Fishing about and about fishing
A draft chapter for the 2014 issue of the OCEAN YEARBOOK
WHEN SCIENCE STRUGGLES WITH POLITICS
Menakhem Ben-Yami #
ABSTRACT
This chapter critically reviews the inertia prevailing in the western fisheries management system, which embraces such assumptions as equilibrium in fishery ecosystems, large spawning stocks producing large new generations; fishing is the main or only factor that affects exploited stocks' size and, therefore, external environmental and social factors can be disregarded; management by output is a panacea in all sorts of fishing systems; selectivity by size is a must, and more. It criticizes the use for stock assessment of inadequate mathematical models and the setting of allowable catch quotas, which are based on flawed science, and are leading to shifting of access to fishery resources from small owners and operators to large firms and corporate interests. This system is for tens of years willy-nilly supported by scientists depending on governmental and institutional employment, in spite of abundance of books, studies and research papers published by independent researchers attempting to set straight the official fishery science and the consequent management.
INERTIA IN FISHERIES MANAGEMENT. An ongoing dispute between scientists supporting the management system still dominating the Western fisheries, and scientists critical about the validity and adequacy of the scientific basis and the prevailing consequent management, has lingered out of sight of the general public opinion and the popular media. The present chapter aims at unveiling both, that dispute and the apparent, however sluggish, turn away from the veneration of the MSY (maximum sustainable yield) and TAC (total allowable catch) concepts, and from reliance on "exact" stock assessments, and other ruling fallacies. These fallacies are comfortably resting on mathematical/statistical models methodology, population dynamics and acoustic surveys, as well as on the mainly single-species stocks assessment. Already in the early and throughout 20th century, many scientists have had it right (Hjort, 1914; Beverton, 1994 & 1998; Larkin, 1978; McGoodwin, 1990;). Unfortunately, the inertia and apparent institutional and mental sluggishness prevented open-minded approach and also funding and allocation of manpower for the development of alternative research programmes (Ben-Yami, In print; Pontecorvo et al, 2009).
One source of this inertia is that most, if not all, of scientific publications in this and other related and unrelated fields are reviewed by peers coming from the respective disciplines, similar schools of thought, and are known as such by the establishment. Establishment's scientific institutions and publication tools do not like critical ideas off the beaten track. The winner of the recent Nobel Prize in chemistry couldn’t have his discovery of semi-crystals published for over 2 years. It couldn’t pass the peer review…
MODELS THAT WENT WRONG. Fisheries modelling has become an academic field of general interest, based on inadequate empirical observations and data, which produces unreliable and unverified results (McGoodwin, 1990). Most models cannot reliably either explain past or project future changes (Ben-Yami,2006), mainly because of missing input component factors, but also due to some ruling paradigms, e.g., the equilibrium one (Caddy, 1983). Relying on such models allows for unreliable and even fallacious calculations of biomass. Even when supported by echosounding surveys, stock assessments may vacillate by tens of percent, one reason being that the eco-surveyed populations may be mobile and or schooling to various degrees during such surveys. This, as well as various technical constraints may render the results to be of little or no value in real time (Ben-Yami, 2010; Sharp et al, 1983).
The ecologically illogical single-species models, which traditionally assume that the population size of their targeted fish species cab be assessed in separation of other species and is only dependent on the level of fishing mortality, don’t agree with the observed trends in many fisheries. Of course, the impact of fishing on fish resources is now much, much stronger than, say a couple of hundreds of years ago, but so is, for example, that of the protected, expanding populations of marine mammals that according to various studies together with marine birds consume nowadays several times more fish than the world's fisheries (Ben-Yami, 2008; Beverton, 1994; Brooke, 2004; Kaschner & Pauly, 2005).
Such models are also oblivious of ecological inter-relations and the dependence of fish biomass and fish recruitment on many environmental factors independent of fishing, such as its ambient physical and chemical conditions, predation and prey and food availability, as well as survival of eggs and larvae, which depends on favourable conditions occurring at the right time and area (Ben-Yami, 1994; Kawasaki,1983). The arbitrary value of natural mortality N = 0.18 to 2.00 is still used in western models by sheer inertia. For example, one hundred years ICES projections for the stocks of Faroe Plateau cod, haddock and saithe were made assuming M=0.2 (Ben-Yami, 2006)!. This makes natural mortality low and constant…and the Earth - flat…
Ignored in the traditional models, multi-annual (Ben-Yami, 1974) and multi-decadal (Shuleikin, 1949) variations in fish yields in important commercial fish populations have been documented since 400 to 1,000 years ago, while 1,500 years old time series of environmental indicators suggested similar periodicity. Some past and present "overfishing/collapses" of stocks have been in fact "bottoms" of historic climatic cycles, and vice versa. There's a plethora of environmental and planetary factors, which are responsible for such phenomena (Eremeev et al, 2012; Klyashtorin, 2001; Klyashtorin & Lyubushin, 2008; Rouyer et al., 2014).
