CHAPTER 5

OCEAN AND FISHERIES

Oceans are a very important part of life on Earth. They are sources of:
● Food: fish that includes true fish, finfish, shellfish, and other sea animals
that can be eaten. The main fisheries are located on the continental
shelves because the water is shallow there, so light can penetrate, and
there is more oxygen and nutrients abundant on the shelf.
● Chemicals and building materials: many materials in the oceans have
been eroded from the land, where rain and wind break down rocks, and
are carried into the oceans via rivers. Some substances can be extracted
directly, e.g. salt, magnesium, tin, gold, titanium, and diamonds.
❖ Salt: seawater that is left behind over many weeks in the hot
sun.
❖ Diamonds: found in greater numbers on the ocean floor than
on land. It is much harder to mine the ocean floor as it must be
dredged, and then the sediment silted.
❖ Sand, gravel, and crushed rock: mined for the construction
industry. Physical damage can be caused to the seabed and
associated habitats if care is not taken.
❖ Fine particle clouds that are produced resettle and interfere
with photosynthesis. They also act as a source of heavy metals
that can enter food chains.
❖ Oil: a chemical that is extracted by offshore drilling rigs.
● Wave energy: an enormous amount of energy in the waves is estimated
to produce twice the present world energy production if harnessed.
● Tidal energy: due to the varying gravitational pull of the sun and moon,
water in the sea moves up and down on a twice-daily basis. This causes it
to come onto land and later recede, which can be harnessed to generate
electricity.
● Tourism: The seaside is a major tourist attraction. People of developed
countries are attracted to marine sites of great natural beauty, especially
coral reefs. Diving, snorkeling, windsurfing, jet skiing and deep-sea
fishing or simply sunbathing on the beach are some adventurous
activities. • There’s business in boat trips to view sea creatures, especially
whales and dolphins.
● Potential for safe drinking water: only a small proportion of water is
safe to drink.
❖ Salty water is unsafe as your body must remove the
salt, requiring more water.
❖ Purification of water is possible by desalination.
● Transport: ships are important to transport people and goods; however,
shipping is less common to transport people now due to the advent of
aviation.
❖ Pleasure cruises are still an important economic sector and bulk
freight is best transported from country to country on ships.
❖ Types of merchant (goods carrying) ships:
SHIP TYPE LOAD OR PURPOSE

Bulk Transport of food such as rice and wheat.

carriers
Container The entire load is carried in lorry-sized containers, known
ships as containerization.

Tankers •Transport of fluids, especially liquefied petroleum gas

and liquefied natural gas.
• Transport of vegetable oils and wine.

Refrigerated Transport of perishable items such as vegetables, fruits,

ships fish and dairy products.

Roll-on/roll- Transport of vehicles, together with their loads, that can

off be driven on and off the ship.
ships

Coastal Used for trade between places that are close together,
trading especially in island groups.
vessels
 Ferries Used mainly for the movement of foot passengers,
sometimes with their cars, mainly between islands or
between mainland and islands.

Cruise ships Used for pleasure voyages where the facilities on the
ship are a crucial part of the trip.

Ocean liner Used to transport people from one port to another.

Major ocean currents:

World fisheries

● Surface currents: movement of the surface water of the sea in a

constant direction.
● Prevailing wind: the direction from which the wind nearly always
blows in a particular area.
● Currents in the southern hemisphere are generally anticlockwise as the
winds blow from the south-east and force the western Australian,
Benguela, and Peruvian current northwards.
▪ Cold currents: come from the poles.
▪ Warm currents: come from the tropics or either side of the equator.

Finding fish
Finding the fish:

• Main fisheries are located on continental shelves where water is shallow

(<150m below sea level), allowing light to penetrate with plentiful
oxygen than further below.
 continental shelf
● Herbivorous fish rely on primary producers, mainly green algae
called phytoplankton.
● Carnivorous fish eat the
herbivorous ones or
other carnivores.
● There’re parts of the
food web, starting with
the phytoplankton. Thus,
fish are found where
there are plentiful
phytoplankton.

