47 pages • 1 hour read
Mark KurlanskyWorld Without Fish
Nonfiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Ecological and Economic Implications of Overfishing
Much of Mark Kurlansky’s introduction to World Without Fish summarizes the key ideas from Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. It reveals the book’s focus: In the natural world, everything is connected, and if we don’t act soon, damage done to the oceans may have cumulative effects that completely alter the natural order of the planet, including humanity’s place in it. Darwin’s ideas about the struggle for survival are essential to Kurlansky because they are crucial to understanding the ecological implications of overfishing and form the scientific backbone of the book’s arguments.
The core idea is that as organisms struggle for survival, variance among them allows some species to survive while others go extinct. The traits and characteristics that allow them to survive are naturally emphasized over time, leading to variety among species (biodiversity), essential for the survival of all life on earth. This also means that species become tuned to take advantage of particular niches in an ecosystem, and any sudden changes in circumstances can easily upend the delicate natural balance that has emerged over very long periods. Suddenly removing a species of fish—whether it is completely extinct or drastically reduced in numbers—is the kind of change that can send ripples through the entire food chain.
Kurlansky illustrates this most clearly through the changes in the graphic novel installments that end each chapter. Kram’s friend, Serafino, starts out fishing halibut, a bottom fish, but once they’ve been overfished, he’s forced to fish for herring. With the bottom fish gone, there is nothing to chase the herring closer to the surface, so the seagulls soon leave. Without the birds dropping scraps of food on the beach, the crabs disappear, too. From there, one change precipitates another, and things get worse and worse: The ocean becomes overrun by plankton and turns orange because there’s nothing left to feed on it, and by the end of the book, lizards and insects are disappearing from Ailat’s backyard, suggesting that the ocean ripples have reached the land.
However, as the book progresses, it becomes clear that overfishing also has a plethora of economic implications. A recurring idea throughout the text is that money is often the motivating factor behind overfishing and presents one of the biggest impediments to stopping it. For example, wealthier countries may implement regulations to curb overfishing in the waters they control, but nothing stops them at the same time from exploiting poorer countries in need of money. So, while they may see their own fish populations recuperate, global change, which, as outlined above, matters most, hasn’t occurred.
Moreover, because entire communities rely on fishing for their livelihood, overfishing can also have severe economic implications. Once the Canadian government invested in its own fishing fleet and wholly depleted the northern stock of the Grand Banks, the waters had to be closed to repopulate the cod population. Tens of thousands of people in Newfoundland instantly lost their jobs and way of life, and after 15 years, the cod population showed no signs of recovery. The cumulative effect that rippled through this community due to fish depletion is similar to its impact on ocean ecosystems. One change leads to a series of others until the entire natural order has been altered. For the Newfoundlanders, this meant shifting their industry to crab. However, this is an entirely different process that requires new boats, new fishing techniques and equipment, and different processing plants, drastically changing their economic and cultural reality.
The Power and Limits of Individual Action
At its core, World Without Fish is a call to action. Kurlansky wants to raise awareness about the devastating consequences of human activity (overfishing, pollution, and climate change) on the ocean’s natural order and encourages readers to take action to enact change. However, in detailing the problem and its many deep, tangled roots, the book highlights the tension between the global structural forces and the individual responsibility Kurlansky advocates.
The major sources of environmental damage are overfishing, pollution, and climate change. Each of these is a global problem, and solutions will require coordination and cooperation between nation-states that often do not share beliefs, values, cultures, histories, or needs. In the case of overfishing, while it would make a difference if the United States immediately shifted to sustainable fishing practices, it would not solve the problem if the rest of the world didn’t follow. The book also draws attention to the fact that fishermen need to make money—this is evident in the chapters that explore the economic consequences that banning fishing in the Grand Banks had on Newfoundland and throughout “The Story of Kram and Ailat,” where the fisherman assert that “[they] have to make a living” (49). Without plans to financially support or retrain fishermen who have lost their jobs or large portions of their income, it is difficult to implement a change that they won’t simply circumvent.
Another issue that is bigger than any individual is that fishermen tend to blame overfishing on fishermen from other countries rather than from their own countries. Xenophobia has existed for as long as human communities have and is not going away; nonetheless, it prevents some fishermen from accepting responsibility for their fishing practices. Lastly, another structural problem with overfishing is that governments—the organized bodies with the power and authority to institute laws and regulations that could help ensure fish populations are not fished to extinction—are often invested in fishing themselves and are hesitant to give up short-term profits for potential long-term sustainability. Governments are usually more concerned with the short term because they want to stay in power, and making unpopular but necessary decisions will damage their public approval.
The tension is difficult to miss when these factors are contrasted with some of the individual actions Kurlansky advocates: fishermen using hook and line rather than bottom-dragging nets because fish caught this way can fetch a higher price in the market, or consumers voting with their money by avoiding fish that aren’t caught responsibly. The idea that these individual acts will make a difference against such a massive problem with such complex, global origins is optimistic at best. However, Kurlansky is not unaware of this tension, and his emphasis on the important role of individuals is due to the genre and target audience of the book. Because it is aimed at children, he must maintain a hopeful, optimistic tone that inspires a sense of agency and control in its readers—to do otherwise would undermine his call to action. Notably, several of his suggestions for actions people can take—like organizing protests and writing to elected officials—are effective ways individuals can pressure these structures to make the necessary changes.
The Necessity of a Multifaceted Solution to Overfishing
Something that becomes clearer throughout World Without Fish is that the problem of overfishing is incredibly complex, not just because there are an endless number of factors contributing to the problem but because the grounds and terms of the problem are constantly shifting as well. One of the biggest challenges is that overfishing is an international problem. Because fish don’t recognize international borders and every state in the world fishes, unprecedented cooperation between nations is required.
Another challenge is the equally complex and delicate balance of the natural order. All living things are deeply connected, and any changes to the system can trigger a series of ripples throughout the food chain. This is equally true for human attempts at preserving fish populations as destroying them. Combined with the fact that there is much that scientists still don’t know about the oceans and the difficulty in obtaining accurate data on fish populations, it becomes difficult even to define the parameters and variables in the equation, let alone find a solution.
Lastly, it is more than overfishing that is depleting fish populations. Climate change—which is warming waters, causing fish to migrate and likely triggering premature reproductive cycles—alongside pollution from oil spills and manufacturing waste is also doing a lot of damage. These are also global problems, equally as complex and challenging to navigate as overfishing, and if they are not addressed, any other efforts may be in vain.
For these reasons, Kurlansky makes it clear that there will never be a single, one-size-fits-all solution to the problem or even a solution that works in perpetuity. Instead, a multifaceted set of solutions is required: solutions that are able to shift and evolve as the problem changes, that are adaptable to variable contexts and circumstances, and that work from the large-scale structural position of governments and corporations down to individual fishermen and consumers. The solutions Kurlansky explores toward the end of the novel, such as quotas, time limits, rotating fishing grounds, and fish farms, while imperfect, could be combined with financial support programs for out-of-work fishermen to become more effective. Likewise, providing incentives for sustainable fishing practices (like using a hook and line instead of bottom-dragging nets) only works if there is a well-informed consumer base that wants to purchase responsibly caught fish. Solutions like these will never be complete, need constant assessment and revision, and require reinforcement as new ideas emerge; however, when used together, they have a much higher chance of success than in isolation.
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