MARINE FISHERIES , POPULATION CONSUMPTION : SCIENCE POLICY

I. INTRODUCTION As population pressure on aquatic resources escalates, there is a pressing need to identify and integrate science and policy solutions related to water pollution, coastal area degradation and the depletion of living aquatic resources. This paper presents an environmental perspective on some of the science and policy issues that must be addressed in order to more effectively manage population and consumption pressures on marine fisheries, which account for more than 80% of world fish production. The world now faces a global fishing crisis of unprecedented proportions. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 70% of the worlds commercially important marine fish stocks are fully fished, overexploited, or depleted. In a third of the world's major marine fishing regions, the catch has declined by 20% or more from peak years. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that "unless industrial fishing fleets are controlled through national and international regulation,... disastrous social and economic consequences await the entire industry, including food shortages in the coastal communities of developing countries where seafood provides the major source of dietary protein... as well as jobs." The global situation is mirrored in the U.S., where 83% of assessed fish stocks where the status is known have been classified by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) as fully fished or overexploited. Included among these are such popular food fish as swordfish in the Atlantic, most groundfish species, including flounder, haddock and cod off New England, salmon in the Pacific and redfish in the Gulf of Mexico. The marine fisheries of the world face a triple threat: overfishing, habitat loss and pollution. II. OVERFISHING AND DEPLETION Population Pressures Fish provide a vital source of food for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Overall, the marine catch accounts for 16% of global animal protein consumption. In general people in developing countries rely on fish as a part of their daily diets much more heavily than those residing in developed countries. For example, fish accounts for roughly 29% of the total animal protein in the diet of Asian populations, but only 7% for North Americans. The use of fish as a source of food rose from 40 million tons in 1970 to 72 million tons in 1993. Population is by far the most important factor in this burgeoning demand, accounting for roughly two thirds of change in total demand. At current rates of world population growth, the total world supply of food fish (marine, freshwater, and aquaculture) would have to grow from roughly 72 million tons in 1993 to 91 million tons by 2010 to maintain today's per capita fish supplies, according to FAO. How to meet this demand is a key question. Most of the world's major fisheries have experienced significant declines due to overharvesting and depletion of the stocks. As a result, after decades of vigorous growth, world fish production has stagnated since 1989, and overall production has been maintained only by the growth of aquaculture, where production has more than doubled from 7 million tons in 1984 to 16 million tons in 1993. Aquaculture is now estimated to provide 23% of world food fish supplies. III. POLLUTION AND HABITAT LOSS Pollution and coastal habitat loss, dealt with in other papers presented at this symposium, have crucial implications for marine fisheries and their ability to provide food for future generations. Coastal waters provide critical spawning, nursery or other habitat for many commercially important marine fish populations. These waters are under a multitude of assaults that stem principally from human activities on land. For example, roughly 80% of marine pollution is estimated to come from land based sources. Development along the coast has destroyed an estimated 50% of all coastal wetlands worldwide. And global climate change has the potential to dramatically affect marine fisheries through the alteration of temperature regimes and impacts related to sea level rise. Ozone depletion and attendant increases in ultraviolet radiation are also of concern: increased ultraviolet radiation has been shown to result in significant biological and ecological damage to phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish, benthic organisms, and corals. Fish production itself can have significant effects on coastal habitat. Commercial dragging operations for fish, clams, sea urchins and other commercial species have extensively altered near shore bottom habitat. Aquaculture operations also impact coastal environments through the removal of existing mangrove, wetland and other communities in order to construct aquaculture facilities such as shrimp ponds. The addition of fish food, faeces, antibiotics and other pollutants from aquaculture can also impact coastal water quality. Finally, aquaculture can pose threats to the genetic integrity of wild populations and contribute to the spread of disease among them when farmed individuals mix with wild populations. The linkages between pollution and habitat destruction on the one hand and impacts on marine fish populations on the other are often difficult to quantify, particularly for offshore fisheries. These threats may disproportionately affect small scale artisanal fishers who cannot easily move out of fishing areas damaged by pollution and habitat destruction.

