The future of the world's fisheries is grim but recovery is possible if governments act swiftly to manage commercial fishing, a major scientific study found recently.
"Across all regions, we are still seeing a troubling trend of increasing stock collapse," said Boris Worm of Canada's Dalhousie University, lead author of the study published in the journal Science in July.
"But this paper shows that our oceans are not a lost cause."
Worm, a co-author of a pessimistic report in 2006 predicting that overfishing could lead to a total collapse of global seafood stocks by 2048, said the latest study had given him new hope.
Several regions in the United States, Iceland and New Zealand had made significant progress in rebuilding stocks devastated by decades of overfishing through careful management strategies.
"This means that management in those areas is setting the stage for ecological and economic recovery," Worm said. "It's only a start -- but it gives me hope that we have the ability to bring overfishing under control."
Worm cautioned that the analysis -- the most comprehensive to date -- was mostly confined to managed fisheries in developed countries where long-term data on fish abundance is collected.
The threat of collapse could thus be even higher in the remaining 75 percent of the world's fisheries.
The study found that a range of management strategies helped protect and restore fishing stocks, including nets that allow smaller fish to escape, closing some areas to fishing and placing limits on the total allowable catch.
The Hong Kong government acknowledged in a written response to questions from AFP that overfishing and pollution had affected local fisheries and said it was taking steps to rectify both problems.
Major efforts to develop sustainable fisheries included "designation and management of marine parks and marine reserves" and a clampdown on "destructive fishing practices," the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said.
The Environmental Protection Department said the government "is fully committed to clean up the Victoria Harbour" and is working on a staged programme to improve sewage treatment.
The 450,000 cubic metres of "preliminarily treated (i.e. subject to screening and de-gritting) sewage" still discharged into Hong Kong waters every day would be properly treated by the end of 2014, the department said.
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