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TODAY Wednesday 3 September 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Fishing

My brother Rory lives in New Bedford, Massachusetts, once a great whaling port and even now a significant center for commercial ocean fishing. Rory reports that the Portuguese and Italian immigrants who operate the small boats of the New Bedford fleet believe that the fish of the Great Banks are now back in abundance. They think that the government is maintaining its draconian controls on the numbers and sizes of allowable catches so as to bleed the small fishermen white and force them all into bankruptcy. That will allow a small number of big operators -- better for regulators, better for politicians looking for campaign contributions, better for the scientists who care more about the fish than people.

Last November, in Monroe County, Florida, commercial fishermen persuaded 55% of the voters to say no to a marine zoning plan for the waters off the Florida Keys. The plan would have established four "no-take" sanctuaries; it was supported by virtually all local marine biologists and conservation officials, and was expressly designed to boost the long-term fortunes of the fishermen. But the fishermen themselves were skeptical, and didn't like the idea of roping off marine territory that had provided them with their livelihoods. After years of wrangling, and months of post-referendum compromise, one small patch of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary was finally declared off limits for fishing this July.

You can draw several conclusions from these anecdotes. One is that fishermen are among the world's least-capable-of-taking-the-long-view kind of people. Anyone who has spent time at public meetings in fishing towns has witnessed dramatically rendered speeches by local fishermen who say that they, more than anyone else, have a stake in the preservation of the resource. The themes of family cohesion and small business virtue are invoked. The same men are often caught the next day with serious violations of the conservation regulations. It's not that fishermen are particularly self-seeking -- although they're a tough bunch. It's that commercial fishing represents the vaunted "Tragedy of the Commons." When a resource can't be owned but can't be effectively regulated, you create an incentive for pillage.

Another conclusion to draw is that the forces of science and conservation have still a ways to go in understanding how best to preserve ocean resources and how best to communicate those lessons to the public. Not that great strides haven't been made. The collapse of the North Atlantic fisheries was a vindication of the warnings issued for years from marine laboratories; who today would argue that overfishing never happens? Similarly, it is now indisputable that if the forces of government can enforce harvest prohibitions, most stocks of marine species will rebound, from whales to haddock. The difficult questions that remain are questions of how to accommodate dual goals of conservation and food production; in other words, what are the characteristics of a sustainable fishing system?

The "no-take" reserves are now being promoted by a variety of specialists, although no one claims to know exactly how best they can work. Karen Schmidt summarizes the issues in the 25 July issue of Science. The general idea, she reports, is to set aside a marine zone where fish can produce "massive quantities of juveniles and larvae to be transported by ocean currents into fished areas." What is the optimal size for such a reserve? Where is the location most productive for the highest number of species? What do you about species, like Pacific salmon, that migrate along ocean routes that change every year? The answers will come only with trial and error. "Reserves placed almost anywhere are going to be better than no reserves at all," says one of the marine biologists. "Let's just get on and do it."

Whether the necessary political will can be mustered is another question entirely. Politicians have a hard time resisting pleas from fishermen (look no further than the jingoism of the two US Senators from the state of Washington as they defend the depredations of Canadian stocks by their constituents), and fishermen just can't be trusted to take care of their own long-range interests. We are witnessing the evolution of fish production from hunting to something else. If there is a strict parallel with terrestrial precedents, hunting will give way to farming, i.e., aquaculture. Can humans also devise and manage a hybrid marine system, wherein the genetic and biological diversity of the wild is maintained while it serves human needs on a day-to-day basis? Can we have a world that accommodates both ocean conservation and the conservation of the fishing communities?

 

TODAY ON THE SITE:

On the related issue of the preservation of tropical coral reefs, writer/diver Bill Belleville thinks the time has come for scuba and snorkel sites to be treated the same way as we treat important places on land: parks, regulations, limited access, users' fees. Look into his new and thoughtful Op Ed.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

9/02: Our Biodiversity Problems
8/29: Babies
8/28: MegaSheep and SuperCow
8/27: East Asia / Southeast Asia
8/26: No Drama on the Rhine
8/25: The End of Nature Again
8/22: Our Friend Escerichia 0157:H7
8/21: Free the Greenpeace One Million!
8/20: Cattle and Jet Skis
8/19: Not Dirty, but Bad

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