M. Heino (2003) wrote: “Models that consider fish stocks in isolation from their ecosystem have clearly had their day, and fisheries science is moving on”. Obviously, these models applied for years by ICES and the European and U.S. national institutions never have been any good and the consequences have been felt in most areas of the N. Atlantic and adjacent seas. There is a growing recognition that the mainstream fishery management has been based on flawed assumptions, which makes the “sustainable yield” notions, whether maximum (MSY), or optimum (OSY), etc., appear as a sort of make-believe values, calculated for single species in a tunnel-vision manner on the basis of past year(s) data, and only seldom on some current data. The resulting values are employed for fixing future TACs, in spite that they already may be hardly relevant, or even counter-productive whenever in the meantime the stock-size trend have changed (Ben-Yami, 2005). Therefore, to be able to follow environment-induced trends, it is not enough for a model to follow a past trend; it must "catch up" with trends changes in real time, and be continually fed with a real time data. For any reasonably reliable predictions, while based also on well-studied long term time-series of environmental cycles, it must be fine tuned to real-time data adjustment (Ben-Yami, 2006-b; Kawasaki et al., 1991; Klyashtorin and Lyubushin, 2007), which, for the time being is a rather tall order.
According to Hester (2008), the early management concept of single stock (species) management depended on a simple model – the Baranov (1918) catch equation – and that is still the case. All that is needed is catch and effort data and some understanding of how the fishery operated to plug into the equation and do the arithmetic. The key was the adequacy of the data and the validity of the assumptions about how the stock responded to exploitation. That included the biology of the species concerned and the operation of the fishery. While some recognize and pay lip service to the importance of ecological interactions with other occupants of the biosphere, and inadequate data, the former methodology is still used. It is concealing the data flaws in complex statements of probabilities, which in the final analysis ignore the probabilities and still base management decisions on a point estimates with obscenely wide confidence intervals, so that these variance estimates do not reflect the true levels of uncertainty. The result is that as long as assessments use models as a substitute for data, the results will fit the political regime's preferences (Hester, 2008).
Copes (1998) suggested abandoning mathematically impeccable naïve models in favour of a realistic, multi-disciplinary approximation of a working fishery, on the understanding that empirical verity should take precedence over theoretical precision. "For policy implementation in a real-life fishery, is it not better to be approximately right than precisely wrong? – wrote Prof. Copes.
Notwithstanding, mathematical models (Beverton & Holt, 1957) and their software offshoots have been promoted and applied in fishery science under the fallacious pretense that they have reliable operational value. Their devotees are trying to mathematize the “unmathematizable”, computerize the incomputable, and program the “unprogrammable”. They miss the role of the interrelations and weight of the various factors, such as fishermen and species inter-relations in multi-species fisheries, planktonic and benthic food and forage fish availability, prey-predator relations, and the various effects of physical fluctuations in the environment. Eventually, they overlook or deliberately ignore many of these factors, thus lacking reliable and sufficient data to feed the models, and disregard or “smooth” unwieldy parameters for the sake of making their findings mathematically accurate and statistically significant (Ben-Yami, 2003; Sharp, 1995 &1997).
IT'S ALL ABOUT ECOSYSTEM. The dynamic mechanism of inter-actions and inter-relations occurring in marine ecosystems have been not yet adequately studied and explained. We still need a better understanding of how the marine ecosystem functions under the effects of atmospheric and marine climates (Caddy & Sharp, 1986; Laevastu, 1993; Sharp et al, 1983).
In spite of what may seem obvious and hence unnecessary to some of the readers, below are some definitions of terms, as employed in this chapter.
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Definitions
Ecology can be regarded as “the economics of Nature". It deals with ecosystems and, in particular, with their energy and matter exchanges, as economics deal with goods, work, and capital exchange within human societies. However, while economic units of exchange are relatively few, and most of the participating factors and many of the rules that come with, are known, the business of exchange that's going on within every ecosystem is more complex, less known, the rules and inter-relations between the various "clients" and their surroundings not yet well researched, units of exchange much more numerous, with "costs" changing continually.
Both, economics and ecology aren't exact sciences. Human free-will is often assuming the role of the skunk at the garden party of economic models, while climatic fluctuations and vagaries, and other environmental events and changes, as well as unexpected or hard to predict and evaluate human interventions, keep frustrating even the most elegant mathematical models of marine ecosystems and fish population dynamics.
Ecosystem represents a space in which numerous environmental and processes occur simultaneously, interact, and influence each other. External ever-changing factors and internal fluctuations cause ecosystems to subsist in a dynamic, often spasmodic equilibrium.
Marine ecosystem is a space in a sea or an ocean within which occur numerous processes of heat, energy, and matter exchange among organic and inorganic factors that create conditions enabling existence of countless life forms. The engines that set off and maintain these processes are solar radiation and atmospheric, marine, biological and geological phenomena, starting with ElNino, typhoons, marine currents, tides, and volcanic eruptions, and ending with blooms of bacteria and algae building their bodies of chemical nutrients.
