Book Review - OECD Insights: Fisheries – While Stocks Last

     OECD Insights: Fisheries – While Stocks Last

     by Patrick Love

     ISBN 978-92-64-07737-9 (print)

     ISBN 978-92-64-07991-5 (PDF)

    This recently published OECD insights publication, Fisheries – While Stocks Last - by Patrick Love, looks at the fishing industry and the recent effects of the global recession, which arose from the ‘credit crunch’. Also affected during this time was the aquaculture industry.

    

    Fishing and its impact on the biodiversity within the oceans has long been a major issue and are well documented. Also looked at in this publication is the effect of an ageing population on the work force of the fishing industry and what it means to smaller coastal vessels. Other external factors such as urbanization, pollution and climate change have direct impacts on the industry as a whole.

    

     Over the course of the book the author looks at the state of several sub sectors of the fishing industry from industrial fishing to aquaculture. He also describes Dutch fishers and Basque fleets that were involved in fishing off the coast of Newfoundland hundreds of years ago. 

    He focuses on European fishers and northern fisheries as the forerunners of the modern fishing industry. As well as looking at the historical side of the industry he looks at how different countries today affect and change the fishing industry from the fish markets to fish production.

    An interesting part of this publication looks at the contradictions in the industry and at the controversies that arise from the terminology being used: That there are people trying to be proactive and force change from the fishers to the people that buy the fish in the supermarket.

    At the end of the book the author attempts to bring all the parts together and look at the future challenges facing the industry and how they will respond to it overall.

     The basic idea of this book is to help the reader better understand the nature of the fishing industry and all of its complexities. We at International Aquafeed would recommend this to anyone involved in marine fishing and even to those in aquaculture to and aqua policy development as a foundation document for future decision-making. Well done Patrick Love.