● Phytoplankton produce their own food by photosynthesis which

requires light, water and carbon dioxide (CO2).
● Water is abundant in the oceans and CO2 dissolves in the water from
the atmosphere, therefore light is likely to be the limiting factor for
photosynthesis.
● Most ocean water has absorbed all the sunlight by a depth of only
200m. This 200m deep zone is called the euphotic zone, below
which photosynthesis will not take place.
Not all areas with continental shelves have significant
fisheries because:
● Phytoplankton need not just light, CO2 and water, which allow it to make
carbohydrates such as sugars, but they also require mineral nutrients to
make proteins. Making proteins requires a source of nitrogen and sulfur.
● Nucleic acids, which form the genes of living things, also require
phosphorus.
● The green pigment chlorophyll, which is essential for photosynthesis,
requires magnesium.
● The most important fisheries of the world are where the current system
stirs up decaying material from the seabed, which is rich in nutrients.
 ● Upwelling: areas where minerals at the ocean floor are brought up to
the surface by currents. An example is the Peruvian anchovy off the west
coast of South America.

This graphic shows how displaced surface waters are replaced by cold,
nutrient-rich water that “wells up” from below. Conditions are optimal for
upwelling along the coast when winds blow along the shore.
● This upwelling is disturbed once every 10-15 years by an event called El
Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
● El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO): the change in the prevailing
winds that leads to change in the pattern of currents in the oceans of the
South Pacific.
● Warm nutrient-poor water comes into the region from the equator.
● Results in no upwelling of the cold, nutrient rich water that supports
the anchovy fishery.
● No nutrients mean the phytoplankton do not grow well, so
there’s less food for the fish.
● Much of the production of the anchovy fishery was used for fishmeal
which is used to feed farmed fish, thus countries where this is important,
are affected by a crash in the anchovy fishery.
Impact of exploitation of the oceans
• Causes of overfishing of marine fish species:
- Demand for fish as food due to increasing world
population;
- Much bigger boats, which can work a long way from a port for many
weeks;
- Finding fish easily by using SONAR and detailed weather data;
- Creation of huge nets that scoop up everything in an area, often half of
 which is discarded as bycatch (animals caught by fishers that are not
the intended target of their fishing effort).
• Impact of overfishing of marine fish species:
- Lack of growth in fish caught globally since 1990s, leading to loss of
job and reduction in food supply;
- Size of fish gets progressively smaller, increasing demand for
food;
- Harvest of untargeted/protected/endangered marine
species that are discarded at the sea or shore;
- Reduction in marine biodiversity, causing a disruption in food
chain.
- Nets;

- TRAWL NET (INCLUDING

BOTTOM TRAWL NETS): Catch all
types of unwanted species and
damage the seabed during their
use.

- DRIFT NET: Drift with the current and

are not anchored. Often used in coastal
waters.

SEINE NET (INCLUDING

PURSE SEINE): Hang
like a curtain in the
water. A variant called
the surrounding net is
often used.
 - DREDGE NET:
Dragged along
the seabed,
mainly to catch
shellfish and
other types of
fish living in the
mud. Thus,
they dig into
the seabed with teeth or water jets.

• Farming marine species (Mariculture) reduces the

exploitation of fisheries:
- Due to the increasing human population, the increase in demand for
fish as food is above the production capacity of oceans and seas;
- Overexploitation of the fisheries leads to a decline in wild fish
populations;
- So, fish are farmed in controlled environments.
- Aquaculture: farming freshwater fish.
- Mariculture: aquaculture practised in marine environments e.g.
closed section of an ocean, tanks, ponds and raceways filled with
seawater.
▪ It reduces the pressure on wild population, allowing their
population to increase;
▪ Production is constant;
▪ No bycatch, as non-interest species are unlikely to be
present in the farm;
▪ No erosion of seabed, that is usually caused by trawl nets.

