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A damning indictment of modern man's practice of overfishing

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This book should be required reading for every policy maker whose job involves food production. We're on the wrong track and heading for a cliff, and very few areas of the ocean are being properly managed. The book offers a wealth of data, is easily readable, and the conclusion is inescapable; we must learn to grow fish sustainably. The author knows this, and refers in a few places to the way to doing this, but is obviously unaware of the methods of truly sustainable aquaculture, namely aquaponics. Please, if you read this book, also look into tilapia and aquaponics, which CAN solve the problem of seafood depletion if we're smart enough to implement it in time. Unfortunately at this time there are no comprehensive books on the subject, but look it up the technique is being taught at UVI in St Croix by Dr James Rakocy.

'Desertification' of World Seas

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Did you know that nets abandoned (or lost) by fishermen become 'ghost nets' that can perpetually go on fishing? Did you know that certain fisheries throw away (or discard) as much as 80% of the species they catch? This is a book that anybody should (or must) read. The plundering of the oceans is being quietly executed at an alarming scale that we must be aware of the dangers of depriving future generations of the pleasures and benefits of fish eating. The book is greatly executed and researched. Each of the major subjects of fishery is compartimentalised (if I'm allowed the expression) in compact chapters around 20 pages each so it's easy to read. Charles Clover is a journalist, so he certainly wants to appeal to the broadest audience possible and wants to pass his message in a clear, almost newspaper-like style. However, if this is the main strength of the book it is also its main weakness. This journalistic style has boundaries, and I'll make clear what I'm saying by citing a few short passages. For instance, in chapter 8 Clover recounts a trip to Newfoundland, Canada, and tells us that, while driving, the radio is playing Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac... Later on, he arrives at Harvey Templeman's cafeteria, who pushes across a cup of free coffee and helps Clover locate the person he is supposed to meet that day. This is my point: does the reader have to know about Templeman's coffee or radio music in Newfoundland? Fortunately, these detours are short and only consume a few paragraphs, for Clover immediately dwelves into the subject matter... Yet pushing the journalistic style too far could alienate certain readers who are looking for more of a scientific discourse. Clover makes frequent analogies between hunting in the Oceans and hunting on land. For instance, whenever the case of animal reserves is championed, nobody worries what the construction industry has to say... But whenever a fish marine reserve is planned, the fishing industry has to be consulted. Fishermen are 'stakeholders' but (as Bill Ballantine says in chapter 15) few consider that the real 'stakeholders' of the Sea are our children and their grandchildren. Why do land-based industries abide to stringent pollution laws (risking legal action if these laws are not respected) while fishing vessels go about plundering the seas running a very remote risk of penalisation? To continue with the land-sea analogy, we might say that, with current rates of overfishing, our seas are rapidly becoming marine 'deserts'. Finally, if I must choose at least one major attribute of this book, I would say it is global in scope. Charles Clover can take the reader, seamlessly, from the waters of New Zealand to the Argentinean Antarctica; from the Lofoten archipelago to the high seas off Peru. Fishing, like almost everything these days, requires a global approach.

Outstanding Discourse on Fish Mining	Customer Rating:
This is an excellent primer on fish mining. It's well researched and easy to read. The future of industrial fishing looks bleak, and Clover clearly explains why.

A must read for anyone who wants to know about the state of our world fishery resources

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For those of you who are concerned about the state of our fisheries and declining fish populations worldwide, I would suggest a newly published book, "The End of the Line," by Charles Clover. As The Independent suggests, his book is "the maritime equivalent of Silent Spring." Clover takes the reader on an unbiased tour of many of the most important fisheries throughout the world from Africa to Iceland, offshore to nearshore. His appraisal and commentary of fishery management is candid and insightful. I highly recommend this book to anyone who finds themselves trying to contemplate the disequilibrium between fishery management and sustainability. The book ends with some positive examples of fishery management of which there are sadly too few, and he has some helpful tips for all of us to do our part to ensure fish stocks for the next generation.

Highly Informative... A Must-Read!

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"The End of the Line" is a well-written, highly informative book which addresses a serious global issue. "Imagine what people would say if a band of hunters strung a mile of net between two immense all-terrain vehicles and dragged it at speed across the plains of Africa.... left behind is a strangely bedraggled landscape resembling a harrowed field... this efficient but highly unselective way of killing animals is known as trawling... it is practiced the world over every day, from the Barents Sea in the Arctic to the shores of Antarctica and from the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean and the central Pacific to the temperate waters off Cape Cod." Overfishing is a serious problem that must be addressed. The statistics are staggering. As journalist Charles Clover shows in his global exploration of the destruction caused by overfishing, we have inflicted a crisis on the oceans in a single human lifetime greater than any yet caused by pollution.