Fish stocks recovering from overfishing
Some fish stocks that were on the verge of collapse are showing signs of recovery due largely to intensive management practices, according to new research that suggests limits on overfishing are saving imperilled fisheries.
The findings, being published last Friday in the journal Science, blunt dire predictions made in a controversial paper in 2006 that warned of the complete collapse of commercial fish stocks around the globe if fisheries management didn’t change. Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, co-wrote both the 2006 article and the new paper. “I’m far more hopeful than I was in 2006,” he said in an interview. “We’re not only saying this should be done, we’re saying where it has been done it has yielded benefits and a number of ecosystems are recovering and a number of stocks are recovering.”
He said the new study presents a broader picture of the state of the world’s fisheries, finding that in five out of the 10 ecosystems studied, the amount of fish being harvested has been reduced. The discovery offers a glimmer of hope for marine scientists who have for years been pressing governments to bring in more stringent controls on fishing activity as they watched stocks dwindle to near collapse.
The paper cites New England, Iceland and New Zealand as good examples of how curbs on overfishing helped slow stock decline and actually increase in abundance. Haddock on the U.S. side of Georges Bank on the East Coast have rebounded after years of continuous decline. The government introduced closures in 1994 and Worm said the lucrative stock is back to much healthier levels. Stocks off California were also seen to be improving after restrictions were placed on the types of gear that can be used to fish, large areas were closed to certain fishing practices and overall catch rates were decreased.
“It’s a tremendous success story,” Worm said. “It appears that those areas that are successful in fisheries management are employing a diverse suit of tools. They’re not just relying on one thing.”
The paper, which claims to offer the most detailed fisheries assessment ever, comes years after Worm was publicly rebuked by some in the scientific community for his 2006 article.
Ray Hilborn, a professor of fisheries management at the University of Washington, alleged Worm and his co-authors used faulty data when assessing the health of international fish stocks and issuing the alarming predictions. Hilborn, who called the report “bogus,” later met Worm and the two agreed to work together to produce this latest research paper. Of all the stocks they studied, 63 per cent are overfished and there is an increasing trend of stock collapse. “There’s definitely been a big change, but there’s still a long way to go,” he said from Anchorage, Alaska, adding that the new data suggests up to 30 per cent of stocks might be collapsed if current management practices persist.
Canada was one of several countries that lagged behind in changing management practices to address stock depletion and widespread changes in the ecosystem caused by fishing. Worm said Canada, particularly the East Coast, has seen multiple groundfish collapses due to decades of overfishing and poor management practices. The legacy is an ecosystem that has been dramatically altered and may never returned to its former composition, he said.
“Canada stands out as one of the most transformed ecosystems that we have data for, because it has largely shifted from a dominance of groundfish to now invertebrates and pelagic species,” he said. “It’s an ecosystem that has been largely transformed by fishing.”
The authors said of the 200 stocks they had data on, about one-third had not been overfished, a third had been overfished, and the remainder had been overfished but exploitation rates had gone down, giving them a chance to recover.
Time for caution on northern cod: fisheries scientist
Newfoundland and Labrador’s leading expert on cod said Tuesday that while there are strong signs that northern cod is starting to make a comeback, fishermen should still leave it alone.
Inshore fishermen have noticed an increase in the number of cod, and say there should be an increase in the amount they’re allowed catch.
George Rose, a former federal fisheries scientist and the research chair in fisheries science at Memorial University, said there has been a big turnaround recently in the fish’s population — a big change from even three or four years ago.
“Nowhere near back to what they were historically, but they’re starting to look better and better each year. So there’s been some amazing changes in the last couple of years,” he said.
Rose linked some of the change to the recent reappearance of capelin, the main food for cod at this time of the year. However when it comes to increased catch allowances, Rose argued that if ever there was a time for caution, it’s now.
“We are at a critical time, and we’re not at all certain that with an increase [in] the fishery that’s substantial, we couldn’t knock this back down,” he said.
Federal fisheries officials are also being cautious. Northern cod licence holders are allowed to catch 5,700 pounds this year — only 500 pounds more than last year.
Northern cod stocks off of Newfoundland and Labrador suffered a major collapse in the early 1990s, and the federal government imposed a moratorium in 1992. Since then, the federal government has allowed commercial fishing on a limited basis, as well as a food fishery.