Fishery ecosystems are marine ecosystems in which fishing people play the role of top predators and exploit fishery resources, extract fish and other aquatic organisms – and in which this encounter plays a significant role. In a fishery ecosystem, this extraction is becoming an additional and significant factor in the whirl of dynamic processes occurring in marine ecosystems. Since some 95% of world’s fish yield comes from coastal waters, most coastal marine ecosystems are fishery ecosystems.
Fishery ecology is the science that studies and describes fishery ecosystems and, therefore, it is as much about fishing people as it is about fish and the environmental conditions in which fisheries take place.
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Towards ecosystem management. For many decades, fishery science has tended to ignore the influence of factors other than fishing on fishery ecosystems (Rose, 1997). The same goes for states' fishery management bureaucracies and most environmentalist organizations (NGOs). Nowadays, however, “environmental effects” and “ecosystem management” have become fashionable mantras. The growing interest in marine ecosystems has spawned the “ecosystem approach” to coastal zone and fishery management, and many related studies and publications. As a good example may serve a report published by the Washington B.C.-based NGO, World Resources Institute (WRI)**) appraising the current condition and future prospects of world’s coastal ecosystems, and analyzing their ability to produce food, provide mineral resources, keep shorelines stable, waters clean, and maintain biodiversity. The WRI report warned that the marine coastal areas were in danger of losing their "capacity to provide fish, protect homes and businesses, reduce pollution and erosion, and sustain biological diversity".
Dr. Mikko Heino (2005) of the Bergen Institute of Marine Research wrote in an article published by ICES: "... ICES is shifting to ecosystem approach, which includes the effects of climate and oceanography… and… of changes in fish food supply, especially at the sensitive larval stage that are related to the physical environment — the variability in sunlight, winds, and currents…. …This new knowledge leads to …meaningful, operational predictions on the future levels of recruitment… etc., etc.... …The new fisheries management system would be alert for the dynamics of the environment, and look at the state of stocks on the background of climatic events and fluctuations, and of other non-fishing factors". Already 16 years ago, Dr. John Caddy (1993), at that time with FAO, wrote that "The tendency now seems to be towards setting holistic management objectives, as opposed to simply fisheries management on a species by species basis". Both were over-optimistic, for the predicted shift has been rather sluggish to materialize.
The tanker syndrome. So, what are the reasons that while so many and for so long have been talking about the needed shift in the official Western science/management systems hardly anything has happened? Dr. Serge Garcia, the former head of the FAO Fishery Resources Division once told me that even when individuals among the scientific-management system have already made up their mind as to the need of changing an old-school paradigm, they have the large tanker ships syndrome: it takes them long time to change direction.
But, now, it seems that the "tanker" started turning: for example, one of the amendments to Magnuson Act proposed by the U.S. Congress' Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings would replace the term "overfished“ “wherever it appears throughout the Magnuson Act, by ”depleted". And rightly so; "overfishing" is a misnomer that has for years distracted fisheries management from all natural and man-caused factors affecting populations of commercial fishes other than fishing. Thus, as long as it's only "overfishing" only fishermen are to blame and management by simple restricting fishing is the best way to rebuild stocks. *)
This change, once approved, should force the U.S. fisheries management science while approaching problems of deficient fish yields to consider also such factors, as upstream and coastal pollution, excessive use of spilled-oil dispersants, degraded inshore habitat due to e.g., longshore development, low egg/larval/fingerling survival, predation, food availability across all growth and maturation stages, and fish populations' migrations due to thermocline and other ambient thermal shifts, extreme weather vagaries, etc., (Ben-Yami, 1968; Laevastu, 1993; Nye et al, 2009; Pinsky et al, 2013). Also, offshore environmental degradation, and deterioration of sea water quality by inflow of polluted water from rivers and agricultural sources exert pressure on marine life. All the more that most marine species, in general, and fishes in particular occupy inshore and inland riverine habitats at some stage of their life. Managing fisheries, therefore, following the assumption that overfishing is the sole cause for stock depletion would've to be scientifically proved and participation of other factors refuted.
Such approach would also expose situations where limiting fishing effort was not a remedy. It would point to the actual "villains", and expose the inaction to contend pollution and habitat deformation, and to withstand the lobbying power of major NGO foundations. These are spending a fortune in fighting "overfishing" and thus diverting the attention of public opinion from all the other factors and, in particular, from the damage caused by pollution from petro-chemical industry sources. (Ben-Yami, in print, Hilborn, 2006). It may be quite fascinating to unearth their financiers… This important Magnusson Act amendment will affect the U.S. fisheries management in all Federal and also individual States controlled waters.
