Gille-STPA 35 1OverfishingAs The Perfect Storm shows, fishing is a big (and risky) industry. A complex set ofpolitical decisions determine where and when fishing boats are allowed to work. The basicprinciples are simple. If too many fish are caught, then there are not enough adults toproduce babies, and the fish populations will go extinct. Implementation of policy is adifferent problem.Since 1982, the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention has required participatingcountries to prevent overfishing in their own Exclusive Economic Zones and to regulate theirown flagged ships on the high seas. However, different countries enforced this differently,and some fishing boats actively sought to carry flags from countries that did not stronglyregulate their actions on the high seas.Starting in 1993, the FAO Compliance Agreement says that countries cannot allow theirflagged vessels to fish on the high seas unless they are able to control their fishing operations.The 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement tries to set up a structure to make all fishing boats complywith regional fisheries organizations—such as the US/Canadian effort to regulate fishing onthe Grand Banks.The fish stocks agreement has not yet been ratified, and not all regional organizationshave articulated policies. In those that do have policies, fisheries biologists and commercialfishing boats may not be in agreement about the merits of the existing rules.Fish farming offers an alternate means to bring fish to market, but has its own problemsIn our study of overfishing, each group will investigate one of the world’s fisheries. Inyour groups, identify a new spokesperson, recorder, discussion leader, and fact checker.1. As a group choose a fishery to study. Suggested fisheries are North Sea cod (for Englishfish and chips), Alaskan salmon, white abalone, Galapagos Sea Cucumber, New Englandlobster, Caribbean coral reef fish, sardines, Atlantic swordfish, bluefin tuna, farmed shrimp,farmed salmon. Sign up for your fishery choice on the blackboard.2. Identify a list of stakeholders who will be concerned with fishery policy. The PerfectStorm should suggest some possibilities.3. What do you expect will be relevant issues to consider to understand how to manage thefishery that you’ve chosen?Assign each member of your group one or two topics to research for next time. These mightinclude finding out about the fish that are caught and their life cycle, methods used to catchthe fish, and the current regulations. You’ll also want to think about general fisheries policy.(One natural way to divide up the research work load would be to have your each representa stakeholder: biologists, fishing boats, government regulators, international policy makers,representatives of markets that compete against your fishery.)Write a paragraph summarizing your research to hand in next time.Next time be prepared to work out with your group a fisheries management plan that willbe acceptable to all of the stakeholders. You will need to present some background aboutyour fishery to the class as well as the plan that you propose.Gille-STPA 35 2California’s Fisheries are Collapsing(SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE; JANUARY 1997)Once, fishing in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast was a simple story: salmon,sardines and tuna. Now, it is virtually anything that swims.Overfishing off California’s coast is harming dozens of species. It is undoing ecosystemsand turning a rich ocean environment into a watery wasteland. Drift nets stretch for miles,trawlers scour the ocean bottom, and new mass-fishing methods sprout from hook-studdedPVC pipes to wiremesh fish traps banned in Florida and other places.In six decades, California’s commercial catch has plunged 76 percent from 1.8 billionpounds in 1935 to 425.9 million pounds in 1995. Commercial harvest figures help tell thetale. Red abalone, down 67 percent (1975-95); Pacific angel shark, down 85 percent (1986-91). Bocaccio groundfish, down 80 percent (1980-95). Red sea urchin (North Coast), down80 percent (1988-94). White abalone close to extinction.“California is a dying sea,” said William Hanmer, director of the Marine Science Centerat UCLA. “The Bering Sea is a dying sea. The Grand Banks is a dying sea. Everything’sbeen overfished. It’s just been hammered to death.”Today, new tiers of marine life are being plucked from the ocean, things relativelylittle-known and unloved: sea urchins, moray eels, scorpion fish, sea cucumbers, even snails.“Turban snails! That’s the end of the line,” said Paul Dayton, a professor of marine ecologyat the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “The next thing you know, they’ll be takingformanifera–worms!” “It’s a vacuum cleaner approach,” said Mia Tegner, a marine scientistat Scripps. “We fish the hooey out of sea urchins. When they die back, we start poachingabalone and live-trapping fish.”For some species, such as squid there are no rules. You can take as many as you can get.For others, legal “limits” are so huge fishermen seldom reach them. And many rules are setnot by scientists but by politicians in Sacramento. “The traditional way it works is someonefigures out a market for a species. A few people start fishing, make a lot of money. Then,everybody goes ‘Holy cow!’ and the gold rush is on,” said Milton Love, author of “ProbablyMore Than You Want to Know about the Fishes of the Pacific Coast.” “And then the fisherycollapses,” he said “And a government agency says, ‘We didn’t know anything about thisspecies. We have to study it.’ But it’s too late.”Years ago, the Pacific could stand such abuse. Now, California, with more than 30million people and booming domestic and foreign seafood markets, is exhausting its oceanbank account. Some species aren’t being caught–they’re being mined, yanked from the sea“at a higher rate than the ocean produces them,” according to one state report.And it’s not just commercial fishing. There are millions of recreational fishermen, too,and spear-gunners and rock-pickers prying abalone and shellfish off rocks. And then thereis the Alice-in-Wonderland stuff: Scuba divers stalking fish with butterfly nets.Marine science can’t keep up. And today, poor science may be especially costly. Nolonger do fishing boats simply take too many fish. Now, they play a more dangerous game.Some target smaller fish that haven’t had a chance to breed. Some are more narrowlyfocused. They take