Complete collapse of North Atlantic fishing predicted

New Scientist ^ | 10:30 18 February 02 | Kurt Kleiner, Boston

[semper_libertas]

Complete collapse of North Atlantic fishing predicted

The entire North Atlantic is being so severely overfished that it may completely collapse by 2010, reveals the first comprehensive survey of the entire ocean's fishery.

"We'll all be eating jellyfish sandwiches," says Reg Watson, a fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia. Putting new ocean-wide management plans into place is the only way to reverse the trend, Watson and his colleagues say.

Concentrations of biomass of "table" fish have disappeared

North Atlantic catches have fallen by half since 1950, despite a tripling of the effort put into catching them. The total number of fish in the ocean has fallen even further, they say, with just one sixth as many high-quality "table fish" like cod and tuna as there were in 1900. Fish prices have risen six fold in real terms in 50 years.

The shortage of table fish has forced a switch to other species. "The jellyfish sandwich is not a metaphor - jellyfish is being exported from the US," says Daniel Pauly, also at the University of British Columbia. "In the Gulf of Maine people were catching cod a few decades ago. Now they're catching sea cucumber. By earlier standards, these things are repulsive," he says.

Off limits

The only hope for the fishery is to drastically limit fishing, for instance by declaring large portions of the ocean off-limits and at the same time reducing the number of fishing ships. Piecemeal efforts to protect certain fisheries have only caused the fishing fleet to overfish somewhere else, such as west Africa.

"It's like shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic," says Andrew Rosenberg, at the University of New Hampshire. He says the number of boats must be reduced: "Less is actually more with fisheries. If you fish less you get more fish."

Normally, falling catches would drive some fishers out of business. But government subsidies actually encourage overfishing, Watson says, with subsidies totalling about $2.5 billion a year in the North Atlantic.

However, Rosenberg was sceptical that any international fishing agreements currently on the table will turn the tide in a short enough timescale. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the OECD have initiatives but these are voluntary, he says. A UN-backed monitoring and enforcement plan of action is being discussed but could take 10 years to come into force.

Pauly says only a public reaction like that against whaling in the 1970s would be enough to bring about sufficient change in the way the fish stocks are managed.

The new survey was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's 2002 annual meeting in Boston.

Kurt Kleiner, Boston

10:30 18 February 02

[kezekiel]

The best use of a government bureaucrat in the fishing industry might be as bait.

ROFL! I propose we rename the Department of Education to the Department of Chum, and let's go fishin'!

[TADSLOS]

Perhaps a new program to enrichen destitute inner city males might be in the, ahem, offing?

Are you referring to Bill Clinton in the Bronx? You mean he might have a shot at a small businesss opportunity doing something he's obviously talented at? Think of all of those potential soccer mom customers lining up for a taste of Bill...

[mrsmith]

As usual, the socialist's have a feudalist solution to the "problem of the Commons"-
designate parts of it as "sovereign lands".

Vaguely germane historical note:
First(?) US treaty on Grand Banks fishing:

The Paris Peace Treaty of September 3, 1783
"In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity. ...
Article 3:
It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank and on all the other banks of Newfoundland, also in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and at all other places in the sea, where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish. And also that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use, (but not to dry or cure the same on that island) and also on the coasts, bays and creeks of all other of his Brittanic Majesty's dominions in America; and that the American fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled, but so soon as the same or either of them shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement without a previous agreement for that purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground. "

[Physicist]

I agree on the issue of property rights, and this is a clear case of "tragedy of the commons." The problem with an ocean is you can "privatize" a chunk of the ocean, but unless you can build underwater fences, you have no way of controlling ingress and egress from that spot.

Ownership would be applied to the fish in the sea themselves, not to areas of the sea. A person owning some number of shares of, say, Atlantic cod would say, "I own x percent of the cod in the Atlantic." Of course, you can't label fish like you can cattle on the open range. Fish are a commodity. You'd instead treat fish coming out of the ocean like power coming off the grid. (The comparison I'm making here is to an honestly deregulated power industry like we have here in Pennsylvania, not to a monopoly power system.)

The shareholders would be the "producers" and the fishermen the "consumers". A fisherman contract with a shareholder to buy some of his fish, up to an agreed-upon limit, at an agreed-upon price. It's still up to the fisherman to catch the fish, but it doesn't matter where he catches them; he's just "pulling them off the grid". The shareholder would be legally unable to sell more fish than he holds the rights to, and the fisherman legally unable to catch more fish than he has arranged to purchase.

