The Oceans are Emptying: Fish Wars and Sustainability

John Van West is a policy analyst at the Ontario Native Affairs
Secretariat.

Raymond Rogers, who currently teaches at York University, “spent
twelve of the last fifteen years as a full-time fisherman in ... Nova
Scotia.” His book is an exceptionally compelling analysis of the
social and economic forces that continue to ecologically destabilize the
world’s commercial fisheries.

Rogers singularly focuses on the relationship between “standard
practice” (commonly known in the sustainable-development literature as
“development”) and the various fisheries-management strategies used
to integrate development with conservation initiatives; he argues that
efforts to reconcile development with conservation have not been
achieved with lasting success (if at all) in many of the world’s
industrial fisheries. Central to his thesis is the view that
conservation policies are developed and implemented only after the
damage is done, an approach that is somewhat akin to fixing the broken
barn doors after the horses have bolted. He assesses in extraordinary
detail Canada’s collapsed East Coast fisheries and the fish wars that
have followed, and expresses his concern that these wars could assume a
more global dimension in the future.

Rogers writes clearly and persuasively. Perhaps more significantly, he
challenges the reader to ponder the sobering, inescapable dilemma of how
we can effect long-term solutions to our destructive environmental
practices that are sure to short-circuit human (but not necessarily all)
existence on this planet if present trends continue. This book is a
must-read.