[] TL: OVERFISHING, NORTHEAST PACIFIC SO: Greenpeace International (GP) DT: December 1993 Keywords: oceans fisheries pacific overfishing greenpeace reports gp / -------------- AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (GP) OVERFISHING AND OCEAN ECOSYSTEMS IN THE NORTHEAST PACIFIC Greenpeace December 1993 4649 Sunnyside Avenue North Seattle, WA 98103 (206) 632-4326 1436 U Street, NW Washington, DC 20009 (202) 462- 1177 William Warner describing the fate of North Atlantic fisheries in his book, Distant Water (1977). "Huge as the total catch might seem, the catch per vessel was down and the fish were running generally smaller than before, even though the foreign vessels fished longer hours with improved methods over a larger range for a greater part of the year... [When this happens]... it is nearly always an early and sure warning of the general decay of major fishing areas. First observed in the Old World with the herring and sole of the North Sea and the cod of Norway's Arctic grounds the phenomenon now seemed to be repeating itself in the Northwest Atlantic. Everywhere the factory trawlers went, in other words, more were fishing for less." ARE THERE REALLY 'PLENTY OF FISH IN THE SEA?' The notion that the bounty of the sea is unlimited is deeply rooted in our culture. Similarly, there is a tendency to believe that the oceans' capacity for abuse is endless. Both of these assumptions are false. In the oceans of the world, overfishing and other wasteful and destructive fishing practices are dramatically reducing fish catches. When fish stocks decline, the marine food web is weakened and possibly broken, triggering a cascade of changes in the abundance of other species and major shifts in ecological relationships, affecting marine mammals, seabirds and other fish. Moreover, overfishing and alterations in marine ecosystem structure often have devastating social and economic impacts which reach well beyond ocean boundaries. Coastal fishing communities are particularly hard hit by unsustainable fishing and poor fisheries management. Management systems put in place by governments to control the excesses of fishing are fatally flawed and in desperate need of attention. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the federal agency overseeing U.S. fisheries, 80 percent of the known commercially valuable fish populations (122 aquatic species) are currently fully or overexploited. Another 79 species continue to be exploited while their stock status is unknown. These numbers clearly indicate a profound inability to conserve, manage, and catch fish sensibly and sustainably. Even in the country's most productive fishing grounds--the vast region of the Northeast Pacific--there are signs of trouble. THE NORTHEAST PACIFIC: AN ECOSYSTEM ON THE EDGE The Northeastern Pacific ecosystem includes the waters of the Eastern Bering Sea (EBS), Aleutian Islands (AI) and the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). Together, these waters support the largest single- species fishery in the world for Walleye pollock. In 1992, over 2.9 billion pounds of pollock were caught, valued at more than $324 million. While the Northeast Pacific is still one of the most productive ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere, the region may soon suffer the same fate as the North Atlantic, where indiscriminate fishing practices, overexploitation, and mismanagement brought about a series of biological and commercial fishery collapses. Fisheries off of Alaska have been subject to over three decades of excessive exploitation. Fish stocks abundant in the 1960s, such as Pacific Ocean perch and herring, were fished to low levels only to be replaced in the catch by other commercially viable fish species, such as pollock and Atka mackerel. Due to these "boom and bust" fishing cycles and the cascading ecological effects which result, fisheries of 30 years ago, and arguably ecosystems of 30 years ago, are vastly different from those in existence today. Despite evident symptoms of an ecosystem in distress, fisheries exploitation patterns in the Northeast Pacific have not improved nor has the health of the ecosystem. Since 1986, the number of factory trawlers working the Northeast Pacific has increased from 12 to 65. It is not uncommon for a factory trawler to pull in 350,000 pounds of fish in a single haul. A BOOM IN BOATS BRINGS A FISHERIES BUST Following the implementation of the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson Act) in 1977, the composition of the North Pacific fishing fleet changed dramatically. The goal of this Act was to "Americanize" fishing. The Act established a 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to drive the foreign fishing fleets outside U.S. coastal waters, thereby reserving fishing resources for the emerging domestic fleets, and protecting the fisheries from foreign overexploitation. Prior to the Magnuson Act, most U.S. vessels working in the North Pacific fished largely for highly valued species such as halibut, salmon and crab. However, after the Alaskan king crab collapse of the early 1980s, U.S. companies vied for other markets. The foreign vessels which concentrated on groundfish stocks provided a rallying point for "Americanization." The promise of the groundfish fishery prompted the conversion of crab pot vessels to groundfish trawlers. With preferential allocation of fish quotas to U.S. fishers, and incentives