Upwelling and the Production of Fish

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter makes a projection of world fish production during the decade 1975-85. As the upwelling areas comprise the most promising ones for the exploitation in tropical and subtropical waters, an attempt was made to estimate possible production from the estimates of primary and secondary production. Some areas such as that off Peru are already well exploited but others, such as that off Southern Arabia, are not. The chapter illustrates the catches available in the upwelling areas amount to about 100 million tons. Nearly 10 million tons are taken from Peru currently, and there are catches being made now in nearly all of the areas. Therefore, there is a limit to the expansion of the present world catches. Further, the possibility of feeding the expanding world population from conventional fisheries is distinctly limited, if only because most of the present catch is taken by the developed countries, as fish meal or as frozen fish. In the deep ocean, the tuna or fourth level is already well exploited, which leaves the tertiary level such as myctophids; there are large quantities of these, but a new technology is needed to exploit them.