The ascending new approach is confronting the West European fisheries and the U.S. fisheries scientific and administrative establishment with the inadequacy of the still applied single-species management. The ecosystem approach is placing the management of fish stocks and their habitats into a broad context of socio-economic, ecologic, and even cultural domains, and embodies a much more holistic philosophy, than the existing, "overfishing"-centered one. NOAA, for example, (http://stateofthecoast.noaa.gov/ecosystems.html) presents the following "Issues affecting habitat":
1- Pollution and water quality; 2 – Alteration and degradation of rivers and migratory pathways; 3 – Fragmentation and loss of estuarine and shallow water habitats; 4 – Fishing effects on habitats; 5 – Climate variability and change; 6 – Invasive species and marine debris; 7 – Vessel traffic and noise.
Also in Europe sensitivity is spreading to non-fishing human pressure on ecosystem, by modification of inshore habitats essential for the survival and growth of early fish stages and their food basis by various coastal developments (Airoldi & Beck, 2007). Now NOAA is saying that its scientists jointly with stakeholders are developing ways to incorporate environmental data into stock assessments.
Ecosystem approach to fisheries management. Many changes in fisheries science and in the approach to fishery management have been occurring in recent years. There’s a growing concerns that the official science has been neglecting or underestimating the share of environmental changes and fluctuations on fish populations, the role of ecological interaction in determining population dynamics, and the effect of socio-economic factors and market pressures on fishing operations and fishery management.
Unfortunately, ecosystem approach to management. has been misrepresented by certain scientists and NGOs, as the effect of fisheries on the environment and nothing else. Some independent scientists, as well as writers in fishery trade press have been trying already for over two decades to draw attention to the drawbacks of the 'conventional' stock assessment and management practices, and especially those based on simplistic models isolated from non-fishing effects, and on catch quotas (Copes, 1995). It followed a gallery of dissent some of which had been voiced by Dr. Jonas Bjarnason (private communication) and Jon Kristjansson of Iceland, Dr. Gary Sharp and Prof. Russ McGoodwin of the USA, and many knowledgeable fishermen tried to show us the light, but had gone unheeded for years.
While NOAA and the Europe's ICES may use different terminology, at both sides of the Atlantic Ocean seems now to emerge appreciation that to become workable, pragmatic and realistic - the ecosystem approach must be about concurrently exploited groups of species, rather than of separate single stocks. Also quantified assessments, such as TAC (total allowable catch) and MSY (maximum sustainable yield) would make more sense and are closer to biological realities, when understood as a range of values rather than fixed points often presented in ridiculously precise figures. Now NOAA is saying that its scientists jointly with stakeholders are developing ways to incorporate environmental data into stock assessments, while Heino (2005) wrote that "ICES is helping to develop the ecosystem approach by improving understanding of how the marine ecosystem functions, including the effects of climate ….., etc.
So what the new approach is about? Let’s start with ecosystem based management and consider its main elements and their changes in space, time and character. The first element is the time factor. Any aquatic ecosystem is a dynamic, pulsating, and ever-changing macro-organism. Thus, trends and fluctuations that have been occurring in the ecosystem throughout history must be taken into account. The second element embraces all the changes and physical, biological and chemical forces imposed upon the ecosystem by the various human activities. Whatever happens with inshore and bottom habitats, as well as with the water (upstream and coastal pollution) affects the ecosystem’s biota (i.e., all living things). The third element is made up of the relationships between the various species occupying the ecosystem at all stages of their life. This runs from bacteria and phyto-plankton up to top predators, with special attention to the managed “target species”, physical factors affecting them, their food and predators. Last, but not least is fishing, which apart from massive removal of marine organisms from the system, also influences the genetics of the fished populations. The fishing itself is influenced by the market and the socio-economic context of fishing people and their communities, and fish consumers, as well as by the industry and technologies involved (Garcia et al, 2003).
Only an intelligent analysis and synthesis of the interaction of all those elements can enable understanding of the problems and search for solutions. We have to accept that the dynamics of the system is so complex that even the best existing models are inadequate for forecasting the outcomes of possible management actions (Bianchi, 2008).
In this general context, “ecosystem-based fishery management” must address all the above particular elements. Those that require intervention must be defined and managed separately, while taking the other elements into account. Flexibility and tailoring management for each specific fishery and area should become the rule. There’s no rational way to impose a single “common” policy that doesn’t take all the above into account. We have to analyze fishery by fishery to see, for example, if TACs and fishing quotas are the right methodology to use, or other options such as effort control should be considered (Copes, 1995).
Accordingly, the World Ocean Review 2013, (http://worldoceanreview.com/en/), wrote that the marine ecosystem comprises not only the various targeted fish stocks, but also predators such as marine mammals, birds and predatory fish, as well as prey such as plankton and other species of fish. Some species interact with the fish stocks in other ways – corals are one example, as they form habitats for fish. Ecosystem approach must consider the dynamics of the marine environment, in space, time and character. Climatic and oceanographic trends and fluctuations that have been occurring in the ecosystem throughout history must be taken into account, as well as the relationships between the various species occupying the ecosystem at all stages of their life, as well as all the physical, biological and chemical forces imposed upon habitats by human activities. It must be concerned with all stakeholders, their performance and activities, not only with management of fishing, but also with habitat protection against unreasonable development, coastal and upstream pollution, extraction of various sea-bottom components and of oil, shipping and other traffic, etc.
