The Provident Sea

Based on original scientific material, this study traces the history of fish stock management (including whales and seals) up to recent times when problems of over-exploitation have had dramatic effects upon stocks.

How did scientists, artists, designers, manufacturers and amateur enthusiasts experience and value the sea and its products? Examining the commoditization of the ocean world during the nineteenth century, this book demonstrates how the transaction of oceanic objects inspired a multifaceted material discourse stemming from scientific exploration, colonial expansion, industrialization, and the rise of middle-class leisure. From the seashore to the seabed, marine organisms and environments, made tangible through processing and representational technologies, captivated practitioners and audiences. Combining essays and case studies by scholars, curators, and scientists, Sea Currents investigates the collecting and display, illustration and ornamentation, and trade and consumption of marine flora and fauna, analysing their material, aesthetic and commercial dimensions. Traversing global art history, the history of science, empire studies, anthropology, ecocriticism and material culture, this book surveys the currency of marine matter embedded in the economies and ecologies of a modernizing ocean world.

How do fish populations regulate themselves? Why do some fish stocks flourish and then die away? These questions have fascinated fisheries scientists for decades, and in the last twenty years answers have begun to emerge. In this comprehensive 1995 account, David Cushing shows how the fate of fish larvae which live close to the centres of production in the sea has a crucial effect on population regulation. He shows how the timing and development of tidal fronts in particular regions has profound implications for fish and plankton production, which in turn affects fish recruitment. If recruitment of fish larvae into the pool of adult fish is insufficient, stocks may fail. It is only by understanding these processes that we can hope to recognise the implications of global climate change on marine populations. This book will be essential reading for all those interested in marine ecology and fisheries biology.

Offering an introduction to the world's seas as a platform for global exchange and connection, Michael North offers an impressive world history of the seas over more than 3,000 years. Exploring the challenges and dangers of the oceans that humans have struggled with for centuries, he also shows the possibilities and opportunities they have provided from antiquity to the modern day. Written to demonstrate the global connectivity of the seas, but also to highlight regional maritime power during different eras, A World History of the Seas takes sailors, merchants and migrants as the protagonists of these histories and explores how their experiences and perceptions of the seas were consolidated through trade and cultural exchange. Bringing together the various maritime historiographies of the world and underlining their unity, this book shows how the ocean has been a vital and natural space of globalization. Carrying goods, creating alliances, linking continents and conveying culture, the history of the ocean played a central role in creating our modern globalized world.

Exploring the themes of the human relationship with the marine environment and the ways in which the peoples of Northern Europe have experienced and exploited their seas, this book reveals how human perception of the northern seas has changed over time. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, from Denmark and Britain to Norway, Finland and Germany, The Baltic and the North Seas is an insightful and colourful history of the politics, economy and culture of this intriguing region.

This comprehensive handbook provides a global overview of ocean resources and management by focusing on critical issues relating to human development and the marine environment, their interrelationships as expressed through the uses of the sea as a resource, and the regional expression of these themes. The underlying approach is geographical, with prominence given to the biosphere, political arrangements and regional patterns – all considered to be especially crucial to the human understanding required for the use and management of the world's oceans. Part one addresses key themes in our knowledge of relationships between people and the sea on a global scale, including economic and political issues, and understanding and managing marine environments. Part two provides a systematic review of the uses of the sea, grouped into food, ocean space, materials and energy, and the sea as an environmental resource. Part three on the geography of the sea considers management strategies especially related to the state system, and regional management developments in both core economic regions and the developing periphery. Chapter 23 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203115398.ch23

In The Empty Ocean, acclaimed author and artist Richard Ellis tells the story of our continued plunder of life in the sea and weighs the chances for its recovery. Through fascinating portraits of a wide array of creatures, he introduces us to the many forms of sea life that humans have fished, hunted, and collected over the centuries, from charismatic whales and dolphins to the lowly menhaden, from sea turtles to cod, tuna, and coral. Rich in history, anecdote, and surprising fact, Richard Ellis’s descriptions bring to life the natural history of the various species, the threats they face, and the losses they have suffered. Killing has occurred on a truly stunning scale, with extinction all too often the result, leaving a once-teeming ocean greatly depleted. But the author also finds instances of hope and resilience, of species that have begun to make remarkable comebacks when given the opportunity. Written with passion and grace, and illustrated with Richard Ellis’s own drawings, The Empty Ocean brings to a wide audience a compelling view of the damage we have caused to life in the sea and what we can do about it. "

Off the Pacific coast of South America, nutrients mingle with cool waters rising from the ocean’s depths, creating one of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems: the Humboldt Current. When the region’s teeming populations of fish were converted into a key ingredient in animal feed—fishmeal—it fueled the revolution in chicken, hog, and fish farming that swept the United States and northern Europe after World War II. The Fishmeal Revolution explores industrialization along the Peru-Chile coast as fishmeal producers pulverized and exported unprecedented volumes of marine proteins to satisfy the growing taste for meat among affluent consumers in the Global North. A relentless drive to maximize profits from the sea occurred at the same time that Peru and Chile grappled with the challenge of environmental uncertainty and its potentially devastating impact. In this exciting new book, Kristin A. Wintersteen offers an important history and critique of the science and policy that shaped the global food industry.