Back to PCFFA Fishermen's News Archive
Sustainability is the “buzzword” fishing men and women in fisheries everywhere are now grappling with. It’s something a lot of fishing organizations have been working for, even if they’ve never really defined it. This concept, “sustainability,” is a little like Motherhood and a little like apple pie. It’s something everyone is for, no one would dare speak ill of it -- but like Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of pornography, we don’t define it, “we know it when we see it.” The buzzword has become very popular in everyone’s rhetoric book but nobody looks at it carefully. This problem is what was being grappled with last month in at least four different fisheries forums both on the national and international level. If we are going to keep using the word, let’s take a closer look at what it really means, shall we?
Last month the Pacific Fishery Management Council, in the face of unexpected high catches in the sport fishery, scrambled to recommend closures to prevent what it feared would be “unsustainable levels” of fishing for some species of groundfish. Coupled with the impending closures for the rest of the year, it was also decided that 92 trawlers would be removed from that fleet – again, to try to make the fishery “more sustainable.”
In Washington, DC the regional management councils, led by the North Pacific Council, recently claimed they were all doing a good job. “Don’t believe what the press, the environmentalists or some scientists were saying, the Sustainable Fisheries Act [the 1996 amendment to the Magnuson-Stevens Act] is working,” they collectively said. Of course, some of the same people now embracing the Sustainable Fisheries Act publicly opposed its passage and were, up until a year ago, trying to undo it. “Sustainability” is also what they proclaimed as they worked to unravel the very law that requires it.
In Paris, meanwhile, folks were trying to assess progress made in those areas being used to measure sustainable development for the ocean agenda that came out of the September 2002 United Nations conference in South Africa. PCFFA President Pietro Parravano was the sole representative of the commercial fishing fleet invited to speak, giving his perspective on the timetable set out in Johannesburg and providing his critique of the benchmarks used to determine sustainability. So while folks in DC were giving sustainability lip service, conferees in Paris were discussing its progress and trying to figure out how to apply it.
In San Francisco, the workshop “Sustainability, Food, Fish and Fiber Dialogue” was meanwhile delving into what it was and what was being done to make it a reality. This gathering was deliberately kept small and included representatives with a track record for working on issues of sustainability in farming, forestry and fisheries. Jim Humphreys of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Dr. Anthony Charles of Nova Scotia’s St. Mary’s University, and PCFFA’s Zeke Grader were the three fishery representatives. Two U.S. government representatives were present – one from the Department of Agriculture, the other from NMFS. In addition to the food, fish and fiber reps, some major corporate types, who are taking steps to make their company practices more sustainable, also attended. The steps some of these corporations have taken or are contemplating include such things as more energy and water-efficient operations, reducing packaging waste and using recycled paper products, utilizing organic fibers, halting the purchase of antibiotic-treated meats or inhumanely treated animals, fair wages and workers’ rights, sourcing local growers and, in the case of one large catalog firm, buying wild, sustainably caught fish.
The San Francisco workshop was useful, if for no other purpose then learning how those in other renewable resource fields are addressing sustainable development. The dialogue among the producer-representatives from farm, fishery and labor organizations with the corporations helped each side better understand the other’s problems.
Although these types of sessions can help build relationships among different interests, that’s not really newsworthy. What is of interest for fishermen out of this two-day session were the three “take home” messages:
Certification for sustainability has gained favor among a number of west coast fisheries seeking to differentiate themselves from other seafoods. Alaskan salmon has been MSC certified and wild British Columbia and some of the other states have undertaken or are considering an MSC assessment for certification. Alaskan blackcod and halibut, Dungeness crab, albacore tuna and California lobster are among the west coast fisheries being considered for certification, along with the highly controversial Alaskan Pollock fishery, where a decision on certification is expected at any time.
In addition to the non-government MSC certification, there is also the potential for some wild fish being certified as “organic” by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) (pursuant to a Senator Stevens’ rider of last year that had broad fishing industry support) once, and if, rules are ever adopted to make that possible. Organic, however, is not necessarily synonymous with sustainable.
Consumers, including corporate ones, look to certification of one kind or another as guidelines for sustainability. Although the number is still small, there is a steadily growing market for “green” products or those thought to be sustainably harvested or produced. Just look at the growth in counter and shelf space now given to organic goods in most supermarkets compared with 20 years ago.
The problem is that in the farmed food and fiber field there are now a number of different (and competing) certification schemes, including some that are highly controversial. What this lack of uniformity does is confuse the debate on “sustainable.” Lack of uniformity on organic labeling, for example, led many of the nation’s organic farmers to push for uniform standards and tough USDA rules. The problems include:
Other problems confronting certification systems include the cost. This is a problem, too, that confronts small farmers and ranchers seeking USDA organic certification. The MSC is dealing with this issue through a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to make grants available to small fisheries to enable them to go through the assessment process, but such financial help is not always available for other food and fiber producers. Thus, there are instances both of non-sustainable (however we define it) producers getting certified, and some small, sustainable producers simply unable to afford certification they may deserve.
Despite problems facing certification for sustainability (or other characteristics), these programs are useful at least for the immediate future in raising the bar for producers and rewarding responsible behavior. The answer is not to scrap certification programs, but to fix their problems.
This is where we get to a bit of good news, for a change, for the fishing industry. Right now for fisheries, MSC is the only game in town. It is the industry’s gold standard, and while it’s great to get “green listed” (or at very worst in the yellow column) in various seafood guides, MSC certification is the ultimate goal. There is no other certification program for seafood – nationally or internationally. As long as MSC can maintain the independence it has now achieved, is able to contain costs, maintains a transparent process and uniformly adheres to strict standards, there is no reason for any other certification program (at least for biological sustainability) in the fishing industry, thereby helping to keep life simpler in the marketplace.
But MSC certification is also limited. First of all, it currently assesses and certifies wild fisheries only, even though aquaculture products share space in the seafood counter and compete in the marketplace with wild fish.
Second, the Alaskan Pollock fishery, no matter which way the MSC comes down, is not the only controversy it is facing. There is the question on whether it is flexible enough to deal with issues such as “good fishermen in bad fisheries,” a term often used to refer to groups such as the Cape Cod hook fishermen in the Atlantic cod fishery, or the issue of how to address fisheries for Pacific salmon stocks that may have been altered after a century of habitat loss and dams.
Third, MSC certification is limited to biological sustainability. As was mentioned in the March 2003 Fishermen’s News article, “Going Beyond Fish Eco-Labeling: Is it Time For Fair Trade Certification Too?” (see http://www.pcffa.org/fn-mar03.htm), MSC assesses the management measures in place for a fishery only in terms of whether they are adequate to protect wild stocks, and based on bycatch and ocean habitat considerations. In other words, they do much the same as the regional fishery councils are supposed to be doing, only to higher standards.
What MSC does not look at (not that the issues it has to deal with are not difficult enough) are things such as the energy inputs to catch the fish or transport them, nor the efficiency in utilizing the fish (i.e., how is it being used), nor the economic sustainability of those in the fishery (e.g., prices paid fishermen for fish, processing plant wages, etc.), nor the social and cultural sustainability of fishing communities generally.
The second “take home” message from the San Francisco workshop was that sustainability, at least for other food and the fiber producers, is not just about biology, but also a number of other factors.
As mentioned above, methods to measure “sustainability” in other renewable resource industries have included a number of factors not generally considered in fisheries. While no one here is arguing that MSC should expand the factors it considers for assessing and certifying fisheries as