NOAA's shift. Both, NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and ICES (Europe's International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) seem to be about another major shift in its approach to fisheries management, from managing single-species towards system ecology.
A recent NOAA's report, (http://spo.nwr.noaa.gov/TM83.pdf). which carried important message not only to American, but also to other, particularly West European fisheries, confronted the U.S. fisheries scientific and administrative establishment with the inadequacy of the still applied single-species management. The new concept can be summed up, as follows: "…the single-species approach relies on an assumption that (stock abundance) is affected only by the abundance of its spawning adults, natural mortality and fishing mortality and by the recruitment of juveniles…" "This enables mathematical modeling approach to stock assessment" and "…implies that the stock exists in isolation from the ecosystem…". The "still evolving" ecosystem approach to management, is "…placing the management of fish stocks and their habitats into a broader context of societal priorities…", such as "..improved water quality… …employment and economic activity" and embodies "a more holistic philosophy". NOAA presents the "Issues affecting habitat" in the following order: 1 - Pollution and water quality; 2 – Alteration and degradation of rivers and migratory pathways; 3 – Fragmentation and loss of estuarine and shallow water habitats; 4 – Fishing effects on habitats; 5 – Climate variability and change; 6 – Invasive species and marine debris; 7 – Vessel traffic and noise.
Now NOAA is saying that its scientists jointly with stakeholders are developing ways to incorporate environmental data into stock assessments.
The problem of stocks assessment. The prevailing management system is based mainly on catch targets imposed upon a fishery in the form of a total allowable catch (TAC ), which requires assessment of the managed stock size and composition. This is presently achieved by employing various population models predominantly based on a “root” formula: resulting biomass = old biomass less fishing mortality less natural mortality plus recruitment (Hoggarth et al, 2005), which over-simplifies the ecological and biological reality of fish populations.
Requested for precision by their superiors in the management establishment, stock-assessment scientists keep providing ridiculously precise figures for the stock biomass in the sea and, hence, for the catch quotas they are paid to advise on. No accuracy can be achieved by dividing estimate by approximate, adding a guesstimate and multiplying it all by an assumption.
It is evident that the paradigm that large spawning stocks always provide strong recruitment and vice-versa has been wrong all the way, and science should look for the physical and biological reasons for the respectively poor and abundant recruitments that, in different years, don't correlate with SSB levels. On the contrary, stronger recruitment is more probable when the SSB is small, but consists of large, esp., female individuals (Ben-Yami,2006).
The science behind fisheries management. The inadequacy of the prevailing fisheries management science has been long recognized by knowledgeable fishermen, and by many scientists independent of their governments' authority. Not that establishment's scientists have been unaware of this deficiency; one could read it even between the lines of official reports.
The prevailing fishery management system is based on stock assessment supposed to be provided by “the best available science”. Unfortunately, this science is mostly inadequate, and in some cases utterly fallacious. It is using simplified assumptions, sticks to statistics, avoids ecology, and ends up with often dubious appraisals of whether and how much fish stocks are overfished (Ben-Yami, 2006-b).
It is based mainly on catch targets imposed upon a fishery in the form of a total allowable catch (TAC ), which requires assessment of the managed stock size and composition. This is presently achieved by employing various population models predominantly based on a “root” formula: resulting biomass = old biomass less fishing mortality less natural mortality plus recruitment (Hoggarth et al, 2005), which over-simplifies the ecological and biological reality of fish populations.
No doubt, wherever occurs impoverishment of commercial fish populations - a term, which should be preferred to describe combined causality, which happens in almost every instance the term overfishing is brought up - fishing would probably be one of the causes. But any a priori blaming of every negative change in fish populations solely on fishing is certainly wrong and demonstrates either ignorance or intentional fallacy, and not once has led fishery management to a debacle. In ecology there's almost never one single factor that's responsible for an ongoing process or for a given situation (Rothschild, 2011). No moratoria on fishing will restore fish population that unfavourable hydrographic changes or massive pollution of its habitat chased it away from its usual environs, or forced it into producing poor year classes (Ben-Yami, 2006-b; Sharp et al., 2004).
According to Beverton (1994), only close liaison between biological and physical research can tackle the effect of long-term climate change on fish stocks in an integrated manner. Multi-species and ecosystem research is vital for elucidating these long-term effects, the source of which lies in profound changes in the early life history of species and in basic productivity. The total amount of fish eaten by other fish, marine mammals, and birds is as great as or greater than it is by man. Fishing is only one factor, and regulation by catch limits is fundamentally flawed, except in the simplest of single species fisheries, and the TAC system is both wasteful and ineffective (ibid). Presently, some 15 years later, increasing number of fishery scientists and fishermen are coming to agreement with Beaverton's statement (Ben-Yami, 2008b; Karschner & Pauly, 2005). But, improving the existing science-management system requires a major strategic shift, a difficult undertaking for a large, well-financed and firmly established decades-old system. One and a major one would be to change the approach to selectivity.