World Fisheries: Declines, Potential and Human Reliance

When we can drain the Ocean into mill-ponds,and bottle up the Force of Gravity, to be sold by retail, in gas jars; then may we hope to comprehend the infinitudes of man's soul under formulas of Profit and Loss; and rule over this too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and valves, and balances - Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish essayist, historian

1. Fish Stocks and Fish Harvests

We can group economically important marine organisms in to five major families:

Demersal fish. These are bottom-living fish such as cod and haddock. These species tend to concentrate on broad continental shelves, especially of the North Atlantic.

Pelagic fish. Pelagic fishes are species that inhabit the water column, such as herring, mackerel, anchovy, and tuna. The most spectacular fish catches are made of surface-shoaling pelagic species. Demersal fishes and Pelagic fishes combines make up the majority of the fish catch--about 72 million tons per year.

Crustaceans. This group consists of bottom-dwelling species (crabs and lobsters) as well as swimming invertebrates (krill, shrimp)Crustacean fisheries are important to many countries and regions, such as the Chesapeake Bay of the U.S. About 4 million tons of this group are harvested each year. Molluscs and Cephalopods. These include various species of squid, cuttlefish, and octopus. More cephalopod stocks are harvested by the Japanese than by any other nation. They also serve as an important source of protein for many Mediterranean and developing countries. About 2.5 million tons of cephalopods are harvested each year. Marine mammals. This group has been heavily exploited for oil and meat, although they make a relatively small portion of the global fish catch. Following the commercial extinction of the large baleen whales such as the blue, humpback, and fin, smaller species such as the minke and sei are being taken. Dolphins and porpoises are hunted locally, particularly in some tropical archipelagos.

Figure 1: Families of economically important fish 2. The Importance of Fish

Why are we concerned about the status of our global fisheries? In addition to more lofty environmental reasons, such as the preservation of biodiversity, humans have stock in the status of our world's fisheries. Here are some statistics to give you an idea of the scope of human dependence on marine life: Over 90% of the world's living biomass is contained in the oceans, which cover 71% of the Earth's surface. At present, we harvest about 0.2% of marine production. (You might think that there is room for growth). Marine sources provide about 20% of the animal protein eaten by humans. Another 5% is provided indirectly via livestock fed with fish. 60% of fish consumption is by the developing world. In Asia, about 1 billion people rely on fish as their primary source of protein. Estimates suggest that seafood production from wild fish stocks will be insufficient to meet growing U.S. and Global demand for seafood products in the next century. The fishing enterprise employs some 200 million people worldwide.

3. Principles and Terms

First, we need to become familiar with some terms used when discussing fish populations and the fishing industry. Stock. A stock is the portion of a species or population that is harvestable. Stock Assessment is the estimation of abundance of a resource, rate at which it is being removed, and reference rates for sustainable yields. Fishing Mortality Rate is a function of the fishing effort (amount, types of gear, etc.) Harvest Rate The harvest rate is the fraction or amount of stock harvested per year.

Production Rate. The production rate is the sum of growth in weight of individual fish, plus the addition of biomass from new recruits, minus loss in biomass to natural mortality. Production Function shows the relationship between production rate and fishing effort. As effort increases, the biomass drops and the production function typically goes through a fairly stable maximum. To aid in fish management, we can assess stocks by using a combination of three methods: biological sampling annual catch statistics catch per unit effort statistics Stock assessment and management is becoming increasingly important, as is illustrated by these statistics on the global harvest history: Total catch has climbed fairly steadily since the 1950's. Now, about 100 million metric tons/year are taken from the sea. This figure seems to be stabilizing. However, the harvest per capita has grown little (see Figure 2). This implies that if the current limit can not be increased, seafood availability per person will shrink as population expands. This will lead to rising prices.

Figure 2: Global absolute and per capita fish catch, 1950-2000

4. Evidence of Over-Exploitation
We can assemble a large amount of evidence that points to the fact that our marine resources have been over-exploited. First, there is a long list of over-utilized resources. These are some species which have been overfished: New England groundfish and flounder Southeast Spiny Lobster Atlantic Bluefin Tuna and Swordfish Main Hawaiian Island Bottomfish and Pelagic Armorhead Large Coastal Sharks Gulf of Mexico King Mackerel and Pink Shrimp Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean Reef Fish Complex Pacific Ocean Perch North Pacific Albacore Oysters, Hard Clams, and Abalones in many location Secondly, the dates at which over-fishing began for various North Atlantic fisheries are alarming. From the table below, we can see that as we overfished one species, we simply moved to another and overfished that as well.

