Where have all the fish gone?

Australia leads the way in trying to protect the world's fish population. But stocks of jack mackerel, down 90 per cent in 20 years in the once-rich southern seas, point to a wider global calamity. Mort Rosenblum and Mar Cabra report. Talcahuano, Chile - Eric Pineda, a dock agent in this old port south of Santiago, peered deep into the Achernar's hold at a measly 10 tonnes of jack mackerel - the catch after four days in waters once so rich they filled the 17-metre fishing boat in a few hours. Pineda, like everyone here, grew up with the bony, bronze-hued fish they call jurel, which roams in schools in the southern Pacific. "It's going fast," he said. "We've got to fish harder before it's all gone." Asked what he would leave his son, he shrugged: "He'll have to find something else." Jack mackerel, rich in oily protein, is manna to a hungry planet, a staple in Africa. Elsewhere, people eat it unaware that much of it is reduced to feed for aquaculture and pigs. It can take more than five kilograms of jack mackerel to raise a single kilogram of farmed salmon. Stocks have dropped from an estimated 30 million tonnes to less than a tenth of that in two decades. The world's largest trawlers, after depleting other oceans, now head south towards the edge of Antarctica to compete for what is left. An eight-country investigation of the fishing industry in the southern Pacific by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shows how the fate of the jack mackerel may foretell the progressive collapse of fish stocks in all oceans. In turn, the fate of this one fish reflects a bigger picture: decades of unchecked global fishing pushed by geopolitical rivalry, greed, corruption, mismanagement and public indifference. Daniel Pauly, an eminent University of British Columbia oceanographer, sees jack mackerel in the southern Pacific as an alarming indicator. "This is the last of the buffaloes," he said. "When they're gone, everything will be gone."

World running out of resources: UN

A major United Nations report has called for a sustainable "evergreen revolution", warning that time is running out to ensure there is enough food, water and fuel to meet the needs of the world's rapidly growing population. In a grim warning about the earth's increasing demand for resources, a panel led by the presidents of Finland and South Africa found demand will grow exponentially as the global population rises from 7 billion people to an expected 9 billion by 2040. Within the next 20 years the world's population will need 50 per cent more food and vast new reserves of energy and water, according to UN estimates. The report warns a failure to secure resources will condemn up to 3 billion people to poverty. Billed as a blueprint for sustainability, the report urges governments to embrace green energy technologies and cut back on the use of non-renewable resources. Its authors have urged governments to tackle sustainable development with a greater sense of urgency and political will. "The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required," the report said. "Tinkering on the margins will not do the job. The current global economic crisis ... offers an opportunity for significant reforms."

Bid to protect Cape York from mines

Environmentalists are urging the federal government to slap an emergency heritage listing on parts of the Cape York Peninsula amid an "unprecedented" number of applications to mine in the region. The environmental group The Wilderness Society will today announce it has lodged an application for the Environment Minister, Tony Burke, to put an emergency protection in place to slow or stop the approval of new mines while permanent heritage listing is considered. One of the group's northern Australia campaigners, Gavan McFadzean, said there were six mines proposed for the cape, each of which would need a new port and would together mean clearing 45,000 hectares of forest and native grassland. "This is an unprecedented level of development on Cape York," he said. "We're talking about some of the most intact marine and terrestrial wildernesses in the world. "[Cape York] has the largest intact tropical savannah wilderness on the planet by far. Those values will be undermined and, in some cases, destroyed by these projects." These areas on the Cape York Peninsula are already under consideration for national and world heritage listing. But assessments will take at least a year and the group wants the emergency listing to act as an interim injunction. Mr Burke told the Herald his department was looking at the request but "emergency heritage listings are extremely rare". He stressed that irrespective of heritage listing, the normal rules such as protection of endangered species still applied. Emergency heritage listing would not rule out the establishment of mines on the cape. But it would mean mining companies faced an extra hurdle in gaining approval.