provided by the U.S. Government in the form of low interest loans to build, rebuild and modify boats, the domestic fishing industry quickly became overcapitalized. There were too many boats catching a limited amount of fish. The transition from purely foreign fishing to "Americanization" was facilitated by joint venture agreements, where U.S. fishing vessels partnered with foreign processing vessels within the EEZ. The joint venture era ended with the rapid overdevelopment of the U.S. factory ships. These ships could catch and process fish simultaneously, doing away with the need for foreign technological assistance and increasing the so-called "efficiency" of fishing. Transferring fishing ability to U.S. vessels was heralded as the cure for all of our declining fish stocks, and became the primary management objective of the Magnuson Act. However, while "Americanization" has been achieved, little has changed with respect to overfishing. In fact, U.S. fishing capacity has eclipsed the foreign fishing capacity of the late 1960s. In the North Pacific, waters that were once dominated by factory vessels from Japan, China, Taiwan, Poland, Russia and South Korea, are now commanded by factory vessels from the United States. Currently, several stocks in the waters off Alaska are in danger of being overfished. Pollock, numerous rockfishes, and Pacific cod exhibit signs of declining abundance. Yet, fishing efforts continue to increase. The groundfish fisheries off Alaska are managed as open access fisheries, with no restriction on the number of boats that can participate. This has led to a high degree of overcapitalization, shrinking fishing seasons, difficulties in managing fisheries within established quotas, and increased industry pressure for higher quotas of commercially important species. Advances in fishing technology--a symptom of large fishing corporations' quest for greater short-term profits--have also played a considerable role in increasing capacity and efficiency. Factory trawlers, many as long as 300 feet, pull massive funnel-shaped nets through the sea, scooping up everything in their paths. These vessels catch and process fish while at sea and are some of the largest ships in the North Pacific. However, technological fixes have also enabled smaller vessels to increase their capacity to meet, or in some cases exceed, that of the factory trawlers. The North Pacific is home to one pollock trawler delivering to a shore-based plant that can catch up to 600 tons (over one million pounds) of fish in a single tow. Although not all small trawlers employ such mammoth nets, the larger factory trawlers plying the waters off Alaska often take 350,000 pounds of fish per haul. OVERFISHING THE ECOSYSTEM With modern, overly efficient vessels racing to catch as much fish as possible, conservation is often compromised, raising the threat of overfishing. Overfishing, although a broad term, can be described as taking more fish from a stock than can be naturally replaced. The detrimental effects of annually removing billions of fish from the marine ecosystem, in an unsustainable manner, on predators (birds and marine mammals), on competitors (other species of fish and invertebrates), and on the system itself are likely to be significant. Overfishing can dramatically alter species composition in marine ecosystems; induce changes in marine biodiversity; and pose grave threats to populations of marine mammals, seabirds, and other important predators in the marine food web. The dilemma at this juncture is that these impacts are not quantifiable given the limited research and knowledge currently available. However, important changes have already occurred in the species composition of the groundfish communities of the EBS, AI and GOA during the 1980s. In the EBS, pollock and Greenland turbot have declined significantly since 1979 (40 percent and 35 percent respectively), whereas flatfish and skates which have not been targeted commercially have increased dramatically (450 per cent and 600 percent). In the AI, pollock is relatively much less abundant, while the abundance of Pacific Ocean perch and Pacific cod has almost doubled. The GOA groundfish community has also undergone major changes in recent years. From 1984 to 1990, pollock has halved, thornyheads have almost disappeared, and the abundance of flatfish species has increased by 20 percent. In addition, overfishing appears to have ramifications throughout the ecosystem. For example, the expansion of the pollock fishery in past decades has coincided with significant population declines in marine mammals such as Steller sea lions, Northern fur seals, and harbor seals. For all of these species, pollock makes up an important portion of the diet. Steller sea lions have suffered the most severe downturn. In Alaska, the sea lion population has declined by over 80 percent since the mid- 1950s, and was recently (1990) listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Seabirds, such as blacklegged and redlegged kittiwakes and common and thick-billed murres, have also shown significant declines in abundance during the past 20 years. Since 1976, these species of birds have decreased by 50 to 90 percent in the Bering Sea. These declines are also apparently caused by the unavailability of food, in this case, young pollock. An over-arching problem with fisheries is the single-species approach to management, which views each fishery