Strategies for managing the harvesting of marine species

Every country with coastline has a zone of 200 nautical miles designated by
UN convention on the law of the sea as economic exclusion zone. A variety of
strategies to do this are:

• Net types and mesh size and shape:

 - If the mesh size is too small, juvenile fish will be caught, reducing the
number of fish that grow to maturity and reproduce. - A diamond-
shaped mesh catches fish more easily, thus a square mesh panel is
often included in an otherwise diamond net.
• Other methods of fishing:
- Many fish species naturally congregate near objects floating
in the ocean.
- Many fishers use fish aggregation devices (FADs) for tuna
fisheries.
includes the usage of a log suspended below the surface of the
sea this attracts the tuna together with other species,
including tuna predators. Once a good aggregation of fish is
collected, they are gathered in a giant net. This will take all other
species and younger tuna fish with it, leading to a large bycatch.
- Solution: Use pole and line method for catching the tuna. Done right,
this method is highly selective with very little or no bycatch.

Pole and line

method for
catching the tuna

• Quotas:
- Legislators e.g. government set limits on how many and what
type of fish can be caught;
- The limits are set according to the information gathered from
networks across the world about fish populations; - These limits
ensure enough fish are left to reproduce and replenish the fishery
for the following season.
• Closed seasons:
- Governments and other legislation bodies can pass laws that can
 close fisheries down for part of the year, most commonly in the
breeding season.
• Protected areas and reserves:
- Some fisheries are protected by preventing fishing in certain areas, often
where the target species is known to breed.
• International agreements (implementing and monitoring): Some
fisheries are protected by conservation laws, e.g:
- Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act:
▪ Main law governing marine fisheries in the USA; It aims to control
the country’s territorial waters, conserve fishery resources, enforce
international fishing agreements,
develop underused fisheries and protect fish habitats. -
Economic exclusion zone:
▪ Every country with a coastline has a zone of 200 nautical miles
around it inside which the country responsible must attempt to
manage its fisheries so that they’re sustainable.

- International agreements: needed to regulate fisheries in

international waters, leading to the UN Convention on the Law of
the Sea (UNCLOS).
- ▪ Such an agreement is needed in the Mediterranean where a 200
nautical mile exclusion zone has no meaning.
- Monitoring: a model system is operated by the African country
of Namibia.
▪ Larger vessels in its waters have onboard observers and air
patrols detect and deter unlicensed vessels;
▪ All landings are monitored at the country’s two fishing
ports;
▪ In addition, all vessels in the exclusion zone must keep daily
logs of their catches.
Effectiveness of these strategies:
▪ Because of the vastness of the oceans, it is difficult to
monitor fishery laws and agreements. Monitoring
organisations based in ports have more success;
▪ Due to fishing being important for both income and food for
many people, there is a huge incentive for illegal
activities;
▪ Quotas can easily be avoided by simply not declaring how
many fish are being caught;

▪ Overstretched authorities may not be able to check every

boat, and fishers may be willing to risk under- declaring the size
of their catch and not being checked;
▪ Usage of net with an illegally small mesh size, and in areas
where patrols are inadequate;
▪ Fishers frequently trespass in areas where they are not
supposed to fish.

Key Terms
Surface currents: movement of the surface water of the
sea in a constant direction.
Prevailing wind: the direction from which the wind nearly
always blows in a particular area.
Limiting factor: of all the factors that might affect a process,
the one that is in shortest supply.
Euphotic zone: the top 200 m or so of seawater through
which light can penetrate and in which photosynthesis can
happen.
Upwelling: areas where minerals at the ocean floor are
brought to the surface by currents.
Overfishing: when the number of fish that are caught is
greater than the rate at which the fish reproduce, leading to a
fall in fish number in an area.