Of course, some people are going to cheat. (Poaching will be a problem under any conceivable approach to limiting the catch.) The advantage here is that private citizens suddenly have a monetary incentive to put a stop to it; that's real money coming out of their pockets. If the fisheries are considered an unowned resource, poaching is a victimless crime and so is unlikely to be addressed in a meaningful way.

Ecofreaks would be able to protect all the fish they wanted, if they cared to. It's just a matter of putting up enough cash.

[semper_libertas]

"Don't get me wrong, sportsmen would love 46 inchers"

wow, they would have to get help measuring em that long...most men could reach only about 33".

(think about it...it'll come to you)

[semper_libertas]

"You mean he might have a shot at a small businesss opportunity"

a small but crooked enterprise he would be experienced at, yes.

[Tauzero]

Finshing rights should be transferable property.

[semper_libertas]

" It was an example of government enforced management practices that "worked" from the POV of most anglers I know. "

Fair enough, everything is a negotiation. Best to start bold, cave on the little stuff....then beat the cr@p out of em in a dark alley.

[RobbyS]

I figure that one returns fall below a certain level, boats will be beached and some monopoly will impose its own solution. This is what happend in the oil industry.

[SlickWillard]

Sounds like capitalism will be the MOST effective means of regulation.

Capitalism, or, more properly, private property, is the solution here. The problem is that the fish are not the property of any person, or group of people, so no person, or group of people, is motivated to defend them. If someone owned these fish, you can be damn sure they'd defend them against poachers. They'd also make sure that the fish reproduced themselves.

Africa has the same problem with the sex market in rhinoceros horns. Asians believe that ground rhinoceros horns are an aphrodisiac, and African poachers kill off the state owned herds with impunity. Because no one owns the rhinoceri, no one is motivated to defend them.

[Tauzero]

Well, the equilibrium point could be zero table fish.

The problem IMO is that fishing rights are not transferable property. The stock of fish itself therefore has much less value to the fisherman -- rather like someone who has a derivative claim on a stock's dividend, he's not interested in retaining earnings because they're not his.

[semper_libertas]

oh geez, I'm ready to start locking and loading right now (I'll calm down) ;0)

...thanks again for providing the REAL world insight. THAT is EXACTLY how the government screws up the situation.

This situation is SCREAMING for the removal of government subsidies and interference. But NOBODY will EVER succeed in implementing a solution that DOESN'T create MORE government involvement.

Which bureaucrat will EVER vote himself out of a job?

We need a "Boston Tea Party" of Atlantic proportions.

[Grampa Dave]

Carry for your info and hopefully some comments!

[TheDon]

Normally, falling catches would drive some fishers out of business. But government subsidies actually encourage overfishing, Watson says, with subsidies totalling about $2.5 billion a year in the North Atlantic.

I had to read a bit to find the problem, but I knew it was the gov'ts fault.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

This is what happens when you have a "commons" rather than property rights. The ONLY workable answer is to extend nation sovereignty with regards to resource exploitation out to the midpoint of the ocean. Each nation can then auction off fishing rights at a level that will assure sustainability, or else resign themselves to eventually having to import fish at exorbitant prices from those nations that do conserve their fishing stocks -- or else develop a taste for jellyfish sandwiches.

(Yes, I know that fish swim and don't respect political boundaries. In an imperfect world, a solution doesn't need to be a perfect solution, just a good solution.)

[Tauzero]

"the passenger pigeon complete 100% reality, unregulated hunting and demand wiped out a species in a few years that numbered in the billions, now there really, really, really aren't *any*"

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[junta]

What was the method of catch in the movie the "Perfect Storm?"

[KC_Conspirator]

This sounds like another "urban sprawl"-type alarum, leading to more laws, taxes, and restrictions. I understand there are groups trying to outlaw all fishing, even sport fishing....

Much like the book The Population Bomb which was a bestseller over 30 years ago and predicted mass famine and ecological destruction in western civilized countries by the year 2000. Of courses, not one prediction of book came true...

[Carry_Okie]

I did make some comments here.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for your insight.

Do you see aqua culture happening on the East Coast like out here in on the West Coast and in BC to help increase the fish populations in the Atlantic!