Table 2: Peak catch year of some fish species

Species Pacific herring Atlantic herring Atlantic cod South African Pilchard Haddock Peruvian anchovy Polar cod Cape hake Silver hake Atlantic redfish Cape horse mackerel Chub mackerel Blue whiting Alaska Pollock North Pacific hake Japanese pilchard TOTALS Peak Year Peak Catch 1992 Catch 1964 1966 1968 1968 1969 1970 1972 1972 1973 1976 1977 1978 1980 1986 1987 1988 --0.7 4.1 3.9 1.7 1.0 13.1 0.35 1.1 0.43 0.20 0.7 0.7 3.4 1.1 6.5 6.8 0.30 5.4 51.48 0.20 1.50 1.20 0.10 0.20 5.50 0.02 0.20 0.05 0.04 0.30 0.40 0.90 0.50 3.10 0.50 0.06 2,5 21.77 Decline Percent Change (in millions of tons) 0.5 2.6 2.7 1.6 0.8 7.6 0.33 0.9 0.38 0.16 0.4 0.3 2.5 1.8 3.4 1.8 0.24 2.9 29.71 -71% -63% -69% -94% -80% -58% -94% -82% -88% -80% -57% -46% -74% -26% -52% -26% -80% -54% -58%

Greater yellow croaker 1974

South American Pilchard 1985

Source: FAO
Finally, specific examples of fishery declines highlight the over-consumption problem.

5. New Methods, New Targets, and Over-Capacity

Numerous statistics point to over-capacity: Despite warnings of a slowdown in the marine catch in the 1970's and 80's, the fishing industry increased fishing efforts. Over the past 40 years, the technology used in fishing has improved. Now, boats are more powerful, fish are located electronically through sonar, larger nets are used, and there are just more fishing operations. Today, the industry is twice as large as necessary. It could go back to the smaller, fewer boats of 1970 and still produce the same yield. This overcapacity is global: Norway is 60% over, while the European Union is 40% over. In the U.S., there are ten times the number of boats needed for the surf clam industry.

Figure 3: Drift-net in use. How did this overcapacity develop? Competition led to an all-comers welcome approach. More competition for declining resources leads to overcapitalization in ever larger boats and nets. Drift nets (see Figure 3) are a spectacular example of the new more efficient fishing methods. These monster nets (50 feet by up to 65 km) kill all that they encounter. They are banned by every fishing country within its own territorial waters. The combination of Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese drift nets cast every night in international waters reaches about 48,000 km-enough to encircle the globe. Another piece of evidence suggesting that we are overharvesting our seas is that we have been relegated to fishing for previously unfished stocks. We are now eating species heretofore thought of as "bait". The Peruvian Anchovy Fishery To illustrate how overcapacity works, we will study the example of the Peruvian anchovy, which in boom years was the largest new fishery in the world. Before 1950, fish in Peru were harvested mainly for human consumption. The total annual catch was 86,000 tons. In 1953, the first fish meal plants were developed. Within 9 years, Peru became the number one fishing nation in the world by volume. This lead to a period of boom years in Peru. 1,700 purse seiners exploited a 7month fishing season. Fearing a crash, in 1970, a group of scientists in the Peruvian government issued a warning. They estimated that the sustainable yield was around 9.5 million tons, a number that was currently being surpassed (see Figure 4). The government turned a deaf ear toward its own scientists. Due to the collapse of the Norwegian and Icelandic herring fisheries the previous year, Peru was more poised than ever to earn yet more hard currency. Therefore, in 1970, the government allowed a harvest of 12.4 million tons. The following year, 10.5 million tons were harvested. In 1972, the combination of an El Nino year and the prolonged overfishing led to a complete collapse of the fishery. It has not recovered.

