For too long, the story of our collapsing fisheries has been told through a narrow and divisive lens.
Fishermen often see themselves as stewards of the sea, while fisheries managers see themselves as protectors through regulation. Both roles rely on a belief that their actions—harvesting or managing—are in balance with nature. But it gets worse, the public often see the fishermen as insatiable predators or pirates, and simultaneously see the fisheries managers as baffle-gabbing bureaucrats or self aggrandizing police.
When the fish disappear, we are told to look for culprits: overfishing, poor management, or illegal poachers. Fishermen point fingers at fisheries managers. Managers point back at fishermen. Environmentalists call for more restrictions. Governments commission more stock assessments. And the ocean continues to grow more silent.
But what if the true cause is neither human greed nor incompetence?
What if our oceans are no longer failing only because of what we’ve taken from them… but more importantly because of what we’ve failed to give back?
This is the uncomfortable truth that too many have resisted: the oceans have become deserts, and the collapse of fish populations is not primarily a result of overfishing or mismanagement—it is the ecological consequence of vanishing ocean pastures.
And yet, despite clear and mounting evidence, many fishermen, fisheries scientists, and regulators still resist this reality. Why?
The Land Knows What the Sea Forgets
Ask any rancher what happens when a pasture turns to dust. The livestock go hungry. We don’t blame the cows for starving. We don’t arrest the rancher for mismanaging. We see the problem for what it is: the land has gone barren.
In the ocean, we’ve forgotten this basic ecological truth. Fish are the livestock of the sea. They graze on microscopic pastures of phytoplankton, the green plants of the ocean, that bloom across vast blue prairies. But these ocean pastures—like their terrestrial cousins—require nutrients to thrive. Chief among them is iron, the tiniest trace mineral, blown from the deserts of Asia or upwelled from the deep by winter storms and sea ice.
Without vital mineral iron-rich dust, there is no pasture. Without pasture, there are no fish.
Since the 1950s, the primary source of iron to the North Pacific—the windblown dust of Central Asia—has fallen by more than 80%, as satellite and geological data now confirm. At the same time, ocean primary productivity has declined, and fish have withered in size and number. The evidence is overwhelming.
Why Are So Many Resisting the Truth About Ocean Pasture Collapse?
You might think that fishermen and fisheries managers, faced with the collapse of the very system they’ve sworn to steward, would leap at the chance to embrace the idea of ocean restoration. The science shows that replenishing ocean pastures with nature’s missing dust works. In 2012, we proved this off the coast of British Columbia in a project led with Indigenous partners: fish came roaring back. The largest salmon returns in history were recorded in the months that followed. The sea responded almost immediately to having its pastures restored.
And yet, opposition to this concept persists. Why?
1. The Pain of Admitting It Wasn’t Your Fault
Fishermen have spent decades adapting to new quotas, new gear, new rules—all in the belief that responsible fishing would save the stocks. Fisheries managers have built careers around elaborate models of sustainable yield and biomass estimates. To now admit that none of this was ever enough, because the productivity of the ocean itself has collapsed, is not just humbling—it is shattering.
But it shouldn’t be. It’s liberating.
2. The Danger of Losing Control
Science has always thrived in silos. Fisheries science is one of the most highly siloed of all, relying on its own models, assumptions, and regulatory philosophies. Introducing a new paradigm—one that requires collaboration with atmospheric chemists, ocean ecologists, and climate physicists—is perceived as a threat. A threat to control. A threat to expertise.
But the ocean doesn’t care whose model you use.
3. The Search for a Villain
Human beings are storytellers. And every good story needs a villain. In the current narrative, that villain is usually greedy fishermen, careless regulators, or foreign trawlers. But what if there is no villain?
Ocean pasture collapse is not an act of evil. It is the slow, silent erasure of vitality due to environmental change. It’s hard to rally around. It doesn’t make for a great headline. It doesn’t fit our need for justice.
The Path Forward: From Collapse to Restoration
Here’s the good news: we are not helpless. Just as ranchers reseed and water their pastures, we can restore the ocean’s productivity. The science of ocean pasture restoration is no longer speculative. It’s proven.
By restoring missing iron through carefully controlled, nature-mimicking replenishment, we can stimulate vast blooms of phytoplankton. These blooms feed the entire marine food web. They draw down carbon. They cool the planet. And they bring back the fish.
The 2012 project off Haida Gwaii, conducted in partnership with Indigenous communities and with comprehensive satellite and ecosystem monitoring, resulted in:
- 100x increase in local phytoplankton density
- Explosive growth of zooplankton and forage fish
- Record-setting salmon returns across the North Pacific the following year
All from restoring less than 100 tonnes of natural mineral dust—an amount comparable to one truckload of material—over an area the size of a small county.
This is not geoengineering. This is ecological caregiving on behalf of the ocean pastures that feed us all.
Why Fishermen Should Be Leading This Revolution
Let’s be clear: this work will not succeed without fishermen. You know the ocean better than any academic or policy analyst. You’ve watched the seas go quiet. You’ve seen the fish get smaller. You know something deeper is wrong.
Now you have the opportunity to be the heroes of a new story. Not just survivors of a broken system, but stewards of a restored ocean. Imagine participating in ocean pasture restoration, watching life return to the water you work. Imagine catching bigger, healthier fish again—not because you fished less, but because the ocean was once again alive.
Why Managers and Politicians Must Embrace This
To the regulators and public officials reading this: your mandate is not just to prevent harm. It is to ensure abundance. To steward the common wealth of the ocean.
You now have the science, the precedent, and the public support to act. Ocean pasture restoration is cost-effective, scalable, and rapidly deployable. The price of inaction is collapse. The reward of action is recovery.
Time to Rewrite the Story
We don’t need more studies to prove that the fish are gone.
We don’t need another round of blame games.
What we need is courage. Courage to embrace a new understanding of ocean collapse. Courage to take action not rooted in punishment, but in restoration. Courage to admit that the ocean has been asking for help—and that we now have the tools to answer.
The story of ocean collapse doesn’t have to end in tragedy.
With your leadership, it can become a story of revival, resilience, and return.
🙏 Join Us
To the fishermen: Join us in becoming the new caretakers of the ocean pastures.
To the managers: Collaborate with us to rebuild not just stocks, but entire ecosystems.
To the public and politicians: Demand that we stop arguing over the past, and start restoring the future.
Let’s stop blaming. Let’s start restoring.
Click to read more on this in this parallel story, https://russgeorge.net/?p=21715&preview=true
