Climate Change
Threatens World Fish Stocks, WWF Says
November 18, 2005 — By Reuters
GENEVA — Climate change is warming
oceans, rivers and lakes and threatening fish stocks already under
pressure from overfishing, pollution and habitat loss, the
environmentalist group WWF warned on Friday.
The decline in numbers of fish could have a devastating impact on human
populations, particularly in poorer countries that rely on fish for
protein, it said in a report.
Higher temperatures reduce oxygen levels, stunt growth, reduce food
supplies and can force fish to seek cooler waters to which they may not
be as well adapted, WWF added.
"As climate change kicks in it adds to the pressure on already strained
fish populations," said Katherine Short, WWF's fisheries officer.
The WWF urged a coming United Nations meeting in Montreal, Canada, from
Nov. 28-Dec. 9 to set tougher targets for reducing greenhouse gases from
power plants, factories and cars, which many scientists say are driving
up temperatures worldwide.
The meeting will review the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol and ways to widen it
to non-participants including the United States and developing states
like China and India when it runs out in 2012.
WWF said it was vital to hold any rise in global temperature to below 2
degrees Centigrade, considered the trigger level for dramatic climatic
and environmental changes.
Temperatures have risen by 0.7 of a degree since the industrial
revolution, but some scientists forecast they could climb by 1.4-5.8
degrees this century.
SPECIES DISAPPEARING
"If we fail to secure deeper reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we
will increase the pressures on fish and billions of people that depend
on them as an important source of protein," said Stephan Singer, head of
WWF's European unit.
WWF estimates that 76 percent of the world's fisheries are already
fished to their limit.
Even slight changes in temperature can force economically important fish
to move their feeding and breeding grounds, hurting local, small-scale
fishing activity most.
For example, cod, plaice and halibut are expected to become scarce in
U.S. and southern Canadian waters, and cod is likely to disappear from
the southern North Sea, one of its main spawning areas, the WWF said.
Suitable habitat for trout, whitefish and bass and more than 20 other
cool and cold water fish in the United States could fall as much as 50
percent due to the effects of global warming.
Source: Reuters
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