Английский язык: Сборник текстов и упражнений. Дьякова Н.П. - 8 стр.

                                  Text 3
                           HISTORY OF FISHERIES

    The practice of fishing was developed long before the practice of keeping his-
torical records. We know that people around the world have engaged in fisheries
for food, trade, ornaments and riligous customs for many thousands of years. Even
the relatively sophisticated practice of aquaculture of freshwater fishes has been
practised in China for over 4 000 years. Numerous examples of ancient art and the
long held customs of native peoples attest to the importance of fisheries to human
cultures over the ages. Many native peoples from both eastern and western cultures
believe that fishes and shellfishes have significance far beyond their ability to sus-
tain human life. When some of these people speak of fish, they sound more like
they are speaking of members of their own families than about things to prey upon.
    It is noteworthy that in Great Britain many of the earliest examples of regula-
tion of fishing effort dealt with recreational fisheries. Privilege and allocation of
fish stocks in the American Colonies were not pressing issues due to the abun-
dance of fishes that were initially present.
    At the turn of the 20th century, the industrialization of fisheries hastened with
the advent of steam-powered capture vessels. Purse seiners fished for menhaden
off the U.S. Atlantic coast, trawlers fished for mixed stocks in the North Sea, and
longliners fished for halibut in the North Pacific. Later developments that also had
considerable industrial impact include the use of diesel-powered capture vessels
with net retrieval and refrigeration systems on vessels.
    With the progressing industrialization of marine fisheries in the early 1900s,
evidence began to mount that fish stocks were declining under increasing fishing
pressure, particularly Pacific halibut and those stocks fished by trawl in the North
Sea. Concern over these fisheries led to the formation of several international fi-
shery commissions. With the rapid industrialization of commercial marine fishe-
ries and the use of factory methods for processing on shipboard, effective fishery
management became necessary on a globe scale. Collapses among some impor-
tant species, including Atlantic herring, Alaska king crab, California sardines and
of some others drew even more attention to the fragility of fishery stocks. The
United States declared its 200 mile «Fisheries Conservation Zone» with the Fi-
shery Conservation and Management Act (FCMA) of 1976. The FCMA created
eight regional management councils to oversee fisheries in the 200 mile zone and
allowed foreign states to harvest only those stocks present in surplus. The act also
directed fishery managers to take economic, social and politic factors into ac-
count, in addition to scientific criteria, in establishing fishery policy. After 1983,
the Fisheries Conservation Zone came to be known as the «Exclusive Economic
Zone» or EEZ.

                                    Vocabulary

   to engage in                        заниматься чем-либо
   relatively                          относительно
                                          8