Failing Fishery Management: report and video illustrate excesses by EU and Japan

The logic is so simple: if you harvest from a finite resource without giving back then you will deplete it.

But combating that is the economic principal that requires the use of available resources to meet market demand and sustain business growth.

These are the concepts that fishery management has been wrestling with for decades - and it is becoming more and more apparent that economic interests win in the short term and the environment loses in the long term.

I have sited in past postings the European Union's inability to effectively manage its industrial fishing. It has failed to the extant that it moves from one species to another, harvesting until there effectively is no more in their territorial waters. And so they export their trade to other countries, fishing in the territorial waters of developing countries who are lured by the economic gains of providing fishing rights and/or fishing crews to prop up struggling economies - ultimately sacrificing their natural resources for short term gain.

A report recently published by the New Economics Foundation declares that the EU has now basically consumed all of its own fish and must look elsewhere to meet demand. The report says the EU has reached a "fish dependence day" and is now having to live off the rest of the world when it comes to seafood.

The report, Fish Dependence: The Increasing Reliance of the EU on Fish From Elsewhere, states, "In a context of finite resources and growing populations, the current EU model is unsustainable. The EU's increasing fish dependence has implications for the fish stocks in other countries, which are also overfished, and for the communities that depend upon them."

It makes me recall the science fiction film, Independence Day, which portrays an attack on the earth by malevolent aliens that travel the galaxies, plundering all the natural resources of a victim planet before moving on to the next one. We don't need fictional aliens to see that that is exactly what is happening right now in our oceans.

Click here to download a copy of the report.

Also making the rounds of various online forums right now is a startling video from Alex Hofford, showing industrial shark fishing at its most graphic. In the Japanese city of Kesen-numa City, blue sharks and salmon sharks are piled high like cord wood, awaiting processing which includes the removal of their fins and, in the case of the salmon sharks, their hearts. In watching the video I was struck by the methodical way in which the workers went about their business - with gentle musak playing in the background and visitors walking above.

Here are hundreds and hundreds of sharks - animals that, because of their low reproductive rates, can in no way withstand such massive harvesting - all being dispatched like cattle in a slaughterhouse. And to the Japanese, that is exactly what it is. This is something that many western pro-shark advocates fail to appreciate: to the Asian markets, seafood is food, no different than beef or poultry. The butchering of sharks to them is no different than the butchering of cattle or chickens.

But there is one crucial difference: cattle and poultry are breed and raised for consumption; the majority of seafood is not.

The Asian markets may not have developed sizable cattle and poultry operations, and they may never will. But if any society - Asian, European or otherwise - is going to respond to a growing market demand for seafood, then they must make a concerted commitment and effort in developing effective and environmentally-safe aquaculture while also radically changing open-water commercial fishing as we know it today. Unless capable of being successfully grown in an aquaculture environment, some commercial species will need to be severely restricted, if not off limits all together.

The EU report states, "There is only so much fishing that our oceans can sustain. So for fisheries policies to be sustainable, they need to acknowledge and respect the ecological limits of the marine ecosystems on which they depend."

The logic is simple. But the motivation to act in the face of a bleak future is apparently difficult.

Read more about the EU fisheries report in the Guardian.
See the shark fishery video at Alex Hofford Photography.

European Shark Week 2009: no Jaws hype, just the facts

In the past I have blogged about shark conservation issues that involve the European Union and their regulations regarding commercial shark fishing or the recognition of certain shark species as being threatened. (Most recent post on the subject.)

The Save Our Seas Foundation, a leading ocean conservation group that puts an emphasis on the current fate of sharks worldwide, has been promoting European Shark Week 2009 (no, not the Discovery Channel's) which will take place starting this Saturday. Here's some information about the event from Save Our Seas:

Join us in European Shark Week 2009, 10-18 October 2009

Predator turned prey
Turning the Tide for Sharks
Most European shark populations are declining from overfishing. One-third are threatened with extinction. The EU ban on “finning” – slicing off a shark’s fins and discarding the body at sea – is among the world’s weakest.

