All you can eat seafood....till 2048!

Nah...It's not a new marketing scheme by Red Lobster, Long John Silver's, Captain D's or even McCormick & Schmicks.

According to a current report, if the current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, the populations of just about all seafood face a collapse by 2048, a team of ecologists and economists warns in a report in today's issue of the journal Science.

So if this hold true, a lot of us seafood lovers will be left with a few options in about 40 years.

Currently the consumption of seafood brings in about $80 billion dollars a year to the industry worldwide. The USA alone has helped these figures grow, since the recent trend of eating healthier alternatives has come into play. Many countries like Japan, Indonesia, China, and India have a major stake in fishing, providing many countries certain types of seafood.

But with overfishing and pollution, the ecosystems are being harmed with the certain fish populations dwindling. So what do the ecologists suggest?

They suggest a need to shift from a single species management to an ecosystem management. They also called for new marine reserves, better management to prevent overfishing and tighter controls on pollution.

In the 48 areas worldwide that have been protected to improve marine biodiversity, they found, "diversity of species recovered dramatically, and with it the ecosystem's productivity and stability."

So this means that there will have to be a worldwide consortium to balance the fishing of certain seafoods in certain regions. That will be a tough thing to do, due to governments being a little reluctant to hurt their general population who rely on this industry for their livelihood. But it can happen if this finding is held to be more than a theory.

If the worldwide fishing community is put under one umbrella, then of course we will see a dramatic rise in costs of seafood. Why? Well for one thing, the quotas of certain types of seafoods being fished, and over that the allocation of those fishes to be imported to certain countries would be affected quite considerably. That would also lead to having the operating costs of the fishermen and the distributors to go up as well. With seafood being expensive already, this will make it more like the rich man's food.

The researchers points on this doomsday of seafood are well taken, and I would hope if their theory is true, then the worldwide fishing community will take heed and do something, BUT it is a huge undertaking. With about 40 years of supply left, to get something like this up and running will take years.

I rather be an optimist and say that some good people will step up and save the fishes for our palates. But for now eat as much as seafood you can by 2048.....We may not have some afterwards!!!