Since 1990 there is little or no change in the level of exploitation of marine resources. Some of the major fish stocks have been fully exploited leaving no room for expansion while others have depleted considerably, says Izzat H Feidi, chief of Fish Utilisation and Marketing Services of FAO, in his analysis of the situation in INFOFISH International.

"The overall status of fishery resources and the fishing capacity appears to have stabilised over the past decade and landings appear to have reached a plateau," the study says. "With these estimations reached by FAO, the projection for world fishery production in 2010 range between 107 and 144 million tonnes of which about 30 million tonnes will probably be reduced to fishmeal and oil for non-food use. Estimated quantities for human consumption range between 74 million tonnes and 114 million tonnes."

The study places a lot of hope on aquaculture for increased fish production when it says, "most of the increase in fish production is expected to come from aquaculture which is growing rapidly." It has been estimated that total aquaculture production will reach between 35 and 40 tonnes of finfish, crustaceans and molluscs by 2010.

"The contribution from captured fisheries will depend on the effectiveness of fisheries management and other developments. Improved management of currently over-fished stocks could provide an increase of between five and 10 million tonnes whereas continued over-fishing will lead to declining production...," the study points out.

In 1997, the total marine fisheries accounted for a production of 93.3 million tonnes of fish production with China, Peru, Chile, Japan, the US, Russian Federation and Indonesia topping the list and accounting for more than half of this production. Marine fisheries account for about 90 per cent of the total world fish production.

Between 1950 and 1961, world marine fisheries production increased by 6 per cent per year. This saw production jump from 17 million tonnes in 1950 to 34.9 million tonnes in 1961. The production figures doubled again to touch 68.3 million tonnes by 1983. After these years of swift increase, the following decades saw marine capture fisheries production moving up by a meagre 1.5 per cent per year.

Even this declined to 0.6 per cent during 1996-97. The El Nino phenomenon in 1998 saw fish production drop 4 per cent tonnes to 116.9 million . FAO estimates put the 1998 fish production at 117 million tonnes, a fall from the previous year's level of 122 million tonnes. Fisheries production of 93.3 million tonnes in 1997 remained stable accounting for 76 per cent of the total fish production. Aquaculture's contribution fell 7.6 per cent to 28.8 million tonnes in the same year.

International exports of fish and fishery products (excluding seaweed) both as food and feed products in 1997 were about 46 million tonnes marking a growth of 2.4 per cent over the previous year. International trade accounted for about 87 per cent of the total production and foreign trade earnings were put at $51.4 billion in 1997. Norway, contributing 6.6 per cent of the total value of the international trade, leads the pack of exporters. Japan accounted for 30 per cent of the total imports with a value of $15.5 billion while the US accounted for 14 per cent of the total imports.