Hope lies with the new Shark Plan, adopted by the European Commission thanks in large part to support from many of you. The Plan sets the stage for vast improvements in EU shark policies, including the finning ban. Its success depends on collaboration and action by EU Fisheries Ministers and the European Commission. These fishery managers need encouragement from the European public to follow through on the Plan’s initiatives and truly safeguard sharks.

European Shark Week 2009
This year’s European Shark Week will take place from 10-18 October. It’s a unique opportunity for people across Europe to demonstrate their support for shark conservation and effect change.

What is European Shark Week?
The Shark Alliance has declared one week in October as European Shark Week – a time for enthusiasts to express their fascination and concern for sharks, bring new voices to the debate about their conservation, and encourage policy makers to secure the future health of their populations.

Are there sharks in Europe?
European waters contain a diverse array of about 70 species of sharks, more than 50 species of skates and rays, and seven species of chimaeras. Sharks and rays are found from the cold North Sea to the warmest waters of the Mediterranean Sea, from estuaries to the deep ocean depths, and even in the Baltic and Black Seas.

Isn’t there already a European Union finning ban?
Yes, the EU has banned finning for all its vessels and prohibits generally all removal of fins from sharks on board vessels. However, a derogation to the ban allows the removal of fins from sharks under a “special fishing permit” and uses a complicated and excessive fin-to-carcass ratio to try and ensure no shark carcasses are dumped overboard. This loophole, together with the legal ability for vessels to land shark fins and bodies in separate ports, make the EU ban one of the weakest finning prohibitions in the world.

The Save Our Seas Foundation is working with many organization throughout Europe to help spread the word and educate more and more people regarding the current fate of sharks and the critical role they play in maintaining a healthy marine ecosystem.

SOS . . . keep up the great work!

For the latest news on European Shark Week follow the SOSF European Shark Week Blog

Sharks On The Agenda: international RFMO consider better management

A recent meeting held in San Sebastian, Spain by the Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMO) produced some consensus on the need to control and better manage shark fisheries. The RFMOs are an international matrix of regional territories, each territory including certain key countries, with the responsibility of managing fisheries to not only insure their commercial future but the conservation of the species involved ranging from tuna to sharks to turtles to sea birds.

Concern over major fish stocks like tuna had preoccupied the RFMOs for some time but now concern has been raised regarding shark populations and the taking of sharks either deliberately or as accidental bycatch.

In a recent press release from Oceana:

Fishing Nations Seek Cooperative Action to Manage Shark Fisheries Worldwide

Washington -- Oceana issued the following statement from senior vice president for North America and chief scientist Dr. Michael F. Hirshfield in response to decisions made today in San Sebastian to manage shark fisheries worldwide.

"Oceana is encouraged by the language adopted today in San Sebastian concerning sharks and is pleased that fishing nations have included commitments for cooperative actions and concrete measures to regulate shark fisheries. These vulnerable species have suffered a lack of attention for far too long, and we now hope to see precautionary and ecosystem-based management implemented for sharks worldwide.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas seeks the cooperative management for 72 shark species, but today scientific advice only exists for two of them. Oceana shows that there is need to establish precautionary fishing limits for shark species caught in international waters.

Oceana would like to commend the United States delegation, with additional efforts by the European Union, for their persistence and commitment to ensuring that action-forcing language was adopted at the meeting,

Sharks are no longer ‘off the books' for the world's RFMOs. The world's regional tuna fishery management organizations are now on notice that they need to take specific, concrete steps to conserve sharks as soon as possible. We look forward to working with fishery managers to ensure that commitments made today result in true, in-the-water protections for sharks."

Good news but it will take continued vigilance to insure that their actions are sufficient and that there is the proper observance and enforcement to make it stick.