The Problem with Fish

[Darth Wong]

Question: How is moving to fresh water fish in any way an answer to the problems presented? I have seen that idea presented before, and variations on other problems with ecological decline.

Well, the methods of harvesting them are presumably different. In the open ocean, they can build these monster trawlers that drag giant fishing nets along and scoop up everything in their path. That method wouldn't work in rivers. It's also much easier for local governments to control. The Spanish and Portuguese assholes who are notorious for going into other countries' ocean fisheries and poaching their fish would not be able to take their trawlers into another country's river system without being caught.

[Sea Skimmer]

Proportional to the size of the river, you can have a lot bigger net then proportional to the size of the ocean I reckon, even if we ignore the ocean depths. Some places in the world its common to have huge nets with the corners attached to poles that lay on the river bottom, and whenever a fish harvest is required the net is simply raised to catch everything above it. You can also have a lot of kinds of fish traps catching stuff all day long that aren't practical in the ocean. Management is indeed easier because you can estimate stocks with more reliability, but enforcement still requires the political will to set sustainable harvest levels. Otherwise it doesn't matter. Poaching yeah, well river fishing has lots and lots of poaching, not on an industrial scale certainly, but then much of it takes place in very small waterways that don't have that many fish to start with. Enforcement still requires a budget after all.