Rich Asians threaten high-value fish – experts
by AFP, Manila Times
January 25, 2012

  THE growing ranks of wealthy Asians and their increasing appetite for more expensive fish are threatening stocks, potentially causing wider environmental damage, experts at a United Nations (UN) conference said on Tuesday.

As Asians become more prosperous, they prefer to eat more “high-value” species, forcing fishermen to catch more of these even if it means using environmentally harmful and illegal methods, they said.

“Increased wealth, especially in Asia,” had raised demand for more expensive fish like certain groupers and tunas, said Jackie Alder, head of the marine coastal office of the UN Environment Program.

“They are no longer satisfied with anchovies,” she told reporters at the sidelines of a UN conference on oceans in Manila.

She warned that fish production had stabilized at 80 million tons in the 1980s and scientists believed that it would not go any higher.

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