Fisheries, over-capacity and subsidies

A consensus is emerging regarding world fisheries.

Overall, the world's living marine resources are being overexploited; in many major areas a reprieve in the level of fishing would assure larger and more valuable fish supplies in the long term. Less would be more.

The system is uneconomical and unsustainable. We are paying an unnecessarily high price, in capture costs and environmental degradation, for a dwindling catch.

Conventional management measures (including time, space and gear constraints) have not proved themselves capable of stanching excessive fishing effort. Indeed, many of the traditional measures, by prohibiting the most economical means of fishing, amplify inefficiencies, raising unit costs without compensatory benefits in catch reduction.

Increasing blame is being placed on over-capacity. As long as investment in harvest capacity is excessive, in other words beyond the level required for efficient attainment of fisheries objectives, effective regulatory efforts are frustrated at the levels of both rule making and enforcement.

Mankind is faced with three interconnected problems, those of rising population, the provision of adequate food and the increasing level of waste carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The ocean plays an important role at present by annually providing c. 90 Mt of high protein food and absorbing about 1000 Mt of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. By the year 2100 it is predicted by the United Nations (1992) that the world population will have more than doubled its 1990 level of 5.2 thousand million people and will approach 11.5 thousand million. Most of this population increase will occur in the developing countries.

Many traditions of coastal peoples may be viewed as traditional forms of marine conservation because, like modern fisheries management, they restrict fishing gear, fishing times, and places, but their effects are little studied in practice. A study was undertaken of human culture and fisheries resources in an area of southern Kenya, designated as a national marine reserve, to determine the effect of the existing 'traditional management' on fisheries yields and on the ecological condition of the fished reefs. This area has one of the oldest and most elaborate cultural traditions concerning sacred sites and rituals of sacrifice along the Kenyan coast. The purpose of the customs is, however, to appease spirits rather than to regulate fish stocks which are traditionally seen to fluctuate independently of fishing effort. Many of these traditions have decayed in recent times as Islamization of the culture has occurred, and authority has shifted towards national organizations, weakening the effectiveness of the traditional leaders. Coincidentally, fishers have adopted new or foreign gear, colleagues, and traditions. Two adjacent landing sites (Mvuleni and Mwanyaza) have, however, successfully stopped pull seiners from landing their catch at their sites for over 20 years through passive means. Other landing sites have adopted pull seining. Both landing areas use arguments based on tradition to justify their use of gear. The two landings that restrict pull seining have higher per capita fish catches than those that do not. Nonetheless, there were no obvious differences in the ecological condition of the reefs at these two management areas; both areas were amongst the most degraded reefs reported in East Africa. Biological diversity and coral cover were reduced greatly in all these areas compared to other fished or fully-protected marine park or reserve sites established by the national government. Presently, traditional management is not effective in protecting species diversity or ecological functions, which was probably never the intention of the customs. The conflict between national organizations and local fishers arises because some resource users are concerned that the management proposed by the national organizations will eventually lead to the total loss of access to, and control of the resource by local fishers. There is, therefore, a need to resolve conflicts concerning gear use and regulation, and a need to increase awareness of the expectations and management programmes among the national and local organizations. Many of the traditional forms of management are compatible with the policies of national organizations, but confusion and conflict occur concerning enforcement and its benefits. To solve these conflicts discussions are required between traditional and national fisheries leaders to develop mutually-acceptable policies that augment and share the power of management.

