Sustainable Fisheries
1) How The Pattern Works
Sustainable Fisheries Most major fishery stocks internationally are in decline. Many salmon runs in this bioregion that were once economic mainstays are now either extinct or threatened.
Salmon and shellfish have been dietary mainstays of the Pacific Northwest for ten thousand years. Traditionally, salmon were caught close to their spawning areas using a variety of weirs and traps. This allowed very precise management of specific runs. In recent decades, as demand grew and salmon runs waned, fishermen began taking to estuaries and inlets in gill-net boats, then further to sea in seine boats, and finally took to trolling on the open ocean.
The farther from the salmon’s home streams that they are caught, the more likely the catch is to be drawn from a mixture of different stocks, some weak and some strong. If fishing rules are set to allow a reasonable catch of healthy stocks, weak stocks are fished harder than they can withstand. What’s more, the rules are often set ahead of time, based on imperfect estimates of how numerous a year’s run will be.
Sustainable Fisheries attempt to reverse this trend. The schedule of permissible fishing times is revised in the course of the season to reflect emerging information about the strength of that year’s run in each river system. Fishing techniques are adjusted to avoid species whose populations are at risk and focus on those which can sustain large-scale fishing. Where that is impossible, fish are captured live, allowing scarcer species to be released unharmed.
Another benefit to this approach is that fish are treated with more care as they are landed, creating a product of higher quality and value, and manifesting appropriate respect for them. Those top-notch fish can bring higher prices, helping to sustain Local Economies without harming fish stocks. Whether for salmon or other fisheries, such as crab, halibut or herring, the guiding principles are selectivity (to focus the catch on populations that can sustain harvest); quality (to create the highest value from each fish caught); and adaptation (to adjust fishing and harvesting rules to match the varying abundance and life cycle of each species).
Sustainable Fisheries ultimately depend on the delivery of marine and freshwater Ecosystem Services that can only be provided by restoring habitat on a large scale. Areas should be selected for protection and restoration based on their overall contribution to a species’ health. For instance, “anchor habitats” for salmon have been identified that serve as critical refuges during difficult years. If these habitats are degraded, runs may face particularly heavy losses in certain years.
Ecological Land-Use and Green Building channel development away from riparian areas and minimize watershed impacts. Sustainable Agriculture maintains the health of riparian areas and avoids pesticide use. Sustainable Materials Cycles prevent toxic contamination of rivers, estuaries, and oceans.
Well-managed fisheries, which not deplete directly fished or indirectly affected stocks, are currently in the process of being certified world-wide, initially under the auspices of the Marine Stewardship Council. This will give them beneficial differentiation in the marketplace.
Tailor fishing quotas to the intensity of harvest that each population of fish can sustain, making sure to protect weak runs from by-catch in the pursuit of healthier stocks. Treat fish with care to show them proper respect and to return as much value as possible to the human communities where they are landed. Restore and maintain the ecosystems upon which stocks depend.
2) How Can I Help? – Ways that you and your church can help bring this pattern to life.
Background
Since the start of industrial fishing in the middle of the twentieth century, the health of our oceans has declined at an alarming rate. Today, the National Marine Fisheries Service estimates that 60% of commercially-important American fish stocks have been over-fished. Unfortunately, our government has been slow to protect our fisheries.
This is a critically urgent time to reform the way we treat our oceans. In some cases, ocean ecosystems are close to literally disappearing. The price of the destruction of our oceans would be broad and severe and would include obvious consequences like the disappearance of seafood from our plates and fish from our lives and less obvious ones like the disruption of the complex role the oceans play in the regulation of weather patterns and climate.
There are two reasons our government has not responded to our oceans’ plummeting health. First, most Americans have only limited familiarity with marine environments and few of us have told our representatives that we care about ocean health. This is a challenge that will be overcome by growing scientific evidence. But right now, it also means that every letter to a Representative or Senator has a uniquely large impact on their decisions.
The main reason our government has not responded effectively to plummeting ocean health is that our representatives have heard about ocean issues from the fishing industry and not the public. Industry representatives – with their eyes on short-term profits – have lobbied our elected officials not to restrict fishing gear or mandate that fewer fish be caught and, in the absence of contrary public comment, they have been quite successful.
Not only that, but the fisheries councils that make the direct decisions about fisheries management – how much fish can be caught, what type of gear can be used – are made up mostly of representatives from the fishing and processing industries. Among the nation’s eight regional fishing councils, with around 15 members each, only 1 single member is from the public interest or environmental community. It’s a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse!
That’s why Washington’s Congressional delegation needs to hear right now from Washington citizens that our ocean management is in need of reform. The release of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy report is a once-in-thirty-years opportunity to change the pattern of mismanagement of our oceans. The Commission has spent several years surveying America’s coasts, researching fisheries data, and taking public comment. The Commission will soon deliver its recommendations for restoring our oceans to health directly to Congress and the President. Because their report is a mandate to the federal government it is tremendously important, but it will ultimately be up to our U.S. Senators and Representatives and the President to make the law.