Keeping what's left of the oceans

The oceans are a shadow of what they once were, and it is unlikely we can keep what little we have left unless we act right now. Here's a combination of ideas, which if used together in one concerted effort, may stop the rot.

1. More marine reserves. Eleven-percent of the UK landmass is protected but less than one percent of our entire surrounding seas. Our first national park was created in 1951 but it was only 2003 when the tiny Lundy Island Marine Reserve received a no-take zone status. The situation is similar or worse in most of the world's seas. It is time to stop treating our oceans as second-class ecosystems.

2. Subsidies for the fishing industry must stop. The EU has been subsidising the denudation of our oceans to the tune of €4.4 billion over a 12 year period. Spain, possibly the most rapacious fishing country on earth, got 48% of the subsidies dispensed. It would be hard to imagine a similar situation on land, where wild animals are hunted to near extinction with the aid of European taxpayers money. It is a legalised, government funded destruction on an unimaginable scale, and it must stop.

3. The sportfishing industry should change its practices and image. As is the case with land animals there is now no excuse for killing endangered large marine fish for sport and trophies. Despite this a significant minority of people in the sport fishing community are still killing these fish as proof of their endeavours in a similar vain to the great white hunters of the 1950's. This is the acceptable and media friendly face of marine animal slaughter, and it should no longer be tolerated.

4. Stop expanding the commercial exploitation of marine animals. There has to be a point where we draw a line under marine over-exploitation. Ideally we should have done this some time ago, but since we haven't we now have the perfect opportunity. Krill, the food of numerous marine species, may over the next 50-100 years be sacrificed for an oil that has intangible human health benefits and that is available from other less important living sources. Omega 3 oil can be obtained from linseed and flaxseed and need not be derived from a species so vital to the marine ecosystem. The exploitation of krill is where the line needs to be drawn in the sand.

5. Intergovernmental Panel on Marine Exploitation. Two-thirds of the Earth is fast becoming a biological desert and if the destruction of our marine ecosystems is to be halted, and ultimately reversed, bold, systematic, and effective measures are needed now. An intergovernmental panel on marine exploitation, if backed up by proper exhaustive fisheries science, may galvanise world opinion in a similar way that the IPCC has done for climate change.

Overfishing is a threat to human existence

Virtually every threat to life in the sea is attributable to our use of the 'wait and see principle', which allows overexploitation, ecosystem destruction or pollution so long as someone gains economically and the environmental consequences are uncertain.

In 1988 the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was formed to gain a better understanding of global climate change and provide scientific evidence that climate change was causing significant damage to our environment. In 2001 it published its Third Assessment Report (TAR). This report was a comprehensive assessment of the scientific, technical, and socio-economic dimensions of climate change and the panel concluded that it was at least ninety percent certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet's surface. This proclamation galvanised the world into confronting the threat of climate change, if not actually combating it effectively as yet.

The threats to our marine environment (which accounts for seventy percent of the Earth's surface) have had no such large scale, unified effort, and where the scientific data does exist it is often grossly inaccurate or misleading. Take overfishing for example. The FAO (UN Food & Agriculture Organisation) maintains the only global database of fisheries statistics collected between 1950 and 2004. Numbers used are voluntarily reported by individual countries and are taken from sales of fish, rather than scientific surveys. The system overlooks fish caught and consumed by those who catch them because this leaves no economic trail. Three and fourfold underestimates are not uncommon. This can have profound implications for overfishing as some nations sell rights to foreign fishing boats on the basis of these flawed statistics.

Other scientific fisheries data can be equally misleading. In a study by Dalhousie University, Canada, it was discovered that the true scale of the devastation caused by overfishing has remained hidden because in most of the world's oceans industrial fishing began long before fisheries biologists started making accurate estimates of fish numbers. Populations of large commercial fish species tend to level off at about ten percent of their pristine numbers after prolonged industrial exploitation as they no longer become viable to catch at this level. Fisheries managers may be unaware of the initial plenty and come to see this reduced population as normal, sometimes even regarding the fishery as healthy as the population remains relatively stable when it is actually only a shadow of its former self. On this basis it would be fair to assume that the world's oceans may have once held ten times as many fish as they do today, a sobering thought which makes a mockery of the so-called 'sustainable' industrial scale commercial fisheries.

And this situation is not without precedent. Commercial whaling focused initially on the largest species, the blue whale, but switched to progressively smaller less commercially valuable species - fin, sei, and then minke whales - as each stock of the larger species, in turn, was pushed towards extinction. The blue whale was officially protected in 1966 but has never recovered from this slaughter and has stabilised at around five to ten percent of pristine numbers. In 1982 the IWC (International Whaling Commission) applied a moratorium to all commercial whaling. International cooperation has effectively produced wide-ranging proposals and solutions to combat climate change and to a lesser degree commercial whaling, and the same is now needed for the worldwide fishing industry.

