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Fisheries and Fishing Start‑class High‑importance

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Description

I purpose modifying the description of overexploitation to "Overexploitation is an ecological term to describe one of the five main activities threatening global biodiversity. It is also extensively used in fisheries. Essentially, it means populations are harvested at a rate that is unsustainable, given their natural rates of mortality and capacities for reproduction. This can result in harvesting ‘to the point of diminishing returns’ and extinction at the population level and even extinction of whole species."

Any objections or additions?

Matt, I suspect you may be doing a little OR here. Your definition of overexploitation, as occurring when "populations are harvested at a rate that is unsustainable", seems to be equating overexploitation with unsustainablity. If that is the case, then we don't need this article when we already have one on sustainability. However, your definition does not mesh, at all, with the way the term is used in fisheries. In fisheries, as I have already spelt out in detail in the article, overexploitation can be perfectly compatible with sustainability. Indeed, the FAO had a recent international conference specifically looking at overexploitation and unsustainablity as contrasting concepts (cited in the reference section). The term is used more in fisheries than in other contexts, as you can easily check from Google. Also you haven't sourced the key statement you placed in the lead, that overexploitation is "a term used in ecology, as one of the five main activities threatening global biodiversity". For example, has this been explicitly stated by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment? Are are you sure they use the term "overexploitation"? Unless you can clearly establish that, in ecology and conservation biology, the term is used in a definitive and unambiguous way, and that the term is in fact a key term within those disciplines, then I do not think it is a good idea to demote the fisheries context to an afterthought. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Revision as of 20:31, 1 February 2010 edit Matt-eee (talk \| contribs) 135 edits No edit summary ← Previous edit		Revision as of 22:26, 1 February 2010 edit undo Epipelagic (talk \| contribs) Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers 85,824 edits →Description: oppose Next edit →
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	Any objections or additions?		Any objections or additions?

			:Matt, I suspect you may be doing a little [[wp:or\|OR]] here. Your definition of overexploitation, as occurring when "populations are harvested at a rate that is unsustainable", seems to be equating overexploitation with unsustainablity. If that is the case, then we don't need this article when we already have one on [[sustainability]]. However, your definition does not mesh, at all, with the way the term is used in fisheries. In fisheries, as I have already spelt out in detail in the article, overexploitation can be perfectly compatible with sustainability. Indeed, the [[FAO]] had a recent international conference specifically looking at overexploitation and unsustainablity as contrasting concepts (cited in the reference section). The term is used more in fisheries than in other contexts, as you can easily check from Google. Also you haven't sourced the key statement you placed in the lead, that overexploitation is "a term used in ecology, as one of the five main activities threatening global biodiversity". For example, has this been explicitly stated by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment? Are are you sure they use the term "overexploitation"? Unless you can clearly establish that, in ecology and conservation biology, the term is used in a definitive and unambiguous way, and that the term is in fact a key term within those disciplines, then I do not think it is a good idea to demote the fisheries context to an afterthought. --[[User:Epipelagic\|Epipelagic]] ([[User talk:Epipelagic\|talk]]) 22:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)