A delicacy essential to the Bahamians’ nutrition and identity might stop being commercially feasible in as little as six years, according to scientists, international environmentalists, and government officials. Eventually eliminating some of the native’s favorite conch dishes. Conch populations are declining primarily due to excess fishing, they have warned.
Tereha Davis whose family has been fishing for conchs in the Bahamian waters for many years now could recall how easily accessible these sea mollusks were.
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In the most recent years, the task of collecting conch has become more ever difficult. Forcing fishermen to travel ever-greater distances from shore—up to 30 miles at times to gather these shells packed with flavors. They are considered one of the cornerstones of the Bahamas’ economy and tourism sector.
At a Freeport market where she was selling her catch, Davis noted how different it was back then in accessing the mollusks to purchase, “When I was a child, we never had to go that far to get conch…Without conch, what are we supposed to do?”
Conch’s imminent extinction highlights the danger that overfishing causes to regional cuisines all around the world. Such losses are among the most glaring illustrations of how overfishing has altered people’s lives in terms of their employment, diet, and sense of identity.
The problems caused by overfishing are shared by people in countries as different as Senegal, where white grouper, a staple of the country’s thieboudienne dish, has been eliminated by overfishing, and the Philippines, where small fish like sardines, which are used in kinilaw, a raw dish similar to ceviche, have been severely depleted.
Overfishing has eliminated once-abundant species and removed off menus enduringly cherished, culturally significant foods, making it no longer just a theoretical concern. A third or more of the world’s fish supplies are overfished, and the pace of increase in fishing is considered unsustainable, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
Governmental agencies and advocacy groups are striving to halt the unreported, uncontrolled, and illegal fishing that is hastening the extinction of species. They hold poaching, inadequate rules, and a failure to enforce current laws responsible. Reduced illicit fishing is essential, according to regulators like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US, to avoid losing cherished food sources.
According to Richard Wilk, a professor emeritus at the Indiana University Department of Anthropology who has researched food cultures, the loss of such foods puts at risk the availability of protein and iron in people’s diets in poor countries and modifies the development of culture in wealthy and poor nations. The collapse of the herring fishery in Japan in the middle of the 20th century destroyed employment, restricted access to a traditional wedding dish, and made the nation reliant on imports. Countries that fail to limit overfishing run the risk of making the same mistakes, he said.
