The End of the Line
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Charles Clover is a journalist and the environment editor of the Daily Telegraph in London. The End of the Line has received the Guild of Food Writers' Derek Cooper Award for Investigative Journalism, the Zoological Society for London's Biosis award for communicating zoology, and a special commendation from the Andre Simon Memorial Fund Book Awards.

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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 2006 Reed Business Information.

First published in Britain in 2004, this book has been updated for a U.S. readership with new chapters on the New England fishing industry and on sport fishing. British environmental journalist Clover examines indiscriminate fishing methods like trawling that are depleting the world's oceans of such fish populations as the northern cod, bluefin tuna, North Sea skate, haddock, and plaice. He notes that existing international organizations fail to regulate catches or enforce quotas often based on political considerations, rather than scientific observations. Clover uses the fisheries of Lowestoft, England; Gloucester, MA; Iceland; Spain; Japan; and New Zealand to illustrate his points and explains the negative repercussions of fish farming, a topic also covered in Paul Molyneaux's Swimming in Circles, reviewed right. Like Carl Safina's Song for the Blue Ocean and Richard Ellis's The Empty Ocean, this book warns that "fishing with modern technology is the most destructive on earth," and the author urges readers to become knowledgeable about the sources of the fish they eat and which species are endangered (a helpful guide on which to eat and which to avoid is included). Recommended for all libraries. [A global study released on Nov. 3 by scientists in five countries predicts that the world's fisheries will collapse by 2048 if overfishing continues to go unchecked.-Ed.]-Judith B. Barnett, Pell Marine Science Lib., Univ. of Rhode Island, Kingston Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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