Selectivity effects. Sustained creaming off of the larger and more prolific individuals is leaving in the stock mostly smaller fish with inferior reproductive qualities (Garcia et al, 2012; Heino, 2003). But, avoiding or reducing the capture of smaller and younger fish to let it grow, mature, and procreate has been a managing dogma for at least over a century. One assumption has been that the surviving spawners, however few, will produce huge numbers of eggs and larvae, far enough to replenish the population. Hence, minimum hook sizes, and minimum mesh sizes for gillnets, trawl codends, and seine bags.
This assumption has been questioned for years by some scientists, such as two Icelanders, Dr. Jonas Bjarnason (private communication), and Jon Kristjansson, http://www.mmedia.is/~jonkr/english/selfish.html, who have argued against selective fishing. Although from different points of view, the former of genetic changes in selectively fished stocks, and the latter believing that the changes are reversible, both came to the same conclusion that sustained creaming-off of the larger and more prolific individuals would bring about stock impoverishment, which reduction of quotas and even moratoria won’t cure. Similar voices came also from the direction of ICES, where in its 2003 Newsletter Nr.40, Dr. Mikko Heino of the Bergen Institute of Marine Research wrote in an article: “Does fishing cause genetic evolution in fish stocks?” (quoted in our March 2004 issue in another context). In another article Mikko Heino and Ulf Dieckmann report that the collapse of 12 important N.Atlantic and N.Sea stocks was preceded by fish maturing at lowered ages and at smaller size (Jørgensen, 1990).
And, in the April 2004 issue of “Nature”, Norwegian fishery scientists published a study to the same effect: E.L.Olsen and his co-authors after having analyzed some 30 years of data involving the plunge in Atlantic cod populations around southern Labrador and Newfoundland's Grand Banks, wrote that there was a decline in the ages and sizes at maturity even before the northern cod population had collapsed, and that the cause was selective fishing pressure against those larger individuals that genetically tend to mature later. The resulting genetic change in the northern cod’s population now slows down its recovery, because the smaller and weaker fish can't produce as many and as strong offspring with desirable genetic properties as the older fish could. Early detection of such evolutionary process could serve as an early warning system for trouble ahead.
According to Steve Berkeley a research biologist at the Uuniversity of California in Santa Cruz, the same phenomenon is particularly striking in long-lived rockfish species. “Something is just not right with how we are disproportionately removing older and larger fish " - he reported to a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). "Sorry - we got it a bit wrong all those years ago. We shouldn't be selectively protecting just the young ones, but adding special protection for the biggest fish. Our research shows that you need to maintain older fish in the population, because those are the most successful at reproducing. But normal fishing at what we now think of as safe levels will not maintain old fish in the population," Berkeley said.
More scientific fallacies. Another inertia-driven assumption made by ICES was: "linearity in the relationship between fishing effort and fishing mortality has been assumed”. This is another fallacious paradigm, false in most cases for many reasons. This statement may be right only in very particular settings and well-researched instances, where it's not just assumed, but proven.
The international fisheries management system has been sluggish also in getting rid of the concept of "tragedy of commons" (Hardin, 1968) in fisheries science and in fisheries management, criticized by many scientists, (Angus, 2008; Finley & Oreskes, 2013; Ostrom et al, 1999). Eventually, its use/misuse has led to justify privatization of natural resources (Smith, 1981).
Wherever the fisheries are managed by assuming a certain minimum level, any fish stock below the level that according to calculations by mathematical models would produce MSY (maximum sustainable yield), is treated as “overfished”. This term implies that this condition of the stock is caused by excessive fishing to be dealt with in the management practice (Larkin, 1996). Scientifically fallacious, this approach has been revered for many decades now, in spite that everybody concerned knows very well that in the real world there're plenty other factors that affect the size of fish populations.
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A Shift must come. At least, the reality that the conventional methodology produces quite a few ineffective and even adverse management steps is now being recognized at both sides of the Atlantic. While most scientists keep working within the old context (Ward and Weeks (1994), they know that sooner or later new paradigms must replace those they’ve been trained in and used to (Caddy, 1999).
David Thomson (2002) a veteran international consultant once wrote rightly that "the 30-year disaster of the EU Common Fisheries Policy” was partly due to failing to challenge false assumptions. Take the traditional use of a constant value of natural mortality of 0.18-0.20 for all stocks and all circumstances. Years ago, a committee of the U.S. Academy of Sciences recommended peer-reviewing the management advice and the way how it's been derived. More or less similar conclusions have been reached by the U.K. Royal Society, and the Scottish Royal Academy. The problem was, in my opinion, that not the individual recommendations, but rather the whole system of fisheries management science should have undergo revision and a consequent change of direction.
