Less Info

Fishmongers throng Bangladesh’s historic Chittagong harbor, which has been home to fishing fleets since the fourth century BCE. Even though the people of Bangladesh eat 30 percent more fish than they did twenty years ago, they are getting fewer nutrients from them, since their diets have shifted from wild caught fish to farm-raised fish that have more protein but fewer important micronutrients. It’s a worrisome global trend. The haul from global capture fisheries peaked in the 1990s, with wild populations faltering in many areas due to overfishing, pollution, and environmental damage. An estimated 89 percent of marine fish stocks are either overfished or harvested at their maximum capacity, reducing both biomass and biodiversity of marine ecosystems. Even though Bangladesh is the world’s sixth-largest producer of farmed seafood, it has one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world, with more than one in three children under five years of age stunted from malnutrition. In fact, fully one-third of Earth’s population now suffers from at least one micronutrient deficiency, making it one of the most prevalent causes of the global burden of disease.

Filename
STNMTZ_20170913_03030.TIF
Copyright
©2017 George Steinmetz
Image Size
8688x5792 / 144.0MB
www.GeorgeSteinmetz.com
Contained in galleries
Fishmongers throng Bangladesh’s historic Chittagong harbor, which has been home to fishing fleets since the fourth century BCE. Even though the people of Bangladesh eat 30 percent more fish than they did twenty years ago, they are getting fewer nutrients from them, since their diets have shifted from wild caught fish to farm-raised fish that have more protein but fewer important micronutrients. It’s a worrisome global trend. The haul from global capture fisheries peaked in the 1990s, with wild populations faltering in many areas due to overfishing, pollution, and environmental damage. An estimated 89 percent of marine fish stocks are either overfished or harvested at their maximum capacity, reducing both biomass and biodiversity of marine ecosystems. Even though Bangladesh is the world’s sixth-largest producer of farmed seafood, it has one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world, with more than one in three children under five years of age stunted from malnutrition. In fact, fully one-third of Earth’s population now suffers from at least one micronutrient deficiency, making it one of the most prevalent causes of the global burden of disease.

All images ©George Steinmetz. Please contact us for usage.