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POPULATION GROWTH THREATENS NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF UP TO ONE BILLION PEOPLE


Washington, D.C.-Continuing growth in the world's population and a
corresponding rise in demand for fish threaten to push this valuable
source of protein out of reach for the nearly one billion people, most of
them poor, who rely on fish as a principal source of animal protein,
according to a new report by Population Action International (PAI).

According to the new study, *Catching the Limit: Population and the
Decline of Fisheries*, population growth will especially strain the
availability of fish in developing nations, where more than 700 million
people already cannot obtain sufficient calories and nutrients to lead
healthy and active lives. 

"At the moment, population growth is fueling about two-thirds of the
current growth in demand for fish," says Robert Engelman, co-author of the
study and director of PAI's population and environment program. "As
population pressures on this resource grow, fish prices will continue to
climb, further reducing consumption among the poor. In the next century,
many species of fish will become luxuries only the well-to-do can afford." 

Despite the vastness of the planet's coastal waters, where most fish are
caught, an unforeseen natural threshold was crossed before scientists even
knew it existed.  The global fish catch peaked in 1989 at 89 million
metric tons and has hovered at around 85 million tons since then. The
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that
nearly 70 percent of the world's conventional fish species-such as cod,
hake and haddock-are already fished up to or beyond sustainable limits. 

Although aquaculture-the farming of fish in either marine or inland
waters-produces more fish each year, it cannot long compensate for the
declining availability of fish caught wild, according to the report's
authors. Under two of the United Nations' three projections for world
population for the year 2050, aquaculture production would have to
*exceed* the total wild fish catch in order to maintain current levels of
per capita fish consumption-a virtually impossible achievement, according
to PAI. 

Globally, protein from fish accounts for slightly more than 5 percent-or 1
out of every 18 grams-of the average person's protein intake from animal
and vegetable sources. For at least 640 million people in 39 countries,
however, fish consumption accounts for an average of more than 10 percent
of their total protein intake, and at least 950 million people rely on
fish for more than one-third of their animal protein. 

Based on U.N. projections for *both* population growth and fish
production, worldwide per capita consumption of fish caught wild in marine
and inland waters could fall between 25 and 50 percent, from 10.2
kilograms per person per year in 1993 to somewhere between 5.1 and 7.6
kilograms in 2050, depending on the rate of population growth.  In the
world's less wealthy countries, however, projections for per capita fish
production are significantly less than that average, and likely declines
in per capita consumption of fish much steeper. 

For example, residents of the coastal African nation of Tanzania currently
consume 14.5 kilograms of fish per person per year. If Tanzania were
unable to boost domestic production or imports of fish, population
projections indicate that per capita fish consumption would fall to around
four kilograms by 2050-a decline of some 70 percent. This would force
Tanzanians to replace fish protein with less nutritious plant proteins-or
to reduce their overall protein intake. 

While population growth is the primary factor in the increasing demand for
fish, population pressures are also limiting their supply. A substantial
proportion of the world's people live within a few dozen miles of a
seacoast, and the proportion may grow as people migrate to coastal
megacities. The increasing density of human populations in coastal areas,
and the resultant destruction of coastal wetlands, mangrove forests, coral
reefs and other coastal ecosystems, threatens the habitat of many fish
species. 

With regard to population, the approach endorsed at last year's
International Conference on Population and Development-and reaffirmed at
the recently concluded Fourth World Conference on Women-emphasizes human
development and individual choice, especially for women, as the guiding
principles of population policies. An essential component of this approach
is universal access to voluntary, quality family planning and other
reproductive health services. 

"Stabilizing population alone will not reverse the decline of fisheries,"
says PAI's Engelman. "But the vulnerability of fisheries-like other
natural resources-to population pressures offers a powerful argument for
sound population policies and programs. The good news is that the very
policies most likely to stabilize population size in the near future are
also those most likely to improve the lives of women and their families
today." 

"As we observe World Food Day this Monday, we need to think about more
than what we may or may not have to eat today," says Hugo Hoogenboom,
president of Population Action International. "We need to be thinking
about how we are going to feed ourselves-all of us-in the future and, in
particular, how to safeguard the food sources, such as fisheries, on which
the most vulnerable of us rely." 

                                 - - - 

*Catching the Limit: Population and the Decline of Fisheries* is available
for purchase from: *Population Action International* 1120 19th Street,
NW-Suite 550/Washington, DC 20036 Telephone: 202/659-1833

Population Action International works for universal access to family
planning and reproductive health services for women and men and for early
stabilization of world population. PAI seeks to develop and strengthen the
commitment of governments to increased financial assistance for high
quality, voluntary family planning and related programs in developing
countries. PAI carries out its mission through the broad dissemination of
policy-oriented education materials to decisionmakers, the media and the
general public. Population Action International is a Washington, DC-based
non-profit, non-governmental organization and was founded in 1965. 

Contact:
  POPULATION ACTION INTERNATIONAL, Washington DC
  Sally Ethelston  
    202-659-1833 ext. 133  <sae@popact.org>
    202-293-1795 <fax>
  Patricia M. Sears, Deputy Director, Media Relations
    202-659-1833 ext. 131  <pmsears@popact.org> OR <pmsears@aol.com>

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-- 

Jay
--------------------------------------------------------------
"The market economy is replacing a complex organic
 environment with a simplified inorganic one, literally
 dissembling a biosphere that has supported humanity for
 countless millennia.  In the course of replacing the complex
 ecological relationships, on which all living things depend,
 with more elementary ones, capitalism is restoring the
 biosphere to a stage where it will be able to support only
 simpler forms of life. ... The earth will become incapable of
 supporting humanity itself." [Bookchin 1980:230-1]