Iceland angers fishing industry by pressing ahead with EU regulation
Iceland’s new government is to submit a formal application for European Union membership on July 27th – potentially putting itself on collision course with the country’s fish catching industry. The prime minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, and many members of her party see membership as the only way of returning the country to financial stability after last October’s disastrous meltdown that has devastated the economy.
But the move is being strongly opposed by Iceland’s trawler owners federation who fear that it will open their fishing grounds to plunder from powerful fishing nations like Spain and France. Up to now Iceland’s grounds are largely fished by Icelandic vessels and are controlled by strict quotas, monitored by the Marine Research Institute which usually recommends catch limits.
Only one or two neighbouring states like the Faroe Islands have some limited access.
Recently a small group of British MPs have been in Iceland warning the country not to rush in, pointing out that membership had devastated much of the UK catching industry.
EU officials have said an Icelandic application would probably be looked on favourably by member states and that negotiations could move quickly due to the country’s already strong ties to the bloc. But many observers feel that the EU has envious eyes on Iceland rich fishing and energy reserves (there are strong indications of oil reserves in the region).
The bad news for the fishing industry is that a recent poll showed 61 per cent of Icelanders are in favour of opening accession talks.
Russia’s 1H’09 Fisheries Increase 6.8% to over 1.6 million Tonnes
Russian fishing organizations increased their catch of fish and other seafood products 6.8%, or by 105,800 tonnes, to 1.658 million tonnes in the first half of 2009 compared to the same period of 2008, the Russian State Fisheries Committee said on June 30.
In the Far Eastern seas, fishermen caught 1.052 million tonnes of fish in the half, up by 39,600 tonnes from the same date of 2008.
The catch in the Bering Sea fell by 13,900 tonnes to 141,600 tonnes.
In the northern and southern Kuril Islands, the catch increased by 16,200 tonnes to 85,500 tonnes.
The fish catch in the Sea of Okhotsk grew by 35,300 tonnes to 808,900 tonnes.
The catch in the Barents Sea and the White Sea increased by 85,600 tonnes to 258,800 tonnes so far this year.
In the Baltic Sea, the catch grew by 3,100 tonnes to 25,600 tonnes.
The catch in the Azov and Black seas rose by 4,900 tonnes to 19,100 tonnes.
The fish catch in the Caspian Sea was up 8,200 tonnes to 23,700 tonnes.
Russian fishermen caught 212,400 tonnes of fish in other countries’ zones this year, or 16,000 tonnes more than a year ago.
A total of 68,000 tonnes of fish were caught in regions governed by convention and on the high open seas in the period, down by 51,800 tonnes from a year ago.
Fisheries management shrouded in secrecy, corrupted by politics: study
Fisheries management in most of the world’s coastal states is shrouded in secrecy and corrupted by political pressures, according to a new study that says stock survival hinges on more transparent conservation efforts. The international team of scientists found that only seven per cent of countries bordering water conduct rigorous scientific assessments in drafting their fisheries policies.
The study was published in this week’s issue of PLoS Biology and provides the first global evaluation of how management practices influence fisheries’ sustainability. The study assessed the effectiveness of the world’s fisheries management regimes using evaluations from nearly 1,200 fisheries experts, analyzing these in combination with data on the sustainability of fisheries catches. The Faroe Islands and the Falkland Islands had the best overall rankings, while African and South Pacific countries had some of the worst.
According to the most recent report on the status of the world’s fisheries by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, fisheries supply at least 15% of the animal protein consumed by humans, provide direct and indirect employment for nearly 200 million people worldwide and generate $US85 billion annually. “The world’s fisheries are one of the most important natural assets to humankind,” says lead author Camilo Mora, a Colombian researcher at Dalhousie University and the University of California San Diego. “Unfortunately, our use of the world’s fisheries has been excessive and has led to the decline or collapse of many stocks.”
“The consequences of overexploiting the world’s fisheries are a concern not only for food security and socio-economic development but for ocean ecosystems,” says Boris Worm, a professor at Dalhousie University and co-author of the paper. “We now recognize that overfishing can also lead to the erosion of biodiversity and ecosystem productivity.”
