There are an estimated 1 million industrial vessels fishing the world's oceans. Many of these ships are highly efficient in the ways that they find, catch and process fish. They are also wasteful of marine resources, and each year dump millions of tonnes of fish, prawns and other non-target species back into the ocean. Around the world, fish stocks are collapsing, and species are being given no time to replenish their numbers. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has concluded that 70% of the world's fish stocks are either fully exploited, over-exploited, depleted or under protection of recovery programs.
As fishing fleets search further afield for fish, there are more and more battles over the poaching and fishing rights. In an effort to reduce confrontation and try to conserve fish species and fisheries, the UN has convened "The United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks". "Straddling" means fish stocks that straddle a nation's economic zone and the region outside the zone. Fishing outside the zone affects management of fisheries within the economic zone. When distant water fleets fish depleted species that straddle a nation's economic zone or are migratory, the situation can become highly volatile.
CAROLYN COURT spoke to MIKE HAGLER, one of the Greenpeace representatives at the "Fish Stocks" conference, to get an overview of the issues at stake.
Hagler: The South Pacific island states have taken a very firm stand. Instead of taking a "get as much as you can approach", they are saying that we need to look first, take a very cautious approach and, in the absence of information about what effect fishing is having, be cautious. It's as basic as that.
We know so little about the oceans and how the system works and how all the various creatures out there interrelate. We probably know more about outer space than we know about how the oceans at our doorstep work. In light of that, we need to tread lightly, and that's very much contrasted to the way the world has worked.
Then, when suddenly things are seen to be going bad and the fish stocks are declining rapidly, you have the reactionary approach which usually, unfortunately, ends up with shutting down the fishery.
We just saw this recently off Newfoundland, in eastern Canada, where cod stocks have for centuries provided food and livelihoods for coastal communities. In 1992 the Canadian government was forced to close down the fishery because of intense overfishing by both Canadians and others from foreign countries who fish just outside the 200-mile economic zone. The cod exist on both sides of this imaginary line. And when they shut the fishery down, some 40-50,000 people were thrown out of work, just like that: displaced, nowhere to go, nothing to do.
So we are talking about a very serious crisis that has tremendous social effects.
What sort of concrete action does Greenpeace suggest?
The first measures that need to be taken are the creation of very strict conservation standards for the protection of fish stocks. That must come first and foremost, over short-term economic considerations. We have to get serious about the fact that the world's fish stocks are in very serious trouble and declining very quickly.
There have to be reductions in the number of boats. There are over 3 million vessels fishing in the world's ocean now. One million of those are large scale. The fleets are going to have to be cut; there are just too many boats and not enough fish to go around.
At the same time, one of the most destructive practices in nations all over the world is government subsidies to support the construction of new vessels when we should be taking vessels out of the water. Bigger, more powerful, larger capacity vessels, and governments are subsidising companies to build them. They are paying companies in Europe to send their ships to Africa, South America, the Pacific and Indian Oceans — into the waters of developing countries — to get rid of the excess fishing in their own waters.
Basic structural problems have to be addressed in a way that doesn't cause social damage. You can't just put people out of work overnight. There needs to be a plan that works over time. And then when that's done, strict rules are put in place for the protection of fish stocks.
It is going to have to apply not only on the high seas, but inside the economic zones of countries that have the resources. Ninety per cent or more of the world's fish are caught inside the exclusive economic zones of the coastal states. So the rules that are set for fishing highly migratory species and straddling stocks need to apply outside the zone and inside the zone, equally.
Although the conference has been making very slow progress and there will have to be further negotiations later this year, Mike Hagler explained that there has been at least one positive development. This relates to poaching.
The poaching problem is one of global concern. Fishing boats come down to the waters of South Pacific island countries, sneak inside and take away large quantities of fish without paying for it. It is a huge problem, not just in the South Pacific but right around the world. One of the positive measures that's been put forward is the idea that the flag state — the country's flag that these vessels fly — has to take responsibility for monitoring and controlling their own vessels.
This has never been the case before and it has always fallen to the coastal states to send patrol boats out and keep records on what's been caught.
[This interview — here abridged — was first broadcast on One World, an environment awareness program for the Pacific, produced for Radio Australia by Carolyn Court. One World can be heard on Saturdays at 5.30, 7.30 and 19.30 Universal Time. For frequencies phone Radio Australia c/- the ABC in your capital city.]