The Unnatural History of the Sea
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.79 (813 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1597261025 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 456 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2018-01-06 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
ARH said Food and profit from the seapast, present, and future(?). Callum Roberts has crafted an excellent overview of the history of human exploitation of the sea. The title chosen for the book is excellent. If it were titled "The Natural History of the Sea" you could expect to read about marine bio-diversity, and how marine species interact with each other.The title, "The Unnatural History of the Sea," however, is a good indicator of the content of the book. The book is divided into three main sections.Section one introduces the reader to the history of human exploitation of the sea for food and profit. That overview includes references to historical documents that give insight into the d. Disappearing act The problem with the oceans is that you can't see what's going on down there. Foresters can count trees, birdwatchers have "life lists", but fishery managers can only weigh a catch and guesstimate the numbers. That's the fish that are landed - those and other life caught in nets or hooks disappear uncounted and unreported. "Counting" fish has been a problem since ancient times and the sea has remained a realm of mystery right up to the present. Ironically, as Callum Roberts points out in this informative study, it's those who have harvested sea life - often in immeasurable quantities, who have helped reveal something of what. Geert Dierick said Most comprehensive view on the state of our seas I've ever read. This review refers to the paperback version, "Most comprehensive view on the state of our seas I've ever read" according to Geert Dierick. This review refers to the paperback version, 2007, Gaia thinking.The author builds a very extensive window on the condition of all marine life over the past 1000 years. His research is based on ancient texts, skipper logbooks, diaries of explorers and in more recent times more comprehensive fishery data and scientific articles. The book is full with citations from all these sources which give the reader a close look on the experiences of those who where amazed by the marine life.The bounty he describes in the seas from the past are at times hard to imagine. Sturgeons as big as cows in European rivers, fish shoals who push th. 007, Gaia thinking.The author builds a very extensive window on the condition of all marine life over the past 1000 years. His research is based on ancient texts, skipper logbooks, diaries of explorers and in more recent times more comprehensive fishery data and scientific articles. The book is full with citations from all these sources which give the reader a close look on the experiences of those who where amazed by the marine life.The bounty he describes in the seas from the past are at times hard to imagine. Sturgeons as big as cows in European rivers, fish shoals who push th
Roberts reveals in The Unnatural History of the Sea, the oceans’ bounty didn’t disappear overnight. While today’s fishing industry is ruthlessly efficient, intense exploitation began not in the modern era, or even with the dawn of industrialization, but in the eleventh century in medieval Europe. As Callum M. It’s a classic story, but a key fact is often omitted. Collapsing fisheries, he shows, are simply the latest chapter in a long history of unfettered commercialization of the seas. From the coasts of Florida to New Zealand, marine reserves have fostered spectacular recovery of plants and animals to levels not seen in
not seen by PW. Illus. (Aug. His impressive book, replete with quotations from the reports of early explorers, merchants and travelers describing seas teeming with life that's unimaginable today, is a vivid reminder of what we've lost and a plea to save what is left and help the sea recover some of its earlier bounty. All rights reserved. Once abundant aquatic life has declined to the point where we probably have less than five percent of the total mass of fish that once swam in Europe's seas, he states. Now, sophisticated devices such as sonar depth sensors are being used to plunder that last frontier, the deep sea. Intensive fishing since medieval times has caused this decline gradually over the centuries, so that the fish-deprived sea seems normal to today's generations. He argues persuasively for the establishment of marine reserves—protected areas where fish stocks have a chance to recover. Industrial fishing, especially trawling, has virtually eliminated en