“The different socioeconomic and ecological consequences associated with declining fish stocks are an international concern and several initiatives have been put forward to ensure that countries improve the way they use their marine resources,” explains Mora. “Some of these initiatives include the United Nations Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Although these initiatives have been endorsed by most governments, a global assessment on the extent to which these ideals are actually implemented and effective remains lacking.”
Mora and his colleagues analyzed a set of attributes upon which country-level fisheries could be evaluated. They pinpointed six parameters, including the scientific quality of management recommendations, the transparency of converting recommendations into policy, the enforcement of policies, the influence of subsidies, fishing effort, and the extent of fishing by foreign entities. The results of the study show that wealthier countries, though they have predominantly better science and enforcement capabilities, face the negative repercussions of excessive subsidies and larger fishing capacity, which have resulted largely from increased modernization of national fleets.
In contrast, poorer countries largely lacked robust science and enforcement capabilities and although these nations have less fishing capacity nationally, they disproportionally sold fishing rights to nations that did. The study showed that in 33% of the coastal states classified as low-income (commonly countries in Africa and Oceania) most fishing is carried out by foreign fleets from either the European Union, South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan or the United States.
The only attribute in which poorer and wealthier countries overlapped significantly was their limited ability to convert scientific recommendations into policy. “Transparent policy-making is at the centre of the entire process,” explains co-author Marta Coll, at the Institut de Ciènces del Mar in Spain. “If this is heavily influenced by political pressures or corruption, it is unlikely that good scientific advice will ever be translated into proper regulations. Similarly, authoritarianism in this process is likely to reduce compliance with the resulting policies.”
“This study provided us with a look at both sides of the coin,” says Andrew Rosenberg at the University of New Hampshire, who was not involved in the study. “On one hand, it reminds us of the difficult challenges facing fisheries management globally in protecting critical natural resources from overexploitation. On the other hand it delivers a message of hope that when policy-making is transparent, participatory, and based on science, things can improve.”
Iceland’s Marine Research Institute Recommends 150,000 Tonne Cod Quota
Iceland’s influential Marine Research Institute has recommended an unchanged cod catch quota of 150,000 tonnes for the 2009-10 fishing year which starts at the end of August. The Reykjavik government usually accepts the MRI’s figures.
This is 30,000 tonnes higher than the figure set at this time last year, but the quota was raised in January following new scientific information from the MRI which showed that cod stocks were a lot higher than first thought.
The MRI has said that the allowable cod catch is likely to remain around the 150,000 to 160,000 ton mark for the next three or four years which is good news for the seafood processing industry because it means it can plan ahead with some degree of price certainty.
When the cod quota was slashed by 50,000 tonnes two years ago both wholesale and retail prices throughout Europe moved up sharply, and caused many seafood companies to move away from cod to cheaper varieties such as pollack. But now a large part of that differential has been restored.
The MRI is basing is recommendation on the results of its spring rally which monitors cod stocks around Iceland. They show that the basic index for cod is nine per cent higher than in 2008.This is the second successive year that cod stocks have shown signs of recovery and the first estimate of the 2008 year class cod indicates that it is strong. Haddock catches, however, may face a small cut when the quotas are finalised this month.
European Union Common Fisheries Policy Scrapped
At a meeting in Brussels last week, European fisheries ministers reached an agreement that effectively scraps the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy.
They decided to eliminate the current scheme and the hated practice of discards where fishermen have to throw back perfectly good fish simply because they have reached the end of their quotas. Environmentalists and fishermen alike have long argued that the current system – which is set annually – fails the industry.
Ministers have agreed to draw up a new Common Fisheries Policy by 2012 which will also be radically decentralized, giving more power to the industry over the management of its fish stocks.
The European Commission says more than 80 per cent of Europe’s fish stocks are now overfished compared with a global average of 28 per cent.
The EU is expected to turn to Iceland, which has one of the best fishing conservation record, for advice on creating a new policy.