Rational and sustainable management of aquatic resources is a complex problem area. It must be alert for the follies of the dynamics of the ever-changing environment, and consider the state of stocks on the background of natural fluctuations and other environmental changes. Along with assessment of the current biomass, trends in the climatic processes and events should be monitored and taken into account. The complexity of the problem consists in the combination of natural and man-caused environmental changes, pollution and eutrophication with economically-viable overfishing, which is a product of increasing demand both, for high-quality and for cheap and industrial fishes and, hence, of raising prices on the globalized markets, prices that compensate for decreasing yields.
The conventional methodology producing flawed assessment of the stocks, must result in debatable, to say the least, recommended allowable catch (TAC) or fishing effort. Although this reality is being now more and more recognized, the inertia still rules and most scientists are working within the context of the old "paradigms". From time to time - as the philosopher Thomas Kuhn teaches - paradigms shift, although for those clinging to the old ones, such "redefinitions" can appear cataclysmic. Nils Stolpe (2008), a well known advocate for a shift in the U.S. fisheries management wrote "Needless to say, when you have a fisheries management system which is predicated almost entirely on controlling fishing mortality, which our fisheries management system is, and there are other factors that impact fish stocks as much as or more than fishing mortality, your management system is going to break down…". (posted on the Fishosophy blog, hosted on (http://fishosophy.fisheries.org/) and (http://www.aifrb.org) websites; also www.Fishnet.USA.org).
In the recent years, fishery science has started internalizing the notion that management by single species and only by controlling fishing is illogical and contrary to ecological realities. A new approach entered the domain of fisheries management under the name of “Ecosystem-based management”. So what the new approach should be about? Let’s consider the main elements of an ecosystem affected by commercial fishery (fishery ecosystem) and their changes in space, time and character. The first element is the time factor. Any aquatic ecosystem is a dynamic, pulsating, and ever-changing macro-organism. Thus, trends and fluctuations that have been occurring in the ecosystem throughout history must be taken into account (Sharp et al., 2004). The second element embraces all the changes and physical, biological and chemical forces, including upstream and coastal pollution, imposed upon the ecosystem by climatic variations (Laevastu, 1993) and the various human activities. Whatever happens with inshore and bottom habitats, and the water, affects the ecosystem’s biota (i.e., all living things). The third element is made up of the relationships between the various species occupying the ecosystem at all stages of their life. This runs from bacteria and phyto-plankton up to top predators, with special attention to the managed “target species”, physical factors affecting them, their food, prey and predators. Last, but not least is fishing, which apart from massive removal of marine organisms from the system, also may influence the size, age and genetic composition of the fished populations (Laevastu et al., 1996). The fishing itself is influenced by the market and the socio-economic context of fishing people and their communities, and of fish consumers, as well as by the industries and technologies involved (Sharp et al., 2004). No doubt, controlling fish harvests is not enough to ensure sustainable fishery and healthy ecosystems.
“The vastness of linkages between species and critical habitats in a coastal area requires comprehensive management of all its parts”, (Caddy and Sharp, 1986). An appropriate approach should incorporate institutional arrangements and cultural factors to provide for better analysis and prediction, (Feeny et al., 1990). Further expansion of dead anoxic zones, 150 of which were reported in 2003 in bays and semi-enclosed seas, some of which extended up to 27,000 square miles, may well be a greater peril than overfishing. Also, pollution of rivers and estuaries and longshore development that destroys inshore habitats, affect the reproduction of many fish species whose spawning and nursery areas are in inshore waters. A slowly killing mycobacteriosis epidemic was affecting the condition and size of the striped bass population in Maryland and Virginia and in the heavily polluted Chesapeake Bay (Wiliamson, 2006).
UN speaks up. Half-an-year ago, the High Level Panel of Experts of the UN (HLPE) published a report, recognizing the role and importance of small-scale fishermen in supplying foodfish to the people. HLPE's report stresses the negative impacts of such activities as oil drilling, energy installations, coastal development and longshore construction and development of coastal infrastructures, dams and water flow management (especially for inland fisheries), erosion and pollution, etc. on aquatic productivity and resources sustaining habitats and on the livelihoods of fishing communities. Add to those, denial of access to fishing grounds or displacement from coastal settlements, through the establishment of Marine Protected Areas and other conservation activities.
"Small-scale fisheries - says HLPE - as compared to larger scale fisheries, generally make broader direct and indirect contributions to food security: they make affordable fish available and accessible to poor populations and are a key mean to sustain livelihoods of marginalized and vulnerable populations in developing countries. The importance of small-scale fisheries (including inland fisheries) in terms of overall contribution to food security and nutrition is often underestimated or ignored".
