Depeleting or Protecting Fisheries
Earlier in the month, a flurry of articles and blog posts covered an article in Science magazine which predicted that without significant changes in fishing practices, coastal development, and how humans treat the oceans, the population of fish stocks could permanently collapse. This weekend, I ran across two stories about the subject of fish stocks, one about the failure of international negotiations over a ban on a deep-sea bottom trawling, and another about how government regulations and corporate purchasing practices might increase fish stocks.
The BBC reports on the breakdown of United Nations negotiations on a ban on a particularly destructive fishing practice:
United Nations negotiations on fisheries have ended without a global ban on trawling methods which destroy coral reefs and fish nurseries.
Conservation groups and some governments had argued for a ban on bottom-trawling, which drags heavy nets and crushing rollers on the sea floor.
Negotiators could only agree on a limited set of precautionary measures.
Last month, leading scientists warned there would be no sea fish left in 50 years if current practices continued.
Negotiations at the UN in New York aimed to secure an agreement to go before the General Assembly next month.
[…]
In 2004, a report compiled for the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and other environmental groups concluded that bottom-trawling was “…highly destructive to the biodiversity associated with seamounts and deep-sea coral ecosystems and… likely to pose significant risks to this biodiversity, including the risk of species extinction.”
[…]
In the same year, 1,100 scientists put their names to a petition supporting the demand for a moratorium.
All this scientific evidence could not convince enough UN delegates that a moratorium was needed.
The eventual deal which goes forward to the General Assembly mandates governments to adopt unilateral “precautionary measures” to ensure their bottom-trawlers do not cause significant damage to marine ecosystems.
In areas covered by Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), “precautionary measures” must be established by the end of 2008.
“The final agreement has more loopholes in it than a fisherman’s sweater,” fumed Greenpeace oceans policy advisor Karen Sack.
[…]
Watching the Stocks and Purchases
Kenneth Weiss, writing for the the Los Angeles Times, reviews some current developments in fishing regulations and purchasing:
Fish counters in green rain slickers patrol a narrow channel of glacier-fed river, keeping close tabs on the thousands of salmon that migrate upstream to spawn.
Elsewhere along the coast, observation teams slosh through waterways in waders, carrying rifles to ward off aggressive bears. Still others monitor the migration from low-flying planes, or take inventory at fish weirs and atop counting towers placed strategically throughout the wilds of Alaska as part of an elaborate surveillance of returning fish.
At the first hint of a decline in salmon numbers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is quick to shut down coastal fishing grounds and order fishermen to pull in their nets and lines.
State officials do this without protest from fishermen. Rather, they work together, to protect not just a prized fish, but an economic bonanza and a leading source of private-sector jobs in the state.
[…]
Only about 6% of the global fish catch is certified as “sustainable,” meaning that fish are not pulled from the ocean faster than they can reproduce and are not caught in ways that destroy other sea life or undersea habitat. Much of it comes from Alaska.
Though other U.S. regions and nations have been reluctant to rein in their fishing fleets, help has emerged from an unexpected quarter.
[…]
The article continues with discussion of corporate purchasing practices and a review of efforts to protect fish stocks. Wal-Mart recently declared that within three to five years it would sell only wild-caught seafood that had met the sustainability standards of the Marine Stewardship Council. McDonalds and Dardeen Restaurants (parent of Red Lobster) have started pressuring its suppliers to use more sustainable methods. The business experts interviewed in the story have differing opinions about the ability of corporations to affect positive change — one worries that Wal-Mart’s entry into the seafood market will increase demand too much, but others predict that “the market” could have significant effects on fishing practices. However, the author notes that “more than two-thirds of the world’s seafood is consumed in China and other parts of Asia largely untouched by the movement to save fish stocks,” and that it is nearly impossible to control what happens in international waters. But small steps forward are being made, with Alaska’s program and the recent creation of a vast marine reserves in Hawaii as two examples.
Additional Information
The 2004 report referred to above: High Seas Bottom Trawl Fisheries and their Impact on the Biodiversity of Vulnerable Deep-Sea Ecosystems: Options for International Action. Full length version (2.7 MB PDF). Executive Summary (0.87 MB PDF).
BBC report on the Science magazine article about the decline of fish stocks
The Los Angeles Times’ Altered Oceans, a five-part series
