And then when the bay scallop got introduced into China, it led to another big breakthrough.Īnd then in the mid-late 90s, new developments were propelled by multiple marine finfish, including flatfish like turbot or flounder, and then large yellow croaker, sea bass, red drum, pompano and groupers in the late 90s and early 2000s. Wang Songlin: And then in the 1980s, the industry was driven, or at least the profit was driven, by shrimp farming. But it caught up quickly in the 1970s with large-scale marine aquaculture projects in kelp, seaweed, mussels, oysters and clams. Songlin told me that although cultivation of freshwater fish dates back to ancient China, marine aquaculture – or farming seafood in the ocean – didn’t really kick off until the 1960s. He graduated from the Ocean University of China, has a master’s from Yale University and he’s worked tirelessly on China ocean conservation for the last 15 years. Marcy: That was Songlin Wang, chairman of Qingdao Marine Conservation Society and China programme director for Ocean Outcomes. Wang Songlin: I think the history of China’s aquaculture pretty much dates back to 3,000 years ago, starting with the freshwater pond culture that you can find in the historical records. In this episode three, we look at domestic aquaculture – how it’s struggled with the pressures of China’s economic growth, and why it’s making China’s coastal overfishing problem even worse.

China’s fishing industry, however, is increasingly the victim of its own success. And since 2002, China has been the world’s leading exporter of fish products. Now China is by far the biggest producer and consumer of fish products globally.

Marcy: In 1986, China passed a fisheries law that privatised fishing vessels and moved China from a country of wooden-boat fishing communes into the modern world of mechanised, commercial fishing trawlers.

So about a quarter of all the fishing boats in the world are Chinese vessels, and they’re fishing mostly in China’s domestic waters. China has about a million fishing boats on the water. John Mimikakis: They’re also pushing to reduce the total number of fishing boats on the water. This is episode three of 1986 – a story of how China is breaking the cycle of overfishing that was unleashed with the passage of the 1986 Fisheries Law during their reform and opening period.Ĭao Ling: Starting from 2020, fishing will be completely banned in the Yangtze river for 10 years. It’s a four-part podcast series about China, oceans and fish. 1986 is made in collaboration with chinadialogue. Marcy Trent Long: Hi! My name is Marcy Trent Long.

Golden pompano farmed in china