Product Description

Picking up where Cod left off, an "invaluable" (Financial Times) look at the global crisis of overfishing.

Gourmands and health-conscious consumers alike have fallen for fish; last year per capita consumption in the United States hit an all-time high. Packed with nutrients and naturally low in fat, fish is the last animal we can still eat in good conscience.

Or can we?

In this vivid, eye-opening book—first published in the UK to wide acclaim and now extensively revised for an American audience—environmental journalist Charles Clover argues that our passion for fish is unsustainable. Seventy-five percent of the world's fish stocks are now fully exploited or overfished; the most popular varieties risk extinction within the next few decades.

Clover trawls the globe for answers, from Tokyo's sumptuous fish market to the heart of New England's fishing industry. He joins hardy sailors on high-tech boats, interviews top chefs whose menu selections can influence the fate of entire species, and examines the ineffective organizations charged with regulating the world's fisheries. Along the way he argues that governments as well as consumers can take steps to reverse this disturbing trend before it's too late. The price of a mouth-watering fillet of Chilean sea bass may seem outrageous, but The End of the Line shows its real cost to the ecosystem is far greater.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #791130 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this devastating book, first published in Great Britain and now revised and updated for North American readers, Clover, environment editor of London's Daily Telegraph, shows that fishing with modern technology has put us just a hairsbreadth away from destroying entire ocean ecosystems. New England's fisheries have collapsed, the fish stocks of West Africa's continental shelf are overexploited, few cod are left in Newfoundland's Grand Banks, and, according to one study, 90% of the large fish in the ocean in 1950 have disappeared. Clover finds many people to blame, including trawlers with huge nets that destroy everything in their wake, incompetent scientists, dishonest governmental agencies, celebrity chefs with endangered species on their menus, and the general public, which pays no attention to how the fish it eats is obtained. He's especially critical of the European Union, the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization and countries like Japan and Spain that persist in illegal fishing. Clover's hard-hitting approach will probably anger some, but his argument that we will soon run out of fish unless we take drastic measures—such as establishing huge no-take zones where fish stocks can recover—is persuasive. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Lyrical and scientific books about the marine-life crisis exist, including works by Carl Safina and Richard Ellis, but to really grab people's attention there's nothing like the dispatches of a good investigative reporter. British environmental journalist Clover covers it all, from destructive high-tech fishing techniques to the regulations meant to protect fish species, the nearly universal practice of hauling in and selling illegal catches, and the snarled politics that hamper ocean conservation efforts. Clover, conversant, cogent, and refreshingly blunt, cites statistics that reveal the loss of 90 percent of the earth's preindustrial fish population due to overfishing, explains why "the conservation of wild fish is a human health issue as well as an environmental one," and cites the problems with fish farming. He even takes restaurants to task for serving "the marine equivalent of the panda, the rhino, and the great apes," and provides lists of fish to avoid and those you can eat "with a clear conscience." Healthy ocean ecosystems are our birthright, Clover declares, and "the time has come to change the laws of the sea so that they are more like the laws of the land." Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Clover has taken on a major issue of our times with an inquiring intelligence. -- Mark Kurlansky, author of Cod

Sushi lovers, even fans of a plain old tuna sandwich: Prepare to be put off your feed."Fishing with modern technology is the most destructive activity on Earth," writes British journalist Clover. Imagine, he instructs, a drag line tied between two bulldozers and dragged across the veldt. Impala, wildebeest, rhinos and lions fall. Because there is no market for much of the catch, a vast pile of corpses and wrecked habitat is left behind. So it is with the world's oceans, a vast killing field filled with technologically sophisticated deep-ocean fleets from the First World devastating the waters of the Third. (On that score, Clover writes, there's no mystery to the great concentration of fishing boats off the coast of Somalia: It has no government and can't complain.) Global fisheries are badly overexploited, even though official statistics from international agencies and national governments lie about the real numbers so their fishing activities will not be curtailed. Moreover, Clover reports, "the global fishing fleet is estimated to be two and a half times greater than needed to catch what the ocean can sustainably produce." The illegalities, improprieties and bureaucratic screens surrounding the world of industrial fishing are astonishing, to say nothing of the denial that anything is wrong. Clover is merciless in reporting them even as he, a dedicated pursuer of trout, allows that commercial fishing is not the only bad guy: Amazingly, especially in the U.S., everyone wants to be a sport angler, so that the Gulf of Mexico is now practically bereft of red snapper, even as the rest of the oceans are without their teeming shoals-and even as the population of fish-hungry humans swells.Want to feel less guilty about all the destruction? Have a fish sandwich at McDonald's-and maybe club a baby harp seal on the way. For the reasons, read Clover's sobering book, and adjust diet accordingly. (Kirkus Reviews)

