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Published: 19 September 2011

Orange roughy and other deep-sea fisheries ‘unsustainable’


An international team of leading marine scientists is recommending an end to most commercial fishing in the deep sea, the Earth's largest ecosystem. Instead, they recommend fishing in shallower, more productive waters nearer to human populations.

Slow-growing deep-sea fish like orange roughy are far more vulnerable to over-fishing than fish from shallower waters.
Credit: ScienceImage

In a recent article published in the journal Marine Policy, marine ecologists, fisheries biologists, economists, mathematicians and international policy experts demonstrated that, with rare exceptions, deep-sea fisheries – particularly orange roughy – are unsustainable.

In the oceans’ depths, far from the sunlight that fuels photosynthesis at the surface, food is scarce and life cycles slow. Some deep-sea fishes live more than a century; some deep-sea corals can live more than 4000 years.

Today’s powerful and efficient bottom trawlers can cause massive damage to populations of animals adapted to life in ‘deep-sea time’; they simply can't repopulate at human time scales.

‘The deep sea is the world's worst place to catch fish,’ says marine ecologist Dr Elliott Norse of the Marine Conservation Institute in the US. ‘Deep-sea fishes are especially vulnerable because they can't repopulate quickly after being overfished.’

The deep sea provides less than 1 per cent of the world's seafood. Since the 1970s, when coastal fisheries became over-exploited, commercial fishing fleets began moving offshore into deeper waters. Some now fish more than a mile deep.

The researchers documented the collapse of many deep-sea fishes around the world, including sharks and orange roughy. Other commercially caught deep-sea fishes include grenadiers (rattails) and blue ling.

Orange roughy take 30 years to reach sexual maturity and can live 125 years. Compared with most coastal fishes, they live in ‘slow-motion’.

‘Fifty years ago no one ate orange roughy,’ said fisheries biologist Dr Daniel Pauly from the University of British Columbia.

‘In fact, it used to be called “slimehead”, indicating no one ever thought we would eat it. But as we've overfished our coastal species, that changed and so did the name.’

The researchers say the best policy would be to end economically wasteful deep-sea fisheries, redirect subsidies to help displaced fishermen, and rebuild fish populations in productive waters closer to ports and markets.

In 2006, the orange roughy became Australia's first commercially harvested fish to be listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The fishery is managed through a program implemented by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA); it includes restricting targeted fishing of the species and reductions in total annual commercial catch.

Source: Marine Conservation Institute/AFMA







Published: 26 September 2011

Renewable energy sector to benefit from wind-speed research

Craig Macaulay

While some recent international studies have shown a decrease in wind speeds in several parts of the globe, including Australia, more recent results from CSIRO show that Australia’s average wind speed is actually increasing.

The ability to accurately quantify long-term variations in wind speeds is essential to the viability of Australia’s wind power sector.
The ability to accurately quantify long-term variations in wind speeds is essential to the viability of Australia’s wind power sector.
Credit: Gregory Heath

CSIRO scientists have analysed wind speed observations to understand the causes of variations in near-ground-level wind and explore long-term wind speed trends.

Accurate estimates of long-term trends provide a useful indicator for circulation changes in the atmosphere and are invaluable for the planning and financing of sectors such as wind energy, which need to map risk management under a changing climate.

‘We have a good picture of wind energy availability across Australia from previous CSIRO wind mapping and, with the growth of wind farms, there is an emerging need to understand how climate change can affect the wind resource,’ says Dr Alberto Troccoli, lead author of a recent paper published in Journal of Climate. 1

‘Wind power production is expected to increase greatly over the coming years and the associated electricity system will be subject to variations of several hundred megawatts – depending on wind availability.

‘The ability to quantify with accuracy these long-term variations is essential to the sector from an economic point of view.’

Dr Troccoli said that, averaged across Australia over 1989–2006, wind speeds measured at a height of 10 metres had increased by 0.69 per cent per annum, compared to a decline of 0.36 per cent per annum for wind speeds measured at 2m height.

‘The potential for increasing the efficiency of energy operations by using quality weather and climate information is therefore apparent and one of the first steps is the standardisation of wind recording stations.

‘Wind observations, like other meteorological variables, are sensitive to the conditions in which they are observed – for example, where the instrumentation sits relative to topographical features, vegetation and urban developments.’

The team found that the wind speed trends over Australia are sensitive to the height of the station, with winds measured at 10m displaying an opposite and positive trend to those reported by a previous study, which analysed only winds measured at 2m.

Light winds measured at 10m, a height that represents better the free atmospheric flow, tend to increase more rapidly than the average, whereas strong winds increase less rapidly than the average winds. Light and strong wind measured at a height of 2m tend to vary in line with the average winds.

‘Our work shows a number of challenges with the consistency of the observations during their period of operation and between sites across Australia,’ adds Dr Troccoli.

‘The quality of future wind observational datasets will depend on having consistency between sites, particularly with respect to measurement procedure, maintenance of instrumentation, and detailed records of the site history.’

He said the work has implications for a variety of sectors beyond wind energy including building construction, coastal erosion, and evaporation rates.

The conjunction of energy and meteorology is the central theme of the International Conference Energy & Meteorology on the Gold Coast in November.

Read Dr Troccoli’s thoughts on What’s the energy forecast? Bringing meteorology and generation together in the online forum, The Conversation.


1 A. Troccoli, K. Muller, P. Coppin, R. Davy, C. Russell and A. Hirsch (2011) Long-term wind speed trends over Australia. Journal of Climate, doi: 10.1175/2011JCLI4198.1




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