individually and discounts the relationships between both commercial and non- commercial species and the ecosystem. This approach fails to consider food web interactions between fish populations, thereby ignoring the impacts of removing fish that are either predators of or food sources for other species. Instead, each stock of fish is managed in a vacuum, ignoring the potential long-term effects on the entire marine system. The "boom and bust" style of fisheries exploitation, where one species is targeted, depleted and then replaced by another target species, only exacerbates the problem. In the North Pacific, there is continued denial of the importance of pollock and other forage fish in the diets of various seabirds, marine mammals and other marine species. Quotas for commercial fish species continue to increase, irrespective of the potential impacts on the food web. BYCATCH AND DISCARDS: UNIMAGINABLE WASTE Marine creatures including mammals, seabirds and fish (regardless of commercial value) that are not part of the "directed catch" (i.e., species that a vessel is targeting in a particular fishery) are often killed and discarded in the course of commercial fishing operations. Portions of the directed catch are also discarded in the form of individual fish deemed too small, or of the wrong age or sex to be of value to the fisher. The problems of bycatch and discards are pervasive in many fisheries, and are aggravated significantly by indiscriminate fishing practices. In Alaska alone, over 500 million pounds of fish are discarded annually, most of which is thrown overboard dead. Fish brought to the surface from great depths can suffer fatal internal injuries due to pressure change, and others often suffocate on deck long before the day's catch is sorted and the incidental catch returned to the sea. Many fish are also fatally damaged by various fishing gear. Data collected by government biologists on board fishing vessels in 1990 shows that discards in the EBS/AI amounted to 13.4 percent of the total catch, and were 26 percent of the total catch in the GOA. These discards amount to a substantial fraction of the total biomass of fish removed from the U.S. EEZ in the North Pacific. Pollock, flatfish, skates, sculpins, and sharks suffered the largest discards. Smaller quantities of other species or groups of fish were also discarded. The impact on these populations may be significant if the stocks are depleted and/or the species have slow growth rates. Overall, discard mortalities have not been properly accounted for, and tend to increase annual catch quotas beyond acceptable biological limits. In addition, severe mortalities of non-target species as bycatch have serious implications for the marine environment. Since little is known about marine species that are not commercially valuable, the impact of removing these may never be known. Yet, these species may include indicator species (rays, sculpins), food fish (sandlance, capelin), and other forage fish for top predators and invertebrates, all of which are critical to the healthy functioning of the ecosystem. Recycling of discards into the marine food web may affect ecosystem relationships in more indirect ways. Artificial additions of dead fish may cause changes in community structure and diversity by increasing the number of scavenger and decomposer species. There is also some concern that discarding could have adverse effects on the seabed, including the possibility of oxygen depletion. In addition to the problems of bycatch and discards, indiscriminate fishing (e.g., bottom trawling) has other detrimental side effects. Trawling directly and indirectly damages the rich benthic (bottom-dwelling) communities. Direct effects include physical destruction of organisms and the sea floor as gear is dragged along the bottom. Indirect effects include the resuspension of sediments, toxic chemicals and nutrients with a direct impact on overall ecosystem productivity. THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF OVERFISHING Overfishing causes severe economic hardship for coastal fishing communities as small fishers are squeezed out of business. The traditional image of rugged individuals braving storms to wrest a meager living from the sea is fast fading from our cultural horizon as corporate fishing interests take over fishing grounds and seafood markets. Large-scale operations can fish faster, cheaper, and in higher volumes than the small-scale fishers. In profit driven fisheries, success correlates with the level of "efficiency" attained. This measure, however, fails to consider either the importance of fishing to local families and communities, or the impacts of industrialized fishing on the fishery resource itself. When fish stocks collapse, corporate fishing interests and their mobile factory vessels simply move on to other fisheries. With no ties to local communities, these boats have been known to overfish an area, and then move on to more lucrative fishing grounds, leaving residents with an ecological disaster. By the same token, similar consequences can arise when there are simply too many boats pursuing a limited amount of fish. According to a 1990 report from the Massachusetts Offshore Groundfish Task Force, landings of New England groundfish have hit all-time lows, and some species--haddock and redfish--are yielding less than 10 percent of their long-term potential. Most New England groundfish