Posted on 20-2-2003

Ocean Crisis Caused by Destructive Fishing
By Cat Lazaroff, Evironment News Service

DENVER, Colorado, February 18, 2003 (ENS) - Some of the most productive
marine fishing methods are also the most damaging, and should be restricted
or banned, scientists argued at a scientific meeting this week. Today, more
than 400 leading scientists called today for the United Nations to issue a
moratorium on longline and gillnet fishing, methods they say are wiping out
populations of fish, turtles, marine mammals and other species in the
Pacific Ocean.

In a full page ad which ran in today's "New York Times," the researchers
urged a ban on industrial fishing techniques including longlining and
gillnetting, which they blamed for the plight of the endangered Pacific
leatherback turtle and other rare species. The call to halt these wasteful
fishing methods was made at the annual American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference being held in Denver, and in
advance of the international Food and Agriculture Organization Committee on
Fisheries meeting next week in Rome.

A total of 405 scientists from 47 nations - along with 100 conservation,
animal welfare and other nonprofit groups - signed open letters to the
United Nations, urging governments and fisheries managers in the United
States and abroad to heed the worsening crisis of global fisheries. "In
recent decades the impact of commercial fishing on ocean ecosystems has
dramatically increased, and we are confronted with the unprecedented
reality that we are rapidly depleting the oceans' resources," states the
letter printed today in the "New York Times." "The oceans, once mistakenly
thought to be inexhaustible, clearly are not."

The letter points out that more than 70 percent of global fish populations
are now considered overfished or on the brink of being overfished,
according to United Nations figures. Not just fish are at risk:
"indiscriminate commercial fishing practices wastefully harm and kill
millions of non-targeted animals per year, causing unsustainable mortality
to sea turtles, sea birds, bluefin tuna, swordfish and sharks," the letter
states.

Leatherback Turtle May Face Extinction

Among the marine species most threatened by longlining and gill netting is
the Pacific leatherback sea turtle, the scientists wrote. "Tragic declines
of leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles have been well documented in the
Pacific," said Dr. Larry Crowder, Duke University Marine Laboratory
researcher, "and the impact of longline fishing on these and other marine
species can't be understated."

This year's return of nesting leatherbacks to Pacific beaches was the worst
on record, biologists report. Scientists estimate that there are now less
than 5,000 nesting female leatherbacks left in the Pacific Ocean - down
from 91,000 in 1980, a decline of 95 percent. "The decline of the
leatherback in the last five years is nothing short of catastrophic, and it
is imperative that the global community come together to eliminate the use
of the most destructive forms of industrial fishing before it is too late."
said Dr. Sylvia Earle, a marine expert and explorer in residence at the
National Geographic Society.

A recent report to the Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that there are
almost two billion hooks set per year by the longline fishing fleet.
Longline fishing in all the world's deep oceans kills some 40,000 sea
turtles each year, along with 300,000 seabirds and millions of sharks.

"The United Nations and Kofi Annan must recognize that in order to save the
endangered leatherbacks, as well as imperiled sharks, seabirds and
dolphins, we must stop these weapons of mass destruction from destroying
our oceans," said Todd Steiner, director of the Turtle Island Restoration
Network. "There are just too many hooks adrift in the Pacific to give the
leatherback a fighting chance for survival." Next week, fisheries managers
from around the world will gather in Rome, Italy for the 25th session of
the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization's Committee on
Fisheries meeting. Scientists and environmental organizations are pressing
these officials to place a moratorium on both longlining and gillnetting in
the Pacific, just as the United Nations passed a comprehensive global ban
of driftnet fishing in the early 1990s.

The United States has already taken some steps to protect embattled marine
species by closing the West Coast to longlining altogether and restricting
the Hawaii longlining fleet from fishing for swordfish. After a legal
challenge by the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the National Marine
Fisheries Service applied time and area closures for gillnet fishing fleets
off the West Coast.

Bottom Trawling Called Worst of All

Another damaging fishing method which conservation groups hope to see
restricted is bottom trawling, a common method to catch shrimp, fish, and
other bottom dwelling sea life. Research presented Sunday at the AAAS
meeting shows that despite frequent conflict over fisheries issues, many
fishers, conservationists and academics agree that bottom trawling is the
most ecologically damaging fishing gear. The scientists presented findings
that, for the first time, document and rank the full suite of ecological
impacts associated with all commercial fishing gears used in the United
States. Scientists urged managers, fishers and environmentalists to
recognize that how fishing is carried out may be as important to the future
of marine resources as how many fish are caught.

Though scientific data now demonstrates the collapse of fisheries around
the world, many destructive fishing practices are still carried out,
largely out of sight of the public and, hence, out of mind. Almost one
quarter of the world's catch is thrown back into the sea dead or dying each
year because the fishing gear cannot discriminate between target catch and
other animals that are undersized, unmarketable, or not worth the price of
bringing to shore.

About 2.3 billion pounds of sea life were discarded in the U.S. in 2000
alone, and thousands of the ocean's most charismatic species - including
sea turtles, marine mammals, sharks and seabirds - are killed each year by
fishing nets, lines and hooks. These deaths have implications for both
marine populations and marine food webs.

