish can feed and grow in relative safety," "Again, it's the habitat that's under threat," "We're destroying it without a thought for the animals that depend on it," "Perhaps the answer might be to set aside some areas of the sea so that the animals that live there have a chance," "When land animals need protecting, we usually do something about it - the huge game reserves in Africa are a classic example - but for some reason, we treat our seas very differently." "This is the island of Skomer, a very beautiful reserve that offers excellent protection for the birds and plants that live here." "It also calls itself a marine nature reserve, one of only two in the whole of Britain." "You'd think a marine reserve would offer total protection for all life under the sea, but amazingly, you can fish here." "Even commercial fishermen can operate here." "In the time of our grandfathers, there were natural marine reserves, inaccessible to fishing fleets," "There, the fish could grow to maturity undisturbed," "But with modern fishing technology, there's practically nowhere we now can't fish," "Only a tiny percentage of the ocean is a safe sanctuary," "Something like one third of one per cent of the oceans are within marine-protected areas." "That's a very tiny fraction and it's equivalent to something like the size of South Africa." "However, we're not protecting those areas well enough at the moment, and only something like one ten thousandth of the surface of the oceans is protected from all forms of fishing." "That's equivalent to the size of Holland and it isn't nearly enough." "Roberts wants areas set aside which are TOTALLY protected," "There are some small areas where they've done this like this reserve off the north island of New Zealand," "Since fishing stopped 25 years ago, the stocks have recovered and the water is now teeming with fish," "And it's not just fish - everything's doing well," "Lobsters are abundant again, and they're getting a lot bigger," "Scientists monitor stocks carefully and keep a close eye on how all the animals in the reserve are doing," "This five-kilometer-wide reserve produces the same number of lobsters as a 100-kilometer stretch of unprotected coastline," "Fishermen are allowed to fish right up to the boundaries," "The lobsters are now so abundant within the reserve that they spread out into the surrounding waters," "So what these no-take zones provide to fisheries is an increase in the replenishment to their fisheries." "The spawning stocks are like deposits in a bank account." "Even the behavior of the fish has changed," "Once scared of man, the fish are perhaps a little over-friendly!" "Roberts believes that between ten and 20 per cent of our oceans should become no-take zones, and that we should protect large areas of different marine habitats - the deep sea, coral reefs, mangroves, as well as key spawning grounds," "That way, fish can grow bigger and older and stocks will recover," "He also believes that migration routes and feeding grounds should be protected, particularly the routes taken by the largest marine animals " "the whales - as they circumnavigate the globe," "It's a simple idea, and one that Roberts believes, with the public's help, is possible," "Once people realize what's going on, and they begin to bring to bear pressure on the politicians and decision-makers, we'll see moves taking place to establish the areas that we need to set aside from fishing." "We CAN make that choice, We've done it before - we brought back the great whales from near extinction," "Most of them can live free from the threat of a whaling boat - but it took international co-operation, and that only came about once the public realised how close the whales were to being wiped out." "Whaling was a huge industry right up until the 1970s," "Some species nearly disappeared from our oceans, altogether," "We recognized this just in time, so we did something about it," "We do now know what's happening in our oceans," "We know they're in trouble and that we're to blame." "We can't hide behind an out of sight, out of mind attitude any more." "We know what's down there - the extraordinary diversity of life." "Our oceans are S0 precious, so vital to the planet." "If we care about that, then, surely, we can look after them."