2048

2048 is the year when scientists have calculated our oceans will run out of fish for normal human consumption as they will be virtually empty of marine life. Oceans will be ‘functionally dead’. 

Massive overfishing is draining the oceans of marine life at a shocking rate with many species seeing between an 80-95% drop in populations since 1970. The World Economic Forum states that “nearly 90% of the world’s marine fish stocks are now fully exploited, overexploited or depleted.” If marine life falls below a certain point, major ecological imbalances will be inescapable as will socioeconomic impacts for communities that rely on marine ecosystems to survive.

With the world’s population set to hit 10 billion around 2050, the devasting effect of overfishing, bycatch (the other animals like birds, dolphins, sharks etc. that are killed as a result of commercial fishing), and unregulated fishing, in addition to pollution and climate change, all mean that oceans are at a critical point in history.

According to The World Counts website: “Fishing today is dominated by a gigantic modern fishing fleet with enough fishing capacity to cover 4 Earth-like planets. It far out-matches the ocean’s ability to renew the number of fish we consume.” Huge trawling nets that capture everything in their path and damage the ocean floor ecosystems, take far more than the fish they are meant to. Everything that is not the desired catch, is thrown back into the ocean, most commonly dead.

To address this, we need to eat less seafood and establish protected ocean areas so marine populations can recover.

Each brooch is a graph of the population decline of a species of marine animal – Tuna, Sharks and Rays, and Mackerels. They are made from titanium and have been heat treated to reveal colours that further emphasise the change in populations. The brooch pin echoes the graph as well as being the functional pinning mechanism.

2023

Titanium, Remanium, Heat Anodising

Brooches (7x3x1cm)