A variety of organic contaminants can potentially have impact on aquatic birds by their affecting surface tension. Avian plumage constitutes a porous barrier to water and the air trapped between the feathers serves as thermal insulation. When the air is displaced, the birds expend extra energy to maintain a normal body temperature, but this response cannot be sustained for long, especially at low environmental temperatures. When energy stores are depleted, hypothermia and death ensue. Surface tension is the force that resists infiltration of water into the plumage. The critical surface tension for feather wetting is conservatively estimated to be in the range 38–50 mN m-1. The hypothesis that surface-active organic contaminants can have significant detrimental effects on aquatic birds was evaluated. New data obtained in a study of water penetration pressures in Lesser Scaup contour feathers show that the 'wettability safety factor' is reduced by about half during moult. That is, the critical surface tension was raised to approximately 49–58 mN m-1 in moulting Lesser Scaup. The energetic and behavioural effects of oil contamination are reviewed, and it is concluded that even small quantities of organic material may confer significant physiological cost. The available data generally support the hypothesis that waterfowl face a potential risk associated with chronic or periodic mild depression of water surface tension due to organic pollutants, including oils and detergents. However, much of the evidence is indirect and further research, especially long-term assessment of surface tension in marine, estuarine and freshwater habitats, is needed to determine whether a real environmental problem exists.

Several authors have suggested that ecotourism can enhance the value of intact wildlands and thereby promote conservation. Two rainforest lodges dating from the 1970s and located in southeastern Amazonian Perú have been held up as early success stories in tourism-driven conservation, but a more recent assessment reveals that both lodges have since lost their rainforest reserves to encroachment. One of the major reasons for failure was that the national land laws in effect at the time did not allow the purchase of land titles. Recently, Perú has instituted a process for the purchase of land titles in the rainforest. One lodge has used the new land tenure laws with some success to create a rainforest reserve. The very attempt to buy land for purposes of conservation can promote encroachment and land-buying speculation, and the lodge's current agreement with its neighbours to provide a school in exchange for non-encroachment is fraught with moral hazards and appears unstable over the long term. Tourism can promote conservation primarily at the national level, and ecotourism projects in the Peruvian Amazon can stabilize land-use patterns at least in the short term. However, the conservation of habitat over the long-term will rest primarily on the ability of the State to enforce a consistent land use policy with regard to land tenure and Park protection.

Previous studies have inferred that the side effects of physical disturbance associated with bait-collecting for the sandprawn Callianassa kraussi are more deleterious than the actual removal of the prawns. The present study was specifically designed to disentangle the side-effects of trampling and disturbance associated with using suction pumps for bait-collecting. Separate areas were sucked over with a prawn pump at three different intensities, and the prawns collected from these areas subsequently returned to them. A parallel treatment involved trampling the sediment at levels comparable to the 'sucking' intensities, without removing the prawns. The responses of the meiofauna, macrofauna and microflora were assessed six weeks after this disturbance.

Prawn densities were depressed six weeks following both sucking and trampling but recovered by 32 weeks. The meiofauna responded positively to some of the disturbance treatments; macrofaunal numbers on the other hand, declined in most treatment areas, and similarity analysis and multidimensional scaling showed that macrofaunal community composition in the most-disturbed areas was distinct from that in other areas. Chlorophyll levels were reduced at the more intensely-disturbed sites.

The results corroborate the conclusion that trampling per se has almost the same effect as sucking for prawns, on both the prawns and on the associated biota. This has important implications in terms of managing the use of lagoonal and estuarine ecosystems.

Coastal ecosystems in the Arabian Gulf region are under increasing pressures from hostilities and other developmental activities; the region has a long history of crude-oil pollution. Because of the high ambient temperature, oil deposited along the coastline or inland evaporates, leaving a semi-solid tar. In Qatar, to clean up the polluted sites, the deposited tar is stripped off and dumped in the coastal marshes as confluent dome-shaped piles. Flowering plant colonization of tar-piles is described here as a chrono-sequence, ranging in age from 2 to 14 years. The successional patterns in vegetation, seed bank, species diversity and plant growth were predicted from tar-pile disturbances with different ages and tar content. The success of natural plant colonization and the establishment of plant communities on the tar-pile disturbances depend upon: (1) age of the tar-pile disturbances, (2) tar content of the piles and soil physico-chemical properties, (3) soil moisture content, (4) structure of plant communities in the surrounding landscape, (5) size of the disposal sites and the method of dumping, and (6) prevailing environmental conditions. A management and restoration framework is proposed to optimize the natural recolonization of tar-piles. To retain these ecosystems in a self-sustaining state, some native plant species might be used including: Aeloropus lagopoides, Aizoon canariense, Anabasis setifera, Fagonia indica, Mesembryanthemum nodiflorum, Reichardia tingitana, Salsola imbricata, Suaeda aegyptiaca, Senecio glaucus, Sporobolus arabicus, Zygophyllum quatarense, and Zygophyllum simplex. To clarify the biological and chemical aspects of the problem, further research on the chemistry of tar-polluted soil and its vegetation in relation to the food web is needed.

