This is a guest blog post by Lasse Gustavsson, Executive Director of Oceana in Europe. Oceana is the world’s largest international advocacy organization focused solely on ocean conservation.
Which animal protein requires no fresh water, produces little carbon dioxide, doesn’t require arable land and provides healthy protein at a cost per kilo lower than beef, chicken, lamb or pork, making it accessible to the world’s poor? The answer: wild fish.
Humanity has been fishing for at least 40 000 years and currently almost 500 million people around the world are dependent on the sea as their primary source of protein. Unfortunately, due to extensive overfishing practices, fish resources have disappeared from the ocean and thus directly impact our increasing inability to feed a growing world population. The current world population of 7.2 billion is projected to increase by 1 billion over the next 12 years and will reach 9.6 billion by 2050, according to the United Nations.
Analysis of global fish stocks clearly indicate that our marine resource management is not sustainable – more than 61 percent of the stocks assessed globally have been totally exploited and almost 29 percent are overexploited, according to the latest FAO statistics. This means that 90 percent of the fish in the world is totally exploited or overexploited. That’s a very worrying statistic.
The global situation also affects Europe. The most recent annual report on fishing opportunities by the European Commission reveals similarly worrying figures. 93 percent of Mediterranean stocks are estimated to be overexploited. Nearly half of the fish stocks in the Atlantic are overexploited, although the situation in the Atlantic is showing some signs of hope with a slow recovery trend over recent years. However, the declining stocks of commercially important fish such as cod and sole in the Atlantic and hake and swordfish in the Mediterranean result in less European fish on our dinner tables, less jobs in the European fishing industry and all together huge economic losses.
Overfishing not only jeopardizes the future of commercial fisheries but it also causes irreversible damage to marine biodiversity. Overfishing remains the main driver of extinction of fish species in European waters. This has been verified recently by the IUCNs European Red List assessment.
The 2014 reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) gives us reasons to remain hopeful. European seas can become abundant again. The CFP reform indicates encouraging improvements to EU fisheries management in theory. However, in reality EU fisheries management remains in a poor state.
The situation is in fact appalling – not only do we mismanage our important commercial fish stocks; almost 8 percent of all marine fish species in Europe are now estimated to be under high risk of extinction as a result of overfishing. The Red List assessment shows that the most threatened fish group are sharks and rays (large-bodied cartilaginous fishes).
The good news is that we can rebuild the abundance of European seas. It only requires the political will to take immediate action and reduce catches of endangered species by setting catch limits in line with scientific advice, protecting important habitats and by improving the scientific research and monitoring of fisheries and data-deficient species.
Restoring abundance to European seas will provide us with more healthy fish to eat, more jobs and even contribute to increasing food security in the rest of the world.
As long as the fish is in danger, so are all the people whose livelihoods depend on them.
Save the oceans, feed the world!
Author : Blogactiv Team|
Climate & Environment, Environment, EU Priorities 2020, Fishery, sustainable development , Fishery |
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Good points well made. But surely the number one priority is to clean up the oceans and ensure that the enivronment is one in which fish can survive? Isn’t the biggest threat the increased acidity with warming and the ice melting? Is there anything being done? Waiting for Paris summit but not hopeful.
Thanks for your work Lasse!
Dear Ms Staunton,
In short, it is very difficult to determine exactly what the absolute priority is for the oceans. Clearly, preventing marine pollution is essential for healthy ecosystems and biodiversity. However, it is also true that the oceans are facing an acidification process, warming waters and changes in species distribution as a consequence of climate change. Similarly, the effects of overfishing cannot be understated, since it unbalances food chains and is one of the major threats impacting marine species. Obviously it is impossible for us to focus on all the threats facing the oceans simultaneously so when making our own action plan we prioritize issues which enable us to make the most difference. Thanks for your support in our fight.
Mr. Gustavsson, as I am sure you are aware, the European Commissioner hosted a seminar on the “State of the Stocks” on 14th July where the scientific community presented data showing a positive long term trend of increasing fish populations and a reduction of fishing mortality. The panel explained that many EU stocks have recovered and have delivered stable and sustainable catches, highlighting that long-term management plans and consequent management over the years have been successful. Stocks such as northern hake, cod and plaice in the North Sea and herring and flounder in the Baltic Sea were identified as success stories. In fact, for demersal stocks in the Celtic and West of Scotland, fishing mortality at the lowest levels registered. Plaice is said to have exploded in the North Sea with the highest stocks levels observed. Across all ecoregions, a decrease in fishing mortality and an increase in stock levels has been observed for demersal, flatfish and pelagic stocks.
