Coral reef fisheries – what’s the catch?
Seems we haven’t got a scooby about how many fish we’re hauling out of the sea every year. One study that’s attempted to fill that particular black hole was reported this morning in the press room. Dan Pauly, Dirk Zeller, Jennifer Jacquet and Alan Friedlander faced the music, and sang like birds.
DP sets the tone. Data on coral reef fisheries catches are thin on the ground, so to speak. Although the big commercial fisheries do submit some figures, it’s the missing ones – Rumsfeldian “unknown unknowns” – that are causing the headache.
Recreational fishing, inshore fishing (within three mile of shore), small scale fisheries – which comprise the majority of landings on a global basis – illegal catches (duh! I’m instantly reminded of Tony Blair’s efforts to quantify the number of illegal UK immigrants) and, perhaps saddest of all, bycatch are all seriously under reported, he says.
Next up, Pauly’s UBC colleague DZ. He tells us how the amount of fish taken through recreational fishing is hugely underestimated. Regarding artisanal fisheries, the data problem is being made worse through high fuel prices, which are pricing the larger commercial fisheries out of business, but not affecting the little guys in their dugouts. The disparity between what we know and what we don’t is increasing, and that’s Not A Good Thing.
JJ adds further fuel to the fire. Apparently we only know about the fish caught by the men! The fishing that puts food on the table is often done by women and children. And it goes unrecorded.
In Mozambique, a country with a long coastline and a longer history of trouble, the official statistics would have us believe that the average person eats just three kilos of fish a year. Compare that with the global average (known known, or is that known unknown?) of 16 KG and a sub-Saharan average of 8 KG. It’s not difficult to imagine that something doesn’t add up.
This has potentially dramatic consequences for fish populations: Mozambique and Tanzania are in the process of negotiating shrimp-fishing deals with EU countries, reckoning on having fish to spare. But they haven’t. “It’s the antithesis of the Robin Hood story,” Jacquet says. “They’re robbing the poor to give to the rich.”
And how sad is the bycatch factor? Under the agreements, JJ continues, EU shrimp fishers were obliged to offer their bycatch for sale to local fishermen. She recounted the sorry tale of how one such hopeful paddled his boat out to the side of the trawler, whereupon so many fish were dumped onto the deck that it sank. Point well made.
The Guardian’s Tim Radford was in the crowd. “How long have these reefs got?” he asked the panel.
“The catastrophe has already happened,” DP replied. “It’s like when someone falls off the 14th floor and at the 2nd floor says ’so far so good’.” Ouch.
“So what should be done?” Radford doggedly persisted.
“We have to deal with small scale fisheries not as a side issue but as the main topic,” said DP. They will be the ones that best survive high fuel prices, but current monitoring systems aren’t equipped to deal with them because they’ve always been regarded as a minor issue.
Only time will tell.
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