Despite steady injection of public funds by successive administrations, the Canadian fishery industry is characterized by resource depletion, vessel tie-ups, and overcapacity, which have led to plant closures and rising unemployment. This paper assesses the progress Canadian marine policies have been making towards rational use and conservation of fisheries and promotion of employment and economic development in fishing communities since 1977.

The analysis begins with the creation of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and its rationale in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), namely conservation. State subsidies for fleet upgrading, industry modernization, marketing, and the introduction of quota systems, such as the individual transferable quotas (ITQs) and enterprise quotas (EQs), are identified as the key policy initiatives which might realize an economically-viable fishing industry in the post-1977 period. These policies produced corporate expansion and prosperity in the mid-1980s, but there followed corporate losses because of Canadian over-dependence on American markets and sharp quota cuts.

With regard to conservation, shortcomings are identified in the virtual population analysis model (VPA), and the inability of the Department of Fisheries to monitor fishing effort by domestic and foreign vessels. The need for radical change in the future direction of marine policies is emphasized and arguments made which support the following objectives: elimination of ecologically-harmful fishing technologies; use of community quotas (with a modified individual quota system); strengthening of community management systems and development of co-management approaches to fisheries management, involving government and fishing communities.

The Western Australian system of protected areas (PAs) covers more than 15 million ha and is the second largest conservation estate of the Australian continent. An analysis of the history of the creation of PAs in Western Australia shows that the concept of nature conservation through reserves was slow to emerge. During the early decades of the century, reserves were mainly created for their recreation values. The lack of governmental interest in nature conservation led to a belated development of reserve coverage up to the 1950s, while vast areas of land were opened to farming and pastoralism. Following two scientifically-based reviews of the PA system, the number and coverage of PAs increased dramatically up to the late 1970s. The rationalization of the vesting and managerial responsibilities for PAs was only finalized in the 1980s. Since then, there has not been any large increase in PA area but a consolidation of the PA coverage. The development of the system of PAs has been impeded by the belated response of Western Australian governments to conservation concerns and a 'worthless' land approach to conservation as a land use. While large-scale land alienation for agriculture has now stopped, other types of land uses such as mining and other aspirations over land management and vesting, such as Aboriginal land claims and forestry are now constraining any large expansion of the PA system. Only an approach embracing the whole landscape can overcome the political and social limitations of the concept of PAs and the further degradation of developed land in Western Australia.

Over the past two decades 'sustainable development' has grown from a term expressing concern for social and environmental problems to an international craze. The concept purportedly offers cures for the many and diverse problems afflicting modern society, and because it involves an integrated approach, the sustainable development fashion has resulted in much-needed collaboration between specialists from diverse backgrounds, to work on the complex problems involved in the interactions between society and environment. However, the term is rarely defined, and, being stylish and institutionalized, the 'sustainability movement' now directs the way much science and policy for biological conservation and development are designed, executed and evaluated. Occult, but basic, in nearly all discourses of sustainable development is the axiom of continual growth; and, in most cases, instead of offering a true solution to contemporary problems, the term is a source of confusion, contention and even deception. It is imperative that the use of this term, especially in multidisciplinary, international and scientific spheres, be based on clear understanding of its meaning, and that the issue of growth and the concept of limits be clearly incorporated into the core of the discussion.