stocks are currently classified as overexploited. The reduction in annual landings of groundfish by 55,000 tons has cost $350 million and 14,000 jobs. While factors contributing to the decline of U.S. fisheries are manifold, one glaring problem is the present structure of the U.S. fisheries management system. REGIONAL MANAGEMENT UNDER THE MAGNUSON ACT The Magnuson Act sets forth the guidelines for the fisheries management system. The Act created eight regional fishery management councils around the country, each representing several member states with interests in the regional EEZ fisheries. Each council is composed of the Regional Director of NMFS for the area; the head of the primary fisheries management agency for each member state; and a maximum of 19 other members appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. Following assessments and recommendations made by NMFS, designated advisory bodies, and the general public, regional fishery management councils have the authority to create and amend Fishery Management Plans (FMPs) and regulations. The councils' overarching mandate is to ensure the greatest benefit to the most people for any fisheries under their control. The Secretary of Commerce has final approval of any action undertaken by the councils; however, it is rare that a council decision is overturned. Fishery councils are primarily composed of exactly those interests who benefit directly from increased catches: commercial fishers and other industry user groups. Notably absent is non-industry representation. There are no provisions in the Magnuson Act ensuring direct participation in the management process by other interest groups such as environmentalists, consumers, or Native American>. Lack of non-industry representation means the general public is, in effect, shut out of the fisheries management process. Even advisory bodies to the councils are almost entirely comprised of agency scientists, academics, lobbyists for the fishing industry, and fishers. Since industry dominates the council membership, it substantially influences the management decision- making process, yet contends that open council meetings and public hearings enable sufficient input from other groups. The fact, however, is that the councils routinely hear only one side of an issue. Under the present council system, it is not uncommon for voting members to have a direct financial interest in the very fisheries they are overseeing. In this way, council members are permitted to vote on FMPs and other measures that could affect how much money their particular company or industry sector makes. On the North Pacific Fishery Management Council that oversees Alaska's groundfish fisheries, all seven of the members appointed by the Secretary of Commerce are representatives of the commercial fishing industry. An editorial in the Seattle Times (March 31, 1992) summed up the problem, "The regional councils that manage the fisheries are monopolized by fishermen, riddled with multimillion-dollar conflicts of interest that would not be tolerated in the landward oil or timber industries." Greenpeace's priorities for strengthening the Magnuson Act include: 1. Eliminating overfishing and rebuilding depleted fish populations; 2. Requiring the fishing industry to pay more of the costs of fisheries management through mandatory and equitable fees for all sectors of the fishing industry; 3. Minimizing bycatch and waste through direct regulations and a series of incentives and disincentives to promote the development and use of selective fishing gear and methods; 4. Improving current monitoring and enforcement by requiring a greater level of observer coverage on all fishing boats; 5. Abolishing conflicts of interest on the regional fishery management councils and diversifying representation to include conservation and other interests; 6. Adopting an overall precautionary and ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management that will make conservation its primary objective. A FUTURE FOR FISH Current single species management techniques are inadequate to address the complex interactions which constitute an ecosystem. Fisheries regulations that fail to consider fully the harmful effects of bycatch on non-target species are one such example. It is no surprise that an unhealthy ecosystem cannot support a healthy, sustainable fishery. A reorganization of priorities within the fishery management system is very much required. It is easier and more ecologically sound to prevent a fisheries crash by reducing catches and mandating gear restrictions than it is to respond to a crisis after the fact, which is the current way of working. Reactionary management mortgages the future of coastal fishing communities with serious economic consequences for all. Typically, in crises involving overfished stocks, fishing regulations become more restrictive, and overall economic impacts on the fishing industry are more severe. Additionally, fish populations that were depleted in a relatively short period of time may take several decades or more to recover. In cases where a moratorium on fishing is adopted, the period of time needed for rebuilding may aggravate the economic hardship on the fishing community. It has been estimated that New England groundfish may take at least 5 to 20 years to rebuild, and may never again be the dominant species group in the regional ecosystem. A cornerstone of the Greenpeace