The Unnatural History of the SeaIsland Press, 2007 M07 14 - 456 pages Humanity can make short work of the oceans’ creatures. In 1741, hungry explorers discovered herds of Steller’s sea cow in the Bering Strait, and in less than thirty years, the amiable beast had been harpooned into extinction. It’s a classic story, but a key fact is often omitted. Bering Island was the last redoubt of a species that had been decimated by hunting and habitat loss years before the explorers set sail. As Callum M. 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. Roberts explores this long and colorful history of commercial fishing, taking readers around the world and through the centuries to witness the transformation of the seas. Drawing on firsthand accounts of early explorers, pirates, merchants, fishers, and travelers, the book recreates the oceans of the past: waters teeming with whales, sea lions, sea otters, turtles, and giant fish. The abundance of marine life described by fifteenth century seafarers is almost unimaginable today, but Roberts both brings it alive and artfully traces its depletion. Collapsing fisheries, he shows, are simply the latest chapter in a long history of unfettered commercialization of the seas. The story does not end with an empty ocean. Instead, Roberts describes how we might restore the splendor and prosperity of the seas through smarter management of our resources and some simple restraint. From the coasts of Florida to New Zealand, marine reserves have fostered spectacular recovery of plants and animals to levels not seen in a century. They prove that history need not repeat itself: we can leave the oceans richer than we found them. |
Other editions - View all
The Unnatural History of the Sea: The Past and the Future of Man, Fisheries ... Callum Roberts No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
abalone abundance animals areas Atlantic banks beam trawl Bering boats bottom bycatch Captain Caribbean catch caught Chesapeake Chesapeake Bay coast coastal collapse commercial coral Dampier decline deep deep-sea depleted dive early England estuaries Europe European exploitation feet fish populations fish stocks fisheries management fleet fur seals gear Georges Bank giant groupers Gulf of California Gulf of Maine habitats haddock Hakluyt Society harpoon hooks hundred hunting Ibid industry Island kelp forests killed killer whales kilograms kilometers land late live London longlines marine reserves meters miles nets nineteenth century North America North Sea northern numbers ocean offshore orange roughy overfishing oysters Pacific percent places plankton predators protection reefs rivers rockfish sail scientists Sea Fisheries sea otters seabed seamounts seaweed shallow sharks ships shoals shore spawn species Steller sustainable swordfish target thousand today’s tonnes totoaba trade trawlers tuna turtles twentieth century vessels Voyage walrus
References to this book
Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in a Developing World William Mark Adams No preview available - 2009 |