Marport Extends Best Wishes to the F/V Pacific Glacier
On May 12th 2009, F/V Pacific Glacier re-entered the North Pacific fishing fleet, after a long overhaul and rebuilding effort – a consequence of severe fire damage in the Bering Sea during the 2008 A-season. The vessel was originally built at Todd Shipyard in Seattle as a supply boat and rebuilt by Mjellem & Karlsen in Norway in 1988. The 92 metre factory trawler is now fitted with advanced marine electronics designed to maximize its efficiency in navigation and fishing operations including a state of the art integrated bridge system allowing instant access of information, propulsion and fishing gear controls .
The F/V Pacific Glacier has been fitted with Marport’s Smart Catch® trawl monitoring solution including multi-function sensors for trawl door distance, depth, pitch and roll, a Trawl Explorer wireless net sounder with depth and temperature functions, a trawl speed sensor and multiple catch sensors. All Marport sensors have been integrated into the vessel’s high speed data network allowing multiple customized display presentations for instant access of trawling information, from multiple locations around the vessel.
A complete sea trial of trawl gear and monitoring equipment was successfully conducted in the Puget Sound in preparation to the start of the hake fishing season on the USA west coast.
Marport extends best wishes to the owners and crew for successful fishing. Welcome back to the fleet!
North Atlantic shrimp fishery may be vulnerable to climate change
About 150,000 tonnes of northern shrimp are caught each year by Canadian trawlers, mostly off Newfoundland.
The $500 million North Atlantic shrimp fishery may be vulnerable to climate change that could disrupt the crustaceans’ life cycle and mislead them into hatching when food is scarce, scientists said.
Any damage to stocks of the northern shrimp — a small, sweet-tasting variety popular in salads — could have knock-on effects in the ocean food chain ranging from algae to cod, according to a Canadian-led team of experts.
“Shrimp can provide valuable insight into broad changes in the marine ecosystem. They are the marine equivalent of the canary in the mine shaft – an indicator of climate change,” said Peter Koeller, the lead author of the study at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Canada.
“Shrimp are very sensitive to changes in environmental conditions, be they global warming-driven or otherwise,” Koeller said. “So they can be used as indicators of ecosystem change and may show changes in their populations.”
Writing in last week’s edition of the journal Science, the scientists said that the shrimp timed mating so that their eggs hatch when algae that shrimp larvae feed on are most abundant.
“They have evolved to mate the previous year at just the right time to take advantage of spring blooms,” said Koeller. Eggs carried by the females take between 6 and 10 months to incubate over the winter.
But climate change could decouple the match between seabed temperatures and food, he said of findings with colleagues in the United States, Britain, Denmark, Iceland and Norway.
The scientists found that the crustaceans, which live from the Gulf of Maine to Arctic waters north of Norway, time their mating according to water temperatures on the seabed where the adults live. Warmer waters could disrupt that timing.
He said that’s why the shrimp population exploded off Newfoundland in the late ’80s as cod stocks — which feed on shrimp — plummeted and water temperatures cooled. That allowed the shrimp eggs to hatch closer to when phytoplankton blooms occur and when surface water warms up. The danger is that if water temperatures rise as a result of global warming, the shrimp’s mating cycles could be thrown off, and algae might not be as plentiful.
The scientists said a drop in shrimp populations could be the first sign of fundamental changes to the marine environment and that fisheries managers need to consider ecosystem conditions when assessing stocks.
The shrimp make up about 70 percent of the 500,000 tons of cold-water shrimp harvested annually from the world’s oceans. The shrimp fishery is estimated to be worth about $500 million.
Koeller said shrimp were an important link in the food chain — they feed on algae and are in turn eaten by fish. Overfishing of cod has helped a sharp rise in shrimp populations.
The U.N. Climate Panel says that a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, caused mainly by mankind’s use of fossil fuels, could push up world temperatures and cause more heat waves, more powerful storms and rising ocean levels.
Iceland reports total catch value increases over 40% in January 2009
The total value of catch of Icelandic vessels amounted to 6.8 billion ISK in January 2009, compared with 4.8 billion ISK in the first month of 2008.
Total value increased by 40.3% between years.
The data published in the tables abive are based on weight and processing reports, collected from fish buyers and reported to the Icelandic Directorate of Fisheries. Figures for the year 2009 are preliminary, but final for 2008. Final figures have through the years been seen to become somewhere between 1-2% higher in total than preliminary figures.