Also: …" small-scale fishermen's production capacity is as important as the larger fleets in terms of availability of fish. In addition, a substantial proportion of small-scale fisheries’ landings is directed at developing countries’ consumers in local or regional markets. This is especially true for inland fisheries, for which 94 % of their production is consumed within the country of origin".
Small- and large-scale fleets (e.g. trawlers) compete for resources and fishing grounds leading to conflicts in zones where they jointly operate, which in most cases increases small-scale operators’ vulnerability, threatens their well-being, incomes and food security. Such competition can also negatively impact on coastal habitats. To manage fisheries in a sustainable manner, HLPE recommends assessing the prospective resources, recognizing local rights over fish, water and land resources, monitoring and controlling the system, and determining supportive policies, programmes, and support measures for the various stakeholders. All this needs governance able to contain the complexity of the economic, environmental, and social outcomes, including food security.) HLPE Report on Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture for food security and nutrition, FAO/UN - 14 May 2014; Kolding & van Zwieten, 2011).
Apparently, things are moving in the right direction…
CONCLUSION
Fisheries science should be liberated from any political influences, institutional, national, and ideological. It should first at all invest its resources in studies of the specific characteristics of each separate fishery, and the biota that abounds in the respective ecosystem. It should dispose of quantitative stock assessments producing ridiculously precise figures and, if any, apply the fuzzy logic methodology. Consequently, any quantitative assessment should be applied only to those fisheries of which sufficient data and adequate ecological information are available, so that, for example, reduced yields due to changes in ambient conditions, such as temperature or salinity and resulting shifts of fish populations, would not be ascribed to overfishing. “Fishery independent” self-sampling practice reduces both - contact with fishing people and understanding of what's really going on on the fishing grounds. It should be, therefore, reinforced by parallel sampling and observations by scientists sailing on board fishing vessels. The accumulated knowledge of fish biology, physiology, ecology, behaviour, and environment, as well as of the related fishing people and their communities, would enable protecting fish at the right time and place, and choose realistic input controls fitting the species' life history and environmental dynamics and gaining respect and co-operation of the fishing sector. If we wish fishing people to comply voluntarily with rules, they must believe in the underlying science. Therefore, management authorities should have both, management decisions and the underlying science, peer-reviewed and verified by independent scientists, this also to avoid misuse by in-groups promoting and protecting their own position.
Fishery science must investigate the external conditions that are favourable to the various target species and those that are not, and to what degree, It should seek possible correlations between those factors and fish populations' wellbeing and behaviour. Fishery ecology should become an important if not the main topic of research. Massive stomach and gut analysis of commercial fishes would contribute towards understanding of competition and prey-predator relations in the ecosystem.
Special efforts are needed to estimate realistic mortality rates in different fisheries using, e.g., conventional and ultrasonic tags, and studies of stomach and gut content also of marine piscivores, other than fish. For this purpose, fishery science should apply fuzzy logic, which offers methodologies that would enable both - to break out of the precision paradigm and bring fishery science closer to the real world. Reportedly, ICES/IOC Steering Group on GOOS had considered in 2002 the use of fuzzy indicators, which it seems was not really implemented by ICES.
Scientific theories and hypotheses as opposed to religious (or para-religious) dogmas, can be scientifically disproved, and so is now happening with quantitative stock assessment and allowed catch methodology. This is the way of true science: yesterday's scientific truth may become today's misconception, today's scientific gospel that was scorned yesterday probably would be again scorned tomorrow, and that what’s scorned today may become the teaching of tomorrow.
A postscript: A related subject, which deserves a separate in-depth treatment should be about the current fisheries management policy devoted to various quotas systems. This policy, willy-nilly or not, is serving the interests of large and corporate owners, at the expense of small-scale fishermen and pop-and-mum, owner-operator fishing businesses. Unfortunately, the still dominant official fishery science has been harnessed to that wagon loaded with prizes, scholarships and fellowships. It thus became instrumental in dislocation of small-scale private fishing enterprises from coastal communities and in virtual destruction and depopulation of many of them.
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*) To read this proposed amendment along with some others, see draft: Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act http://naturalresources.house.gov/magnusonstevens/.
**) Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Coastal Ecosystems, by: Burke, L. et al. (World Resources Institute, Wash., D.C.). 2001. 93 p.
And from the Internet sources::
Fuzzy Logic: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Formal_fuzzy_logic.
Images of Top-down Trophic Energy Tranfers: https://www.google.com/search?q=images+for+top-down+energy+transfers&oq=images+for+top-down+energy+transfers&aqs=chrome.69i57.16096j0j9&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8
# Dr.Menakhem Ben-Yami
Fisheries Adviser
WORLD FISHING Columnist
18 A.Penn St., Tel Aviv-69641, ISRAEL
Ph.+972-3-649-9942; Mob.+972-544-835-928
http://benyami3.wix.com/benyami
http://www.worldfishing.net/news101/Comment/ben-yami