The End of Bounty

These, though, were complaints about coastal fishing. Now trawling is widely practiced in the open seas, as "distant-water fleets spread fisheries across the Atlantic from pole to pole." (The same is true of the Pacific, but Roberts admits he couldn't find enough documentation on the changes in Asian waters to write about them in detail.) Now, too, technology has greatly expanded the reach, and the devastation, of trawling. Global positioning devices attached to floating logs alert fleets to the whereabouts of fish:

"Purse-seine boats now seed the ocean with veritable forests of floating decoy logs and other fish-aggregating devices to bring together scattered shoals of fish. When they return, they scoop up the fish with ruthless efficiency, taking with them turtles, sharks, and dolphins -- whatever happens to be there. For some reason, logs preferentially attract juvenile tuna, so their take even of the target species is wasteful. By catching young tuna before they reach adulthood, purse seiners forgo much higher catches for themselves later, and they are also denying these tuna the chance to reproduce, putting future catches at risk. Where once the vast canvas of the sea was great enough for fish to lose themselves in, escaping capture, today even the high seas afford little refuge. New technology has given old fishing methods a far more lethal edge."

Against this gloomy backdrop, Roberts finds more than faint cause for hope. Progress has been made in reducing pollution of the coasts and oceans from sewage and other contaminants. Marine reserves -- "places that are protected from all fishing" -- have had notable success in giving endangered species breathing room, but only .006 percent of the ocean is thus protected, and "we need fifty times more reserve areas to do the job well, spread across the waters of coastal nations and the high seas." Given that the fishing industry has a far louder and more persuasive voice in the halls of government than do the fish themselves, it is difficult to share Roberts's optimism. I am haunted by this passage:

"Perhaps geologists feel saddened by the loss of some remarkable gypsum formation rendered to dust for plasterboard. I don't know. But I certainly feel anguish on seeing coral glades leveled. It hurts to know we are losing species whose forms have never been described and perhaps have never been seen by people. They have shared our planet for countless millennia, living undisturbed lives deep in the sea. Extinction, the irrevocable loss of a species, causes pain that can never find relief. It is an ache that will pass from generation to generation for the rest of human history."

It is also nothing less than a global catastrophe, about which Callum Roberts has issued a powerful, galvanizing call to arms. Wishful thinking tells me that perhaps this time the call will be heard. Experience teaches another, and far gloomier, lesson. ·

Jonathan Yardley's e-mail is yardleyj@washpost.com.