Demand for seafood ‘damaging’ marine ecosystems Paper Edition |
Page: 12 Planning to dine like a king on luxury seafood? Want to
give a new touch to a corner of your home with colorful reef
fish-filled aquarium? Think again. Scientists said on Wednesday
that such plans would trigger rising demand for live fish for
the food trade and ornamental reef fish for aquariums, harming
coral reefs, one of the world’s richest marine ecosystems, in
the process. Professor of marine science at the University of
Hong Kong Yvonne Sedovi said that in Hong Kong, the center of
global trade in live fish from reef for food, large tanks full
of colorful fish outside restaurants could be seen. In the 1980s
and 1970s, she said live fish for food came from northern sector
of the South China Sea, but with increasing demand, while supply
declined due to overfishing, traders searched further to the
east and west. “You see fish today in Hong Kong’s restaurants
from the Indian Ocean and far into the Pacific Ocean,” she said
at the 12th In