"Considering the documented decline in global fisheries, this kind of waste
is unacceptable. But because this travesty is unseen by most people, it
continues," said Dr. Crowder. Experts agree that bottom trawls are one of
the worst offenders, entrapping vast numbers of non-targeted animals. "The
first time I was on a trawler, I was appalled to see that for every pound
of shrimp caught there were 20 pounds of sharks, rays, crabs, and starfish
killed. The shrimpers called this bycatch 'trawl trash' - I call it
'biodiversity'," noted Elliott Norse of the Marine Conservation Biology
Institute. "Of course I recognize in some trawls it could be only one pound
- in others 100 pounds for every pound of shrimp."

This bycatch is not the only collateral damage associated with fishing.
Many experts agreed that habitat destruction that some fishing gears cause
is even more ecologically damaging than the harm caused by bycatch. "On
land we can see how animals rely on structure, how the trees of a forest
are important breeding, feeding, and hiding places - but in the ocean we
have to prove it from afar," explained James Lindholm of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "We now know that structures
on the seafloor are critical for the future of cod, rockfish, and other
commercially important species. But it's only in the last 15 years that
we've had the technology to see these habitats, to see that the seafloor is
not just an endless flat expanse, and to begin to understand how we are
altering deep sea marine habitats - and fisheries - across the globe." In
many cases, fishing is destroying undersea habitats before scientists even
have a chance to study them. "The way we fish is like hanging a huge net
dragged from an blimp across a forest, knocking down the trees and scooping
up the plants and animals, and then throwing away everything except the
deer," says Norse.

The destruction of deep sea, coldwater corals off the east and west coasts
of the U.S. is one example. Hundreds or thousands of years old, these
living corals can be destroyed with a single pass of a bottom trawl, and
may take decades to recover, if they ever do. "The damage to our ocean
floors is more extensive and perhaps even worse than tropical
deforestation," Norse said. "We must bring these issues to the forefront of
fisheries management before it is too late."

Gear Changes Could Save Species

New work presented by Lance Morgan of the Marine Conservation Biology
Institute synthesized data on the ecological impacts of the 10 major
commercial fishing gears used in the United States and provides an expert
ranking for each gear type. The overall ecological impacts associated with
bottom trawls, bottom gillnets, dredges and midwater or drift gillnets
ranked relatively high, with bottom trawling topping the list as the most
ecologically harmful gear type. The impacts from hook and line fishing,
purse seines and midwater trawls ranked relatively low on the scale, though
these methods are also known to snag unintended species including dolphins,
sea turtles and seabirds. "This is the first study to synthesize the
science on these issues, but also to use social science methods to
incorporate expert judgments. It gives managers a place to start in their
deliberations concerning the relative levels of bycatch and habitat impacts
from different fishing methods," said coauthor Ratana Chuenpagdee of the
Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "When you present knowledgeable
experts - fishermen, conservationists, and academics - with science based
information about gear impacts, and ask them to compare these collateral
damages without knowing the names of the gear involved, they give
surprisingly consistent answers," Chuenpagdee added. "It's unusual to find
such uniform agreement about anything, much less fishing practices. But
when you take out personal bias linked to particular gears, there is
surprising consensus across these different communities."

The authors hope that their findings will stimulate local, regional,
national and international conversations about how to reduce the collateral
impacts of fishing. "Too often this problem has been overlooked or ignored
because of the lack of comparative measures. Our results indicate that
there is more common starting ground on these issues than people have
thought," said Chuenpagdee.

The scientists stressed that in many cases, there are ways to reduce the
impacts of fishing, but noted that change will require political will and
action. They suggest that managers and fishers consider "shifting gears" -
phasing out or modifying destructive gears, and moving fisheries toward
more environmentally friendly options.

Gear innovations, such as turtle exclude devices (TEDs) and streamers on
longlines to scare away seabirds, have reduced bycatch in some fisheries,
but propagation of these "gear fixes," through the global fishery has been
slow, and in some cases governments have failed to fully implement or
enforce the use of even proven technologies. "Often the best solutions stem
from fishermen themselves, but without political or financial incentive to
promote development and use of 'gear fixes' or new operating procedures,
destructive practices will continue," said Morgan.

Spatial management, where the use of certain gears is prohibited in
sensitive habitats or popular breeding or feeding grounds of at risk
species, is another option. But in the end, some gears may have to go. "We
need to think about restructuring fisheries around not using trawlers.
Trawling has to be curtailed and phased out as a way of interacting with
the environment - it is just too destructive," argued Daniel Pauly,
University of British Columbia, a fisheries biologist. "As a society, we
make these types of judgments all the time - we don't have to do everything
that we can do, in fact we have rules of restraint to prevent damage - we
don't allow people to drive over the speed limit just to get somewhere
faster, we don't allow machine guns to hunt deer, and we need not allow
wasteful destruction of our marine resources."

Several U.S. states, including California, Alaska, Florida and Virginia,
already have regulations limiting the use of bottom trawls. The scientists
hope that this innovative approach to evaluating fishing gears and
incorporating judgments by various interest groups will be applied in all
areas, catalyzing new attention and action to reduce the bycatch and
habitat destruction across fishing gear types. "I eat fish that commercial
fishers catch, I favor a strong fishing industry. But I also know that the
way people fish is destructive and undermines the future of fisheries and
fishermen alike," said Norse. "If we are going to have fish and sea turtles
and seabirds and marine mammals in the future, we have to fish in way that
dramatically reduces the collateral impact of commercial fishing
operations. With all the knowledge and creativity of fishermen and
scientists, we can fish better. We can, and we must - for the future of the
oceans and the sustainability of fisheries," Norse concluded.