Bioethics of fish production: Energy and the environment

Aquatic ecosystems are vital to the structure and function of all environments on earth. Worldwide, approximately 95 million metric tons of fishery products are harvested from marine and freshwater habitats. A major problem in fisheries around the world is the bioethics of overfishing. A wide range of management techniques exists for fishery, managers and policy-makers to improve fishery production in the future. The best approach to limit overfishing is to have an effective, federally regulated fishery, based on environmental standards and fishery carrying capacity. Soon, overfishing is more likely to cause fish scarcity than fossil fuel shortages and high energy prices for fish harvesting. However, oil and other fuel shortages are projected to influence future fishery policies and the productive capacity of the fishery industry. Overall, small-scale fishing systems are more energy efficient than large-scale systems. Aquaculture is not the solution to wild fishery production. The energy input/output ratio of aquacultural fish is much higher than that of the harvest of wild populations. In addition, the energy ratios for aquaculture systems are higher than those for most livestock systems.