Warning on fish demand

Press, 22 October 1983, Page 14

Warning on fish demand

NZPA-Reuter Rome The head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (F.A.0.) has called for a new approach to fisheries management to keep pace with demand expected to double by the end of the century. Dr Edouard Saouma, the organisation’s director-gen-eral, told the opening session of F.A.O.’s committee on fisheries that demand for fish for human consumption was expected to reach 110 million tonnes by the year 2000.

If present trends continued, output would be only 90 million tonnes, he said at the start of a nine-day meeting to discuss fishery problems and preparations for a world conference in June next year. Some 10 per cent of the

present 75 million-tonne world catch was lost through spoilage, rising to 40 per cent in some developing countries, he said. The expected shortfall could be met by properly managing existing stocks, developing inland fisheries, and using previously unexploited species such as Antarctic krill and the small midwater fish off northwest Africa.

Mr Saouma said that some of the 20 million tonnes used as animal feed should be diverted to human consumption. “Fisheries management and development must be brought on to the central stage of government planning, policy-making, and allocation of resources,” he said.