Oceans Past An Environmental History of World Fisheries

About this book

Oceans Past is the first history of the scale, character and significance (ecological and human) of the extraction of living marine resources from the oceans since the earliest times, and emerges from the ten-year Census of Marine Life project, which involved over 2,000 researchers from more than 80 countries, aimed at assessing and explaining the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the oceans. This unique book uses the history of our extraction of the oceans to help us understand the relationship between human societies and the marine environment. Combining cultural, economic and environmental perspectives on the maritime past it adds a marine dimension to the ever-expanding field of environmental history, and furthers the dialogue between history and marine sciences. By applying historical knowledge to marine conservation efforts, this study offers a guide to how we might manage our exploitation of the oceans in future.

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Tables, Figures and Maps
Abbreviations

- Introduction: Perceiving Oceans Past

PART I: WHO LEAVES THE HEARTH FOR THE OPEN SEA?
- Why Choose to Fish?
- Human Capabilities: Improvements in Knowledge and Technology

PART II: THE SEA IS A MEANS NOT AN END
- The 'Pristine Sea'
- Extractions in the 'Pre-Statistical Era'
- Catch and Effort in the 'Statistical Era', c.1860-1950
- Yields in the Age of the Global Fish Trade, c.1950-2010

PART III: WHAT YOU RISK REVEALS WHAT YOU VALUE
- Extractions: The Benefits and Costs to Humankind
- The Impact of Extractive Effort on the Marine Environment
- Why has Fisheries Management Generally Failed?
- Prospect: Towards a Cultured Sea

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Biography

POUL HOLM is Professor of Environmental History at Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland and Academic Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub, the Research Institute for the Arts and Humanities. He has been a Senior Curator at the Fisheries and Maritime Museum, Esbjerg, Denmark; Professor at the University of Southern Denmark; Rector (President) of the University of Roskilde; and Chairman of the Danish Research Council for the Humanities. He is former President of the European Society for Environmental History and is currently Chair of the Global History of Marine Animal Populations project (HMAP) a 10-year project aiming to understand human impacts on ocean ecology.

DAVID STARKEY is Director of the Maritime Historical Studies Centre at Hull University, UK and is Wilson Family Lecturer in Maritime History, the first such permanent position in the UK university sector. He is co-President of the North Atlantic Fisheries History Association (NAFHA), Chairman of the British Commission for Maritime History, and a member of the HMAP programme.