For over twenty percent of the world's people, fishing is more than a pastime – it's a means of survival. The international trade in fish and fish products exceeds $50 billion a year. With demand high and resources finite, the resultant shortfall has global implication.
According to the World Wildlife Federation, a full 50 percent of marine fisheries are fully exploited, twenty percent are over-exploited, and the rest are being harvested in an unsustainable manner. Among the major marine fish stocks, such as cod and tuna, three out of four are being fished beyond their biological limits.
To counter the shortages, many governments, including Canada, have encouraged the rapid growth of aquaculture. As a result, farmed fish now account for one-third of the world's fish production. While this has countered the sustainability concerns, other problems have developed as a result. In Canada, particularly the West Coast, fish farms generate considerable amounts of pollution and waste. The close proximity of the confined fish increases the propagation of sea lice, and escaped farmed fish spread lice and disease to wild stocks. Just last year, as the British Columbia government lifted a seven-year moratorium on new fish farms, one of Vancouver Island's most significant pink salmon runs had already collapsed, and more than three million salmon failed to return to spawning rivers.
Making the international fishing industry sustainable would require some large-scale initiatives, including massive reductions in fishing fleets, concerted effort in controlling illegal fishing and fishing practices, and strictly enforcing limits on the number of fish harvested in a given area. The fish farm industry would also need careful review to ensure that in attempting to meet demand for fish, wild stocks are not completely wiped out in the process.
The solution, some argue, is even simpler: if fishing is banned in a given area for several years, the rebound in stock is significant, the overall catch is increased, and the industry becomes sustainable. Last fall the Economist reported a study which discovered that in some 100 areas where such bans occurred, the number of fish increased 90 percent within a few years, their size increased 30 percent, and the number of species by 20 percent. These effects, the researchers contended, seemed to spill over into adjacent areas where fishing remains permitted.
As the Canadian experience can attest, it is not as easy as all that. Quota regulation of the Atlantic cod stocks was introduced in 1973. Labeled as the Total Allowable Catch (TAC), the policy was ineffective, due to the restrictions being set too high too quickly, and partly because enforcement was not effective. In 1992, Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans took one step further, imposing a moratorium on cod fishing off the coast of Newfoundland, after scientists determined that mature cod stock had dropped by 99 percent from the numbers recorded in the 1980s. Despite these measures, cod stocks really have not seen much of a rebound.
"It is now time for us to take a different approach. Stopping the commercial cod fishery alone will not work," argues Fred Woodman, chairman of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, an arms length body that advises the Federal Fisheries Ministry. He recommends that the government make a long-term commitment to rebuilding the stocks, establishing community councils to make recommendations about the local fishery, and amending the moratorium to provide protection for the most vulnerable areas and allow fishing in those areas where there has been some growth.
The lessons Canada has learned from the moratorium in Newfoundland, the fish farms in the Pacific, and the Atlantic cod industry quotas are ones that need to be shared with other nations facing similar problems.
According to the World Wildlife Federation, a full 50 percent of marine fisheries are fully exploited, twenty percent are over-exploited, and the rest are being harvested in an unsustainable manner. Among the major marine fish stocks, such as cod and tuna, three out of four are being fished beyond their biological limits.
To counter the shortages, many governments, including Canada, have encouraged the rapid growth of aquaculture. As a result, farmed fish now account for one-third of the world's fish production. While this has countered the sustainability concerns, other problems have developed as a result. In Canada, particularly the West Coast, fish farms generate considerable amounts of pollution and waste. The close proximity of the confined fish increases the propagation of sea lice, and escaped farmed fish spread lice and disease to wild stocks. Just last year, as the British Columbia government lifted a seven-year moratorium on new fish farms, one of Vancouver Island's most significant pink salmon runs had already collapsed, and more than three million salmon failed to return to spawning rivers.
Making the international fishing industry sustainable would require some large-scale initiatives, including massive reductions in fishing fleets, concerted effort in controlling illegal fishing and fishing practices, and strictly enforcing limits on the number of fish harvested in a given area. The fish farm industry would also need careful review to ensure that in attempting to meet demand for fish, wild stocks are not completely wiped out in the process.
The solution, some argue, is even simpler: if fishing is banned in a given area for several years, the rebound in stock is significant, the overall catch is increased, and the industry becomes sustainable. Last fall the Economist reported a study which discovered that in some 100 areas where such bans occurred, the number of fish increased 90 percent within a few years, their size increased 30 percent, and the number of species by 20 percent. These effects, the researchers contended, seemed to spill over into adjacent areas where fishing remains permitted.
As the Canadian experience can attest, it is not as easy as all that. Quota regulation of the Atlantic cod stocks was introduced in 1973. Labeled as the Total Allowable Catch (TAC), the policy was ineffective, due to the restrictions being set too high too quickly, and partly because enforcement was not effective. In 1992, Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans took one step further, imposing a moratorium on cod fishing off the coast of Newfoundland, after scientists determined that mature cod stock had dropped by 99 percent from the numbers recorded in the 1980s. Despite these measures, cod stocks really have not seen much of a rebound.
"It is now time for us to take a different approach. Stopping the commercial cod fishery alone will not work," argues Fred Woodman, chairman of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, an arms length body that advises the Federal Fisheries Ministry. He recommends that the government make a long-term commitment to rebuilding the stocks, establishing community councils to make recommendations about the local fishery, and amending the moratorium to provide protection for the most vulnerable areas and allow fishing in those areas where there has been some growth.
The lessons Canada has learned from the moratorium in Newfoundland, the fish farms in the Pacific, and the Atlantic cod industry quotas are ones that need to be shared with other nations facing similar problems.
0 comments:
Post a Comment