approach to fisheries is the adoption of precautionary management criteria and objectives. It is simply common sense to attempt to determine the effects of what you are about to do before you do it, to ensure that the risk of damage to sensitive marine ecosystems is minimized. A precautionary approach to fisheries means that the health of ecosystems and species must be granted the benefit of the doubt, rather than placing the burden on the environment to show signs of crises before corrective action is taken. The burden of proof must lie with the commercial fishing industry to first demonstrate that fisheries exploitation schemes are environmentally sound before being allowed to proceed. Greenpeace recommends a precautionary, risk-averse approach to fisheries management as a first step in eliminating overfishing and rebuilding depleted populations. A precautionary approach will shift the burden of proof to the commercial fishing industry to demonstrate that fishing practices will not result in irreversible harm to the marine environment. Greenpeace further advocates that the control of fisheries be in the hands of a broader range of affected groups and organizations. Public participation and involvement in decision- making should be increased, and the views of such groups as indigenous fishers, environmental groups and people living in affected coastal communities should be taken into account. Likewise, there should be formal public access to information gained from continuous monitoring, observation and reporting on the impacts of fishing gear types and levels of fishing effort and catch on the entire ecosystem. The development of our national marine fisheries was fostered under the Magnuson Act to stem further overfishing by foreign fleets, and to accrue both economic and social benefits to the United States. Unfortunately, these laudable aims have been undermined by competing interests, embodied both in the Act and NMFS, of resource conservation and resource exploitation. The results are a law and an agency that are inherently contradictive, which falter in the face of scientific uncertainty, and which promote reactive rather than proactive management. REFERENCES Alaska Sea Grant Program. 1991. Marine Mammal Working Group final report and Seabird Working Group final report for the "Is it Food?" Workshop, March 1991, Fairbanks, Alaska. Alaska Sea Grant College Program. Unpublished report; version: November 1991. Berger, J.B., J.E. Smoker, and K.A. King. 1986. "Foreign and joint-venture catchers and allocations in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska fishing area under Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act, " 1977-1984. US Dept. Commer. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS F/NWC-99. 53p. Bering Sea Fisheries Advisory Body (BSFAB). 1991. Report of the second meeting of the US-USSR. Bering Sea Fisheries Advisory Body. Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NMFS, Seattle, Washington. February, 1991. Borisov, V.M. 1991. " State of the main commercial species of fish in the changeable Barents Sea ecosystem." p. 193-204. In: K. Sherman, L.M. Alexander, and B.D. Gold (eds.). Food chains, yields, models, and management of large marine ecosystems. AAAS Selected Symposium. Westview Press, Boulder. Hartmann, H., J. Lehner. 1992. "Estimation of discarded catch by commercial fishing in Alaska waters in 1990 and potential ecosystem impacts." Invited contribution, World Fisheries congress, Athens, Greece. May, 1992. Jones, J.B. 1992. "Environmental impact of trawling on the seabed: a review." N.Z. J. Mar. Freshwater Res. vol. 26: 59-67. Loughlin, T.R. and R.L. Merrick. 1989. "Comparisons of commercial harvest of walleye pollock and Northern sea lion abundance in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska." Proc. Int. Symp. Biolo. Mgmt. Walleye Pollock. November 1988, Alaska Sea Grant Report No. 89-1. University of Alaska. Lowry, L.F., Frost, K.J., Loughlin, T.R. 1989. "Importance of walleye pollock in the diets of marine mammals in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea, and implications for management." Proc. Int. Symp. Biolo. Mgmt. Walleye Pollock, November 1989, Alaska Sea Grant Report, No. 89- 1, University of Alaska. Megrey, B.A. and V.G. Wespestad. 1990. Alaskan Groundfish Resources: 10 Years of Management under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act. N. Am. J. Fish. Mgmt., vol. 10. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). 1991. Our Living Oceans: The first annual report on the status of the US living marine resources. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-F/SPO-1. The New York Times (March 25, 1992). "Plenty of fish in the Sea? Not Anymore." North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) 1992. Stock Assessment and Evaluation Document for groundfish resources in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands region for 1993. NPFMC, Anchorage, Alaska, November 1992. North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) 1992. Stock Assessment and Evaluation Document for groundfish resources in the Gulf of Alaska region for 1993. NPFMC, Anchorage, Alaska, November, 1992. Warner, William W., 1977, 1983. Distant Water. (The Penguin Group: New York). For additional information, please consult the Greenpeace International report, "Groundfish Fisheries and the Dynamics of the Northeastern Pacific Ecosystems."