Man Killing Sea Life

A UK report from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution says man has caused commercial fish stocks to decline by 80% or more.

Fishing is subsidised globally to the tune of £8bn - £16bn a year; the destruction continues with industrial fishing on a massive scale; and meanwhile consumers are recommended to eat still more fish.

The report recommends banning fishing from 30% of the sea to let stocks recover.

However, the UK must look to the EU to introduce any ban, because control over fishing has been surrendered to Brussels.

The same EU which has created much of the problem of over-fishing around Britain, with a system of quotas which cause huge quantities of fish, including immature stock, to be caught, killed, and dumped.

The same EU which has refused to take measures to stop the killing of hundreds of dolphins in British waters.

And the same EU which - along with the Royal Commission - also seems unaware that simple bans are likely to exacerbate the damage to some species as some stocks overwhelm others.

While the UK needs desperately to take back control over its own fisheries, and manage them properly, mankind generally should take far less (and more carefully) from the sea. We are rapidly altering the sea's ecology, and risk destroying the species which rely on the stocks we are decimating.

But how, when most people regard the rest of creation purely as means?