For many year man has relied on the sea for food and
enjoyment. Unfortunately due to the overburdening of
the
human population the sea has been exploited to such an
extent that in many areas, once abundant supplies of
fish
have been fished into extinction.
I have an idea that may help
restore the once abundant
populations of fish in a few years instead of a few
hundred
years. I am aware that fish migrate and restoring just
once oceanic region might seem futile but hear me out.
To understand my idea one must first understand what
has
happened to the marine ecosystem affected. Simply put
man has exhausted one layer of the food chain. Usually
the
kind of thing we find on our dinner table. When a layer
of
the food chain is removed it affects predators of the
species and the species on which that layer preys on.
The
affect of this is a reduction in population of the top
predators and short term increase in population of prey.
This causes further effects all the way down to the
bottom
of the food chain (i would like to encourage the term
food
web as it is a more accurate reflection). at the bottom
of a
typical deep sea marine ecosystem are plankton and
algae.
Due to other factors such as pollution, global warming
and
imbalanced nutrient cycling this base also becomes
stressed and such phenomena as jellyfish swarms(what
is
the collective noun for jellyfish) become out of control
and
become the top predators in order to restore a natural
balance - this will take hundreds or thousands of years.
unfortunately areas with large populations of jellyfish
cannot be restored with my method of restoring marine
ecosystems. however i believe my idea may work with
systems that are recently imbalanced or may have other
mitigating factors. in particular i am talking about the
coastal region of the south african agulhas current, in
which the population of food fish has decreased
dramatically due to in adequate environmental policies
and
corrupt officials accepting bribes from chinese fishing
boats to clean out the fisheries.
the idea is basically a 10 year cycle. the approach
includes
a thorough study of the marine ecosystem, which would
identify the population imbalances. once the results have
been analysed i propose that breeding programs take
place
in sea going vessels (thinking end of life recycled and
relined oil tankers) to slowly build up the various layers
of
the ecosystem. for example if the population of plankton
and algae is greater than it should be, species that feed
on
these (not whales) should be artificially bred in these
vessels to a certain age and released. once the
population
of the system is normalised and the bred species are
established the next layer is added until the food species
can be added using the floating fish tanks (oil tankers). i
think once things are back in balance man must
deliberately leave the system alone for at least five
years
to let the dust settle as it were. then controlled and
responsible fishing can take place.
i have thoughts about the disadvantages of such an
approach. firstly messing with ecosystems is bad news in
terms of diversification but my attitude here is - so what
we've already messed it up, so why bother fighting a
loosing battle over a couple of extinctions etc. the aim is
to accelerate the natural restoration process, and even
nature will extinct species as it wishes. this kind of thing
has been tried on land with the sand dunes in st lucia in
south africa (very rich in titanium oxides) that were
mined. needless to say it did not work, not because the
intentions of funding was mis-managed. it failed
because
the attempts were not based on the natural order of
pioneer species followed by other species and so on.
please
note that the sand dune restoration was mainly to do
with
plants.
so simply put. get a bunch of second hand end of service
oil tankers. line them with fibreglass. let natural sun
light
penetrate into the tanks. breed pioneer species and
release them into the sea. once certain environmental
ques are evident, breed and release the next layer of
species. until you get to the food fish layer. once this is
reached release fish of different ages into the system
and
simulate the natural process. let the system establish its
natural balances before resuming controlled and
responsible fishing....investors please be aware, there is
a
whole bunch of money to be made in open sea
aquaculture.