This Thanksgiving, when you sit down to carve the traditional fish, make sure to… Oh, you don’t eat fish at your holiday meal? The first settlers did. According to the living history museum in Plymouth, Mass., the first Thanksgiving menu of 1621 included not only turkey, but cod and lobster too.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, since the early Pilgrims depended upon the bounty of the sea as well as the land, much as we do in 2001. Unfortunately, fish that swam in abundance 380 years ago are now disappearing, while we have many more plates to fill. Thanksgiving this year, falling one day after World Fisheries Day, is a good time to reflect upon the drastic decline of fish stocks, and ponder how we will feed the hungry of the future if nothing is done to reverse the trend.

Fish account for a significant portion of the world’s diet. According to the World Resources Institute, fish provide 16.5 percent of global consumption of animal protein, and according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, that number exceeded 50 percent for 34 countries during the 1990s. Yet rampant overfishing, widespread devastation of habitat, and the unintended destruction of marine life – known as bycatch – are sending annual catches for many species into downward spirals.

In the United States, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) reported that 92 of the 905 fish stocks it manages are overfished. Yet what we don’t know could be even worse, since NMFS lacks adequate information about 660 fisheries, or about 72 percent of what it’s supposed to be managing.

Examples of the problem abound. In the North Pacific, one year after the allowable pollock catch (a prime source for fish sticks) was raised 10 percent, a new assessment shows an overall stock decline of nearly 20 percent. Meanwhile, the Marine Fish Conservation Network estimates that emergency spending and aid to fishermen costs American taxpayers some $78 million a year.

In the Atlantic, the tuna catch in 1998 exceeded the limit recommended by the scientific arm of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas by nearly 140 percent. Such destructive overfishing led to new enforcement measures, which took effect in November 2000. But hopes for progress collapsed when only four of the 31 member countries reported their catch – the basis for enforcement – last year.

And in the Southern Ocean, where the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) regulates the fast-disappearing Patagonia toothfish, also know as Chilean sea bass, the agency estimated that the illegal catch increased more than 50 percent last year. In spite of this, CCAMLR subsequently raised the region-wide quota by 9 percent.

Hope for the oceans remains, however. On the national political level, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., has introduced legislation to strengthen the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996, which set forth admirable goals but which has been swamped by loopholes, poor implementation and inadequate funding.

International agreements should help, too. The United States has ratified a United Nations treaty covering highly migratory fish species, and the agreement entered into force this month with ratification by the 30th country. But success of the treaty, negotiated in 1995, could well hinge on many of our allies who have signed but not yet ratified. Also on the international front, we can seek moratoriums on pursuing fish stocks, such as Chilean sea bass,

that are rapidly approaching commercial extinction.

And we can make active decisions in our personal lives to eat fish that are sustainably caught. Organizations such at the Seafood Choices Alliance (seafoodchoice.com) help consumers find out which fish to choose, when making a selection.

World Fisheries Day reminds us that fishing is the oldest industry in America, though increasingly threatened by poor management and lack of attention. As a source of food, jobs and tradition, fishing deserves the support and respect of all of us. We must conserve and restore fish stocks, because without fish, many a table and community would be far poorer – and not just at Thanksgiving.

Gerald B. Leape is director of the marine conservation program at the National Environmental Trust. He can be reached at gleape@envirotrust.org.