Want to feel less guilty about all the destruction? Read Clover's sobering book, and adjust diet accordingly. -- Kirkus Reviews starred review

Customer Reviews

If you love eating fish, you should buy this book!
It is a fascinating, very well written book on a subject most people forget about in spite of how important it is: the food resources of the sea. When I first saw the book I wondered how the author could make an interesting topic out of it...when I started to browse it, I discovered a great amount of information about the wonderful world of the seas, about what so many companies are doing to our resources, about the repercusions hardly anyone is aware of.
I bought it and read it immediately.
One of the best non-fiction books I have read in the last few years.

Highly Informative... A Must-Read!
"The End of the Line" is a well-written, highly informative book which addresses a serious global issue.

"Imagine what people would say if a band of hunters strung a mile of net between two immense all-terrain vehicles and dragged it at speed across the plains of Africa.... left behind is a strangely bedraggled landscape resembling a harrowed field... this efficient but highly unselective way of killing animals is known as trawling... it is practiced the world over every day, from the Barents Sea in the Arctic to the shores of Antarctica and from the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean and the central Pacific to the temperate waters off Cape Cod."

Overfishing is a serious problem that must be addressed. The statistics are staggering. As journalist Charles Clover shows in his global exploration of the destruction caused by overfishing, we have inflicted a crisis on the oceans in a single human lifetime greater than any yet caused by pollution.

"The maritime equivalent of Silent Spring"?...perhaps so
Charles Clover tackles a topic in "The End of the Line" that for most people on the planet, especially in developed nations, is an out-of-sight, out-of-mind issue - i.e., the current (deplorable) status of global marine fisheries and global marine fisheries practices and policies.

The lead quote on the front cover of the book states, "The maritime equivalent of Silent Spring" - THE INDEPENDENT. In some ways I think that quote is right. Here's why.

"Silent Spring" addressed an issue - the widespread and sometimes indescriminate use of long-lasting pesticides such as DDT and DDE - that had ecological and environmental effects on a scale that floored many people when they read that landmark book by Rachel Carson back in the 1960s. Her book woke people up to what was happening, and was persuasive enough that it even mobilized segments of corporate America, e.g., Dow Chemical, to actively fight against what she wrote...perhaps an indicator that she was doing something right! "Silent Spring" also helped launch the American Environmental Movement.

When people read "Silent Spring" today they typcially say to themselves, "Of course, everyone knows this!"

In "End of the Line" Charles Clover tackles a topic that, like pesticide use, needs to be put front and center at national and international levels. He addreses a segment of modern human endeavor - fishing - that has been with us for thousands of years, but has now reached a point where we have become so technologically advanced in our fishing practices that we can and have decimated fishery after fishery, and we have seen those fisheries crash one after another. This makes we want to weep!

When I read this book I thought to myself, "Of course that's what's happening", but then again I've been following the status of global marine fisheries for over 15 years myself (I'm a marine biologist and former director of Environmental Studies at Manchester College, IN 1992-2002). Because of my background and profession Clover's thesis didn't take me by surprise, but I believe that most readers will be floored by the things he discusses.

Clover recounts his travels around the world and his meetings with people ranging from government leaders to fishermen that make their living at sea. He even worked as a deck hand on a fishing boat in order to gain first-hand experience that is essential to bringing this topic to life.

This book will be of interest to you if any of the following apply to you if you have interest in any of the following:
1) the status of the global marine environment
2) the status of marine fisheries
3) the behavior of your government when it comes to marine fisheries and fisheries policies (or lack thereof)
4) the future directions of marine fisheries
5) you enjoy eating fish, but want to know where the fish you eat comes from, and how they were grown or caught.

This is a solid 5-star addition to the body of literature on marine fisheries. I look forward to introducing it to my future marine biology and ichthyology classes.