Fishermen separate a variety of fish for trading at the Kota Kinabalu fish market in Sabah, Malaysia, Saturday, March 26, 2016. Kota Kinabalu, formerly known as Jesselton, is the capital city of Sabah, a well known fishing and tourism destination on the East Malaysia.
Joshua Paul/AP
From CSMonitor
A study published Monday by a team of scientists and economists suggests that fishermen can catch more fish and make more money, all while restoring underwater populations worldwide.
Restoring the world’s fisheries is really a no-brainer, says a
new study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
A team of scientists from the
University of California - Santa Barbara, the Environmental Defense
Fund, and the University of Washington compiled a database of over 4,500
fisheries around the world, and after using various bioeconomic models,
the authors found that health and productivity are not mutually
exclusive when it comes to the world’s fisheries.
“It is not a
tradeoff between the needs of fishermen and the needs of fish,” Douglas
Rader, chief oceans scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund and one
of the lead authors of the study, tells The Christian Science Monitor in
a phone interview Monday.
“To have our fish and eat them too – it’s
remarkable.”
“Applying sound management reforms to global fisheries in
our dataset could generate annual increases exceeding 16 million metric
tons (MMT) in catch, $53 billion in profit, and 619 MMT in biomass
relative to business as usual,” the authors explain in their study.
“We
also find that, with appropriate reforms, recovery can happen quickly,
with the median fishery taking under 10 [years] to reach recovery
targets. Our results show that commonsense reforms to fishery management
would dramatically
improve overall fish abundance while increasing food security and profits.”
Gaffing a halibut. (Photo: Scott Dickerson/Getty Images)
So what are these commonplace, if not magical, reforms?
Rights-based
fishery management (RBFM) optimizes economic value.
In this approach,
fishing quotas are set to ensure healthy population levels, and then in
turn product prices increase (because of higher quality and demand) and
fishing costs decrease (because of a reduced race to fish).
And RBFM is
realized through approaches like cooperatives, territorial rights, and
individual transferable quotas.
All of these approaches give
fishermen secure fishing rights.
Under most current management systems,
fisherman practice a ‘race to fish’ competing with one another to catch
as many fish as possible, taking fish at a faster rate than they can
reproduce.
Some governments have instituted individual quotas, but this
creates a tense relationship between fisherman and regulators, and the
men and women on the water lack a financial incentive to preserve the
overall ecosystem.
“In contrast, in a catch share system (also
called a fishing rights system), each fisherman is entitled to a
percentage of the total allocated haul,” explains National Geographic’s
Brian Clark Howard after his conversation with study author Amanda
Leland.
“If the number of fish in the ocean rises, the number that can
be caught can quickly be revised. That gives all fishermen an incentive
to use best practices and police their own waters, says Leland, so
everyone’s piece of the pie gets bigger.”
And
this isn’t exactly a new concept, says Rader.
We’ve known the fates of
fisheries and fisherman are interconnected, but this study proves that
both financial and reproductive success, respectively, are possible.
“It’s
been suggested theoretically, but we’ve proven it can be done
practically using science,” Rader tells The Monitor.
“Using science as a
tool in environmental advocacy when we have a real chance to recover
and protect one of the basic life support systems of the planet – that’s
incredibly exciting to me.”
But there are definitely obstacles to achieving this solution.
“We
need to translate this science into management systems that will work.
And there will be short-term costs to achieve this reform. That needs to
be dealt with: financing this,” says Rader.
As fishermen pull back to
implement the catch share reforms, food prices could rise and
fishermen’s profits could fall.
“But we have to recognize that this
transition will require new programming of resources, and then within 10
years, you will get your money back.”
Under a fishing rights
system, the authors found that simultaneous gains for catch, profit, and
biomass are a likely outcome for the majority of stocks and countries:
56 percent of stocks will grow and fishermen in 23 of the top 30
fish-harvesting will see increased profits.
And if the reform efforts
are put in place now, the median recovery time would be 10 years and by
2050, “the vast majority (98%) of stocks could be biologically healthy
and in a strong position to
supply the food and livelihoods on which the world will increasingly rely."
And looking forward, worldwide fisheries seem like a smart investment.
“The
upcoming population of the planet will have more people in both 2050
and 2100. We will have much greater food needs than anyone predicted,”
Rader tells The Monitor.
“Getting wild fish right will make an essential
contribution to closing the world food gap, it is a major down payment
in closing the food gap. In fact, it is actually a low-hanging fruit for
the problem.”
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