Who Gets the Fish?

"Whales eat too many fish" is part of the self-serving Japanese argument to justify killing whales. Of course it is unequivocally, empirically and ethically wrong, but supporting this absurdity is the very widespread perspective that the planet's unregulated or unguarded natural resources belong to those who are aggressive and powerful enough to take them. Given the overwhelming evidence that the exploiters don't care about tomorrow, the critical question is whether humans can be constrained from taking resources beyond sustainable limits, in recognition that eventually all life dependent upon the oceans will suffer, including whales and humans. Consider just overfishing: According to the United Nations, two-thirds of the major marine fisheries of the world are currently fully exploited, over-exploited, or depleted, compared to five percent reported only 40 years ago. In spite of more boats and better equipment the total world catch has been declining ever since the peak of 100 million metric tons in 1989. Over 27 million metric tons of "trash" fish and other marine creatures are caught and discarded each year by the world's fishing fleets, almost one-third of the total world catch and four times the entire annual catch of the U.S. fishing fleet. In only one Tokyo fish market, over six million pounds of fish and shellfish are sold every day, and most of this seafood is imported. All the protein available to one billion people in Asia and one of every five Africans comes from ocean fish. CSI is not about human populations and standard of living, but the impact of these on marine life requires any thoughtful person to consider the future, for all of us. What about tomorrow, other nations, other life forms, and the fundamental dependence we all have on habitat and biodiversity? Thankfully, these questions are being addressed, albeit still more in word than in practice:

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) took place in South Africa in August, to fiddle officially with these questions. The WSSD declared that: "The international community's approach to biodiversity has changed over the past 10 years. Biological diversity is now considered as an essential part of efforts to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development. Conservation and development are no longer seen as conflicting goals but as mutually interdependent". Only time will tell, if there is a conflict, whether the WSSD members will still side with development. In spite of a major `agreement' of the Summit to restore depleted fisheries and reduce marine pollution from vessels, the official Political Declaration avoided any real commitment to the oceans by any member nations. Other issues that were addressed inadequately included biodiversity protection, corporate accountability, renewable energy, and trade.

The 17th Session of the Global Biodiversity Forum is the next opportunity to fiddle, to be held at Valencia, Spain, 15-17 November 2002. Held in conjunction with the 8th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Ramsar Convention (18-29 November), this session of the GBF will be hosted by 25 organizations, including The World Conservation Union (IUCN), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Ramsar Bureau and Secretariat to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Will the GBF focus on using biodiversity to meet human needs, or to define how humans can fit into nature's plan for biological diversity?

Vladimir Vernadsy, a Soviet geochemist, predicted 70 years ago that human activity would become a significant geological force, like rivers and earthquakes. Had he been a biologist, and armed with concepts like biodiversity and habitat, he would have embraced them instead. He considered but rejected humans as significant as an ice age, but he would have included that if he had known of global warming and genetic manipulation. Vernadsy's vision had a second part, that science would empower "global society" to understand how to soften our collective environmental impacts to create a "noosphere", a planet with "life's domain ruled by reason". Perhaps the WSSD, GDF and many others are reasonable steps towards a noosphere, but will they make a difference in time?

Fisheries Management Councils in the U.S. exemplify the worldwide problem. They make recommendations for managing commercial fish stocks to NMFS. After fiddling too long, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council early this summer had to enforce an emergency closure of much of the continental shelf fishing grounds from Washington to central California for the remainder of 2002. The closure is expected to expand in 2003 in a desperate attempt to slow significant declines in fish stocks. Marine reserves are seeking total closures. To paraphrase a rare fisher who agreed with the emergency actions, it's better to keep something safe in a bank rather that spend everything every payday. The New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) is also controlled by less enlightened commercial interests, and has consistently allowed overfishing in spite of ample scientific warnings of eventual collapse. The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) sued in 1991 to force NMFS and the Council to stop approving management plans that illegally authorized overfishing, under the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries and Conservation Act of 1976. Some in Congress are intent on weakening the Act during its current reauthorization. With elections coming up how does your Senator or Representative feel about that?

The Albatross IV, however, trashed much of the recent data on declining fish populations, when it was found on 3 September to have been operating with incorrect marks used to let out the sampling nets. This northeast fisheries research vessel is used for most of the net trawls used to determine fish populations, but it had been rigged since February 2000 with an unintentional slant in its net, possibly affecting the net's mouth and movement over the ocean bottom. Any distortion would allow fish to escape, and make all catch data invalid. The New England Fisheries Science Center struggled with the obvious frustration of fishermen recently forced to limit their catch because of crashing populations, and attempted to restore confidence with a properly rigged trawling study that would end in November. As ridiculous as the situation was, it is worth noting that almost all scientific studies and actual catches demonstrate that current overfishing is unsustainable.

The Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 (SFA) specifically required NMFS to identify and rebuild overfished New England groundfish stocks by 2009, and to monitor and reduce bycatch by 1998. NMFS had done nothing to comply with the SFA when CLF again sued in May 2000, joined by the National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Ocean Conservancy, and Oceana. Even after a consensus was reached to rebuild both the ground fishery and the economic and social well-being of fishers and their communities the Council ignored its own scientist's advice, and the same month a U.S. District Court found that NMFS had again violated the SFA, by failing to limit overfishing and bycatch. Faced with the inevitable, an assembly of fishing interests joined a coalition to solve the sustainability problem. But they were then opposed by Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, plus an assortment of fishing groups. Even in the face of a stern court, NMFS failed again to prepare a legal or adequate solution. In April the coalition itself split up over a basic issue: if a resource is collapsing, but remedies would cause significant and real hardship to the people responsible or dependent do you accommodate to both needs or sacrifice one for the other? CLF felt that "socioeconomic considerations had to be factored into the remedies and the management plan". The rest of the groups felt that groundfish stocks had to be rebuilt as quickly as possible, perhaps even to close down the New England fleet. A stern but understanding 23rd U.S. District Court made it clear that it sided with the fish and the future, but balanced to preclude "economic and social hardships, as well as injustice to individuals, to families, to fishing communities, and to surrounding cities and states." The current result in this complex issue is that, for example, a Portland trawler previously allowed 88 days at sea is now limited to 70. There is no question that profits will be slim, but only time will answer the bigger question, will the fishery be sustainable? Much sooner than later many more people will have to sacrifice something, as fishermen are doing today. Increasing populations and improving lifestyles will increase meat and fish consumption, but there just won't be enough to go around.