Figure 4: Annual catch of thePeruvian Anchovy Fishery 6. Maximum Sustained Yield of the World's Oceans from 1960To fish our waters more sustainably, we need to know what the sustained maximum yield is. One theoretical 1990 Figure 5: Relative productivity of ocean zones

estimate puts the estimated annual production at 240 million metric tons. The estimated annual harvest is half of this: 100-120 mmt. The current annual harvest is about 100 mmt. Not all areas of the ocean are equally productive (Figure 5). As you can see from this figure, the coastal margins such as mangroves and saltmarshes are much more productive relative to their volume than the open ocean. Therefore, to accurately estimate the maximum yield of the ocean, we must look at the zones separately. The estimate used above was obtained by dividing the ocean into three zones: open ocean, coastal areas, and upwelling areas. The estimate for the productivity of each of the three zones was estimated based on three values: primary plant production, food chain length, and food chain efficiency. To further understand the relationship these values and productivity, you may want to review some lectures from last semester: The Flow of Energy: Primary Production explains how primary production is estimated in marine waters, and The Flow of Energy: Higher Trophic Levels discusses ecological efficiency of the food chain and the loss of energy with each trophic transfer (the "10% Rule").

Figure 6: High phytoplankton production zones

Figure 6 shows the areas of highest phytoplankton production. It is these areas upon which we most rely for our fish. Blooming across large regions, phytoplankton form large fields that sustain the marine food web. A high proportion of these productive zones are found where the ocean is rich in minerals. 99% of the worldwide annual commercial ocean catch comes from coastal waters, within 200 nautical miles of the coastline. These narrow coastal fringes of the world's oceans are at once its most productive and most vulnerable zones. Food chains tend to be short in highly productive areas, such as upwelling zones, and longer in the open ocean (see Figure 8 below). As a consequence, not only is there less primary production in the open ocean, but it must be transferred through many more levels of the food chain before reaching the trophic level that we harvest. Because each transfer of energy from trophic level to trophic level has an average efficiency of about 10%, much less energy is available to humans if we are consumers at the end of a long food chain.

Figure 8: Food chains of the open ocean, continental shelves, and upwelling zones We can now combine all of this information (Table 2). Nutrient availability, primary production, food chain length and food chain efficiency all differ across these three zones. We suspect that food chain efficiency is highest in the upwelling zone because organisms are concentrated within a small area. Note that coastal and upwelling zones contribute about equally to harvestable fish production, while the open ocean's contribution is relatively small. Table 2: Estimated Production of Harvestable Fish Open Ocean Nutrient concentration Primary Production Food Chain Length Ecological Efficiency Fish Production low low long lower negligible Coastal Waters Intermediate Intermediate Intermediate ------------> about half of total Upwelling Areas high high short higher about half of total

A Paradox: "Fishing Down" reduces yields. Pauly, Dalsgaard and colleagues analyzed diet of 220 key species to assign each species of catch to a trophic level (Science 279:860, 6 Feb 1998) From 1950 to 1994, catch has gradually shifted from long-lived, high-trophic level fish (e.g. cod and haddock) to low-trophic-level fish and invertebrates such as anchovy and krill. Paradoxically, catches stagnated or declines, as competitors (such as inedible jellyfish) fill the void. "If things go unchecked, we might end up with a marine junkyard dominated by plankton."

7. Solutions
The increasing trend toward aquaculture may take some of the pressure off our overfished seas. Between 1984 and 1994, aquaculture was the fastest growing supplier of fish worldwide. Fish farms now account for more than 1/8th of the worlds catch. In China, India, and Japan, aquaculture accounts for half of the total fish eaten. Aquaculture has already eased some of the pressure on shrimp. Also, aquaculture allows for more optimal use of feedgrains than the poultry or beef industury (this means less grain per pound is needed for fish than those sources). However, there is some question about the long-term sustainability of aquaculture. Negative impacts of aquaculture include disease, genetic weakening of stocks, and coastal habitat destruction. Downsize the existing fishing fleet. It is likely that a reduction of 30-50% will be required. Reduce subsidies to the fishing industry. As seen in the following figure, currently the cost of fishing outweighs the revenues 80 billion to 75 billion.

