End of the Line [Hardcover]

Charles Clover (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2004

Fish is the aspirational food for Western society, the healthy, weight-conscious choice, but those who eat and celebrate fish often ignore the fact that fishing is an industry as technologically advanced as space travel, with an attitude to conservation 10,000 years out of date. Trawling on an industrial scale in the North Sea smashes everything it does not catch, taking 16 lbs of dead marine animals to produce just 1lb of sole. Regulation isn't working, with fishermen losing money, dolphins dying unnecessarily and fish stocks collapsing, despite the warning of the extinction of cod in the seas off Cape Cod. Because of the shortage of traditional varieties the market has moved on, competing, sometimes illegally, with local fishermen in the waters off Africa, the Caribbean, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. "The End of the Line" also looks at the role of conservationists, the governments and multi-national companies and considers some models for recovery, for example how Barents Sea cod, Icelandic cod, North Sea herring have been rescued from near extinction, the possibilities of fish farming and the potential of locally managed offshore marine reserves. "Charles Clover's book is not only timely: it is absolutely necessary." - Margaret Atwood. "The worldwide scandal of overfishing must be given a public platform before it is too late - I know of no better person to undertake this task than Charles Clover." - Brendan May, Chief Executive, Marine Stewardship. "The global fisheries story desperately needs to be told in book form, and I cannot think of anyone better qualified to tell it." - George Monbiot, author "The Captive State".

Editorial Reviews

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. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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 --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Ebury & Vermilion (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0091897807
• ISBN-13: 978-0091897802
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,984,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you love eating fish, you should buy this book!, July 25, 2006

By 

A. Dominguez Burgos - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat. Charles Clover (Paperback)

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.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The maritime equivalent of Silent Spring"?...perhaps so, July 16, 2009

By 

Alan Holyoak (The Shadow of the Tetons) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat (Paperback)

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.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Informative... A Must-Read!, January 3, 2007

By 

Corrie A. Borges (Middletown, RI, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat (Hardcover)

"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.