Two-thirds of the Earth is fast becoming a biological desert and if the destruction of our marine ecosystems is to be halted, and ultimately reversed, bold, systematic, and effective measures are needed now. An Intergovernmental Panel on Marine Exploitation, if backed up by proper, exhaustive fisheries science, may galvanise world opinion in a similar way that the IPCC has done for climate change.

Q&A: The Antarctic krill fishery

We ask Dimitri Sclabos, of Tharos Ltd., a world-leading krill consultancy, what the future holds for the Antarctic krill fishery?

Q: What aspect of the boom in commercial krill usage worries you most?

That the market demand pushes the catch effort above the ability to sustain a permanent at-sea and on-board inspection regime and a lack of minimum safety standards on fishing trawlers rushing to get in on the market.

Q: What affect will climate change have on krill in the Antarctic?

Climate change will affect phytoplankton growth and with it krill's food sustainability. Krill's habitat is a low temperature one, with sea water around 0°C, a rise in sea temperature will affect spawning, reproduction, egg mortality and growth etc.

Q: What is the biggest threat to Antarctic krill?

A lack of continuous at-sea research on biomass condition and a lack of industry support for on-board inspectors as specified by CCAMLR (Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources).

Q: What is most likely to be the biggest industrial use for krill?

Foods, lipids and proteins, will take the greatest share. However, feed applications also sustain several operations, either for feeds for aquaculture, or whole round frozen krill for sports bait.

Q: Does China have the technology for large-scale krill exploitation?

The Chinese have had fishing vessels trawling for krill since 2009/10, targeting whole round frozen krill, plus other end-products. Currently two Chinese operators have Government support to remain fishing, increase fishing efforts, and design new processing ideas. Their fishing effort will depend on their own internal market, so I would expect this to grow.

Q: What worries you most about China's desire to harvest krill?

a) The Chinese demand for krill end-products, which will require a much higher fishing effort, which means more and more trawlers.

b) The lack of on-board sanitary working practices, which will eventually lead to the pollution of nearby fishing areas.

c) The lack of Standard Operating Procedures that prevent contamination. 

d) The lack of support for CCAMLR on-board inspectors.

Q: How many boats could be harvesting krill at the maximum exploitation level?

It is not the number of trawlers we need to worry about, but rather the catch effort of each trawler. In the past each trawler could catch around 100-250 tons a day, current trawlers can catch around 400-600 tons a day, or as much as the on-board processing facility is able to process. On some trawlers it is a continuous pumping system.

Protect sharks before it's too late

Very few pictures sum up the plight of sharks quite as well as Alex Hofford's photos of the shark processing factory at Kesen-numa City, Japan.

Unless sharks are given some form of worldwide protection within the next couple of years or so it is looking increasingly likely that we will lose the vast majority of this facinating and ecologically vital species forever.

See more of Alex Hofford's disturbing pictures here -

http://www.alexhoffordphotography.com/node/2333

Reef fish: worth more alive than dead

Despite the precarious state of our marine environment scuba diving is still one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Perhaps it is because the world's ocean is entering the end-phase of its existence that people are keen to experience a last glimpse of the underwater world.

Reef fish are some of the most sought after food fish in the world, but despite their high value as an eating fish, most are worth far more alive than dead.

People will be surprised to learn that threadfin bream (see photo) are the fish most commonly used to make Young's seafood sticks. Young's only feature a fork-tailed threadfin bream, but there are about 60 species found in the tropics, and each serve a different role in the ecosystem of a reef.

When you see a large shoal of small fish in a TV programme about tropical reefs, threadfin bream are more often than not the fish you are seeing. Without them the reef becomes a lifeless and barren desert.

The predators of the reef, the groupers, are also threatened. Coral trout and rock cod are two of the misleading names often given to groupers by fish retailers. These are the fish beloved of divers for their friendly nature and large size.

Manta rays, currently being decimated for the Chinese medicine market, are thought to be worth $1 million each over their lifetime as an attraction for divers.

Divers are some of the highest spending of all tourists and without reef fish the divers will not come.
The short-term gain from the commercial fishing of tropical and sub-tropical reefs is far outweighed by the money a healthy reef will provide in tourist revenue.

Governments must act now to give reef fish the same protection that is given to the animals in national parks. Tropical and sub-tropical reefs are the national parks of the sea and the marine life contained in them should be given the same protection.