Of course, there are still many obstacles to overcome since scientists are still unable to explain the situation with Eastern Baltic cod where we have observed a decrease in fishing mortality but in spite of this positive parameter, the stock does not grow. Despite sardine and anchovy stocks already being fished at MSY levels in some areas and bluefin tuna stocks growing strongly, we of course still have some work to do in the Mediterranean, but as STECF stated at the meeting, the recovering potential of the Mediterranean stock is still very high.
We have 48% of stocks with insufficient data. The industry are already working with scientists to improve data collection. Only 10% of EMFF funds for data collection go to processing the data. It is not fair that the industry are paying the price. There is a huge gap between the perception of fishing and the reality. We heard at this meeting how stocks in many areas are being fished at MSY levels yet clearly these positive messages are not being transmitted to OCEANA.
Your comments on stocks being ‘totally exploited’ and ‘over-exploited’ are misleading. Firstly, according to the FAO “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2014”, 71.2% of global stocks are within biologically sustainable levels. The word used by yourself, ‘exploited’, only means fished, yet this can of course mean fished at sustainable levels; a fact you fail to mention. Secondly, the definition of overfishing has evolved so much over the years. Where once it meant stocks below a safe minimum, it now means stocks not yet at maximum in terms of sustainable yield. What would once be considered healthy is now considered overfished. Yet, even by this new definition, a decline in the number of ‘overfished’ stocks could be seen well before Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) targets were in put in place during the CFP Reform. As mentioned before, the North East Atlantic, an area that has seen a substantial reduction in its exploitation rate and an improvement in stock status, there are now 36 stocks being fished at MSY, compared to 27 last year and just two in 2003.
Scaremongering and plastering misleading information in various fora only serves to push our fishing sector unfairly into further disrepute. I would be happy to meet with you to discuss further.
Kathryn Stack,
Managing Director, Europeche
Dear Ms Stack,
Thank you very much for your input. The points you raise deserve a long discussion and I will be happy to meet you to address them in depth. However, here my first reactions to your comments.
Oceana is indeed aware of the declines in fishing mortality. It is a positive trend that we welcome since civil society has been at the forefront pushing for this. Nevertheless, half of the EU’s Atlantic assessed stocks and almost all those in the Mediterranean are overfished. We don’t think this is something to be celebrated. As a token, just two days after the seminar that you mention, ICES recommended to reduce catch limits of sardine in the Bay of Biscay and Atlantic Iberian waters by 94 percent.
We firmly believe that the seas have the potential for recovery, but this recovery is dependent on strong actions being taken on time. In this regard, with 93 percent of Mediterranean stocks being overfished, we consider that in order to restore them more than “some work” –as you put it– needs to be done. Fishing mortality is not decreasing in this sea, meaning that the effort reduction is not at all adequate enough to allow its stocks to recover. As you probably know, both STECF and GFCM called for urgent measures for demersal stocks earlier this year.
Overfished stocks can only improve through sound management and filling in the gap between scientific advice and measures taken by decision makers.
The case of bluefin tuna you mention is a good example of the benefits of science-based, long-term management. This was achieved after many years of hard campaigning by NGOs with the strong opposition to an industrial fleet who refused catch reductions despite stocks on the verge of collapse. We hope now that it is not too late for Baltic cod and that it can follow the same recovery trend, despite factors such as eutrophication that contribute to the fishing pressures leading the stock to its otherwise impending depletion.
During the EMFF approval process, Oceana supported the decision to supply additional funds allocated to data collection. We are happy to see that Europêche shares our concern about the need for more scientific data. We at Oceana believe that accurate scientific data must be used as the basis for the sustainable management of fisheries.
In this line, and leaving aside the wording debate, the Maximum Sustainable Yield concept is a clear enough method to assess the sustainability of fisheries. Currently, only 32 European stocks are fished at or below F-msy, far from the Common Fisheries Policy commitment to exploit all of them at MSY by 2015 or 2020 at the latest. 30 stocks are known to be fished above MSY, and for many others the situation is unknown. This is not good news.
You also quote the FAO. The full sentence in the report reads: “the fraction of assessed stocks fished within biologically sustainable levels has exhibited a decreasing trend, declining from 90 percent in 1974 to 71.2 percent in 2011”. From that figure, 61.3 percent was fully fished, that is, the fishery cannot be expanded, and an additional 28.8 percent was overfished in 2011 – a very worrying fact that speaks for itself about the need to fish in a sustainable and responsible manner.
All the data referred above are taken from official sources and therefore I cannot accept your reference to them as “scaremongering and plastering misleading information”.
Although we acknowledge that Atlantic fisheries management has been improving over the years, it is also clear that much more needs to be done if we want healthy oceans, rich in biodiversity and fishing resources. I am confident that not only Oceana but also the fishing industry want this goal.
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