International agreements of fish catch limits. International agreements are crucial to prevent commercial extinction, as fish do not respect international borders. This creates a "Tragedy of the Commons" situation, where any fish that you do not take go into your neighbors mouths. Although they rarely make the evening news, there have been more fishery conflicts in the 1990's

than in the whole 19th century. Some examples are: The Cod Wars between Norway and Iceland Turbot Wars between Canada/Spain, Argentina/Taiwan, and China/Marshall Islands The Tuna Wars of the Northeast Atlantic Crab Wars of the Southwest Atlantic Squid Wars Pollock Wars in the Sea of Okhotsk The Salmon Wars of the Northern Pacific

What can you do?

The above solutions need to be carried out by consensus among and within governments. But you, by yourself, can make a difference by being an informed consumer. Don't buy species of fish that are over-exploited, such as Atlantic Cod, Atlantic Sea Scallops, Black Sea Bass, Farm Raised Shrimp, Gulf Shrimp, Monkfish, Redfish, Swordfish, Shark, Red Snapper, Sturgeon, and Winter Flounder. Instead, order species like Alaska Salmon, Pacific Coast Dungeness Crab, and trapped shrimp that are not currently overfished.

Overfishing: a threat to marine biodiversity

Despite its crucial importance for the survival of humanity, marine biodiversity is in ever-greater danger, with the depletion of fisheries among biggest concerns. Fishing is central to the livelihood and food security of 200 million people, especially in the developing world, while one of five people on this planet depends on fish as the primary source of protein. According to UN agencies, aquaculture - the farming and stocking of aquatic organisms including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants - is growing more rapidly than all other animal food producing sectors. But amid facts and figures about aquaculture's soaring worldwide production rates, other, more sobering, statistics reveal that global main marine fish stocks are in jeopardy, increasingly pressured by overfishing and environmental degradation. Overfishing cannot continue, warned Nitin Desai, Secretary General of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, which took place in Johannesburg. The depletion of fisheries poses a major threat to the food supply of millions of people. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation calls for the establishment of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), which many experts believe may hold the key to conserving and boosting fish stocks. Yet, according to the UN Environment Programmes (UNEP) World Conservation Monitoring Centre, in Cambridge, UK, less than one per cent of the worlds oceans and seas are currently in MPAs. The magnitude of the problem of overfishing is often overlooked, given the competing claims of deforestation, desertification, energy resource exploitation and other biodiversity depletion dilemmas. The rapid growth in demand for fish and fish products is leading to fish prices increasing faster than prices of meat. As a result, fisheries investments have become more attractive to both entrepreneurs and governments, much to the detriment of small-scale fishing and fishing communities all over the world. In the last decade, in the north Atlantic region, commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock and flounder have fallen by as much as 95%, prompting calls for urgent measures. Some are even recommending zero catches to allow for regeneration of stocks, much to the ire of the fishing industry. According to a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 70% of the worlds fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. The dramatic increase of destructive fishing techniques worldwide destroys marine mammals and entire ecosystems. FAO reports that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing worldwide appears to be increasing as fishermen seek to avoid stricter rules in many places in response to shrinking catches and declining fish stocks. Few, if any, developing countries and only a limited number of developed ones are on track to put into effect by this year the International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Unreported and Unregulated Fishing. Despite that fact that each region has its Regional Sea Conventions, and some 108 governments and the European Commission have adopted the UNEP Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land based Activities, oceans are cleared at twice the rate of forests. The Johannesburg forum stressed the importance of restoring depleted fisheries and acknowledged that sustainable fishing requires partnerships by and between governments, fishermen, communities and industry. It urged countries to ratify the Convention on the Law of the Sea and other instruments that promote maritime safety and protect the environment from marine pollution and environmental damage by ships. Only a multilateral approach can counterbalance the rate of depletion of the worlds fisheries which has increased more than four times in the past 40 years.

Hopelessness doesn't get us anywhere. It's just a matter of getting people to realize what's at stake. Most of these species are failing because their habitat is being chewed up. It's folly to think that as animals ourselves, we can let the rest of the world go to hell but we'll be just fine. We're all interconnected." Joel Sartore