In the literature of humanity making a mess of the world—let’s call it apocalypse studies~the overfishing theme is an old one. In 1376，Cornish fishermen petitioned the parliament in London to ban the wondrychoum, an early version of the beam trawl, which then, as now, involved dragging a net through the water or along the seabed with the aid of a heavy beam. The Cornish complained that it swept fish up indiscriminately and they asked that parliament increase the size of the net’s mesh.
在关于人类如何破坏世界的文献中（我们姑且称其为启示性 研究），过度捕捞是一个古老的主题。1376年，康沃尔渔民向英国国 会递交请愿书，要求禁止“wondrychoum”,就是桁条拖网的早期雏 形,从当时到现在,这种捕捞方式都是依靠一根沉重横梁将一张大 网拉过水面或沿着海底拖行。康沃尔人抱怨说，这种方式将所有鱼 类毫无区分地一网打尽,请求国会加大网眼的尺寸。
Three centuries Later, Scottish longline fishermen petitioned King Charles the First to protect them from “the great destruction made of fish by a net or engine now called the Trawle'. In 1883， a royal commission under the Earl of Dalhousie declared that, because of trawling under the new steam-powered vessels, the North Sea was “exhausted”. Further commissions in 1902 and 1904 concluded the same. They had seen nothing yet.
3个世纪后,苏格兰采用多钩长线方式捕鱼的渔民们请求查尔 斯一世保护鱼类免受“一种名为trawle的网具对其造成的巨大破 坏”。1883年，由达尔豪西伯爵担任主席的一个皇家委员会宣布：由 于新的蒸汽船只牵引拖网捕捞，北海已经“空”了。后继的委员会在 1902年和1904年也得到了同样的结论,然而他们没有看到任何改变。
Humankind got the technology after the Second World War that would make it genuinely possible to catch and eat all the fish. By any measure, we then set about doing just that. The greatest and most ancient of all the mass fisheries, the fantastic swarming of cod off Newfoundland that European fleets fished for at least 500 years，was finally closed in 1992. It shows no signs of recovery. The number of large fish in the world is down by 90%, according to one well-credited report. A more controversial review of the research, published in Science in 2006, stated that there will be no commercially exploitable stocks of wild fish at all by 2048.
第二次世界大战后，人类拥有的技术足以把所有鱼类捕光吃 净,而且我们当时也确确实实在这样做。最大量也最古老的渔业资 源，即纽芬兰沿岸数量惊人的鳕鱼群，欧洲的船队捕捞了至少500 年，它终于在1992年宣告枯竭’而且没有任何恢复的迹象。根据一份 十分可靠的报告，世界上的大型鱼类资源已经减少了 90%。2006年 的《科学》杂志上发表了另一种争议性更强的观点,称到2048年世界 上的可供商业开发的野生渔业资源将消耗殆尽。
Even if you don’t believe the figures on stock collapse, you only need to follow the world’s biggest fishing fleets to realize that something major is going on. In 1950, more than 90% of fish caught commercially were taken in the northern hemisphere, says Kurlansky, who is the writer of The Last Fish Tale. “Today, Peru has one of the most productive fishing grounds in the world and the European Union is sending its ships away from its own tired waters to fish African waters, underpaying African countries to fish their finite resources.”
即使你不相信渔业资源衰减的数字,只要跟着世界上最大的捕捞船队去看一看，就知道大事真 的正在发生。《最后的渔业传说》的作者科尔兰斯基说，1950年，有90%的商业捕鱼量都来自北半球。 “今天，秘鲁已经成为全世界产量最大的渔场之一，欧盟的船只离开自身资源枯竭的海域,远渡重洋 到非洲沿海作业,他们只用了一点少得可怜的报酬就掠夺了非洲国家有限的渔业资源。”
Canadian writer Taras Grescoe concluded in Bottomfeeder: How the Fish on our Plates Is Killing Our Planet: “In the unilateral arms race against the fish, our neutron bombs have already been deployed: the bottom trawls that can devastate seamounts, the long lines that trail dozens of miles of hooks, the giant nets big enough easily to pull in half-a-dozen Trafalgar-class nuclear submarines.”
加拿大作家塔拉斯?格勒斯克在《底栖者:盘中之鱼如何毁灭地球》一书的结论中说道在针 对鱼儿的单边军备竞赛中，我们已经用上了中子弹——能够让海底变得一片荒芜的底拖网，长达 几十英里的长线多钩，这些大围网足以轻易抓住半打特拉法加级的核潜艇。”
Marine biologist Callum Roberts shows in his sober and useful study of overfishing, The Unnatural History of the Sea, that for more than a century governmental and international bodies have consistently ignored the science they commission on fish stocks depletion. In recent times, quotas have always been set 15% to 30% higher than is recommended. We’re romantic about fishing and fishermen; paradoxically, that has fuelled the industry’s suicidal dive towards oblivion. No one has dared tell them to stop.
海洋生物学家卡鲁姆?罗伯茨对过度捕捞进行了审慎而有意义的研究,结果反映在《海洋的 非自然历史》一书中。他指出，在一个多世纪的时间里，政府和国际团体一直忽视和鱼类资源枯竭 相关的科学。近来，政府许可的捕捞配额往往高出科学家建议数量的15%到30%。我们总是对渔业 和渔民充满一种幻想,然而恰恰相反，正是这种错觉驱动着整个渔业自杀性地投向灭亡，却没有一 个人敢于制止。
Marine reserves plainly do work only if they are policed properly. Roberts wants a third of the world’s oceans turned into “no-take zones’，，where fishing is completely prohibited. Grescoe spends time with “artisanal” fishermen, dredging oysters by sail in Chesapeake Bay in the eastern United States or standing on a beach in Kerala, in southern India, using their own muscle power to pull in the net. These “slow” fisheries are an inspiring model. 'They would not produce vast fortunes but they would allow a large number of people to live very well. They would also keep coastal communities alive.”
海洋保护只有在政策限制得当的时候才行之有效。罗伯茨希望把全世界1/3的海洋变成“禁渔 区”，即彻底地禁止捕捞。格勒斯克则把大量的时间花费在*?手工捕捞”渔民身上，比如那些驾驶帆 船在美国东海岸切萨皮克海湾挖牡蛎的人，或者在印度南部喀拉拉海岸用自身的力量撒网的人。 这类“缓慢”的渔业是一种很有启发性的模式，“它们不会让你挣大钱，但却能让很多人生活得很 好,而且也能保持沿海村落的生机。”
“We must act now, or the sea will be empty,” says Grescoe.
格勒斯克说:“我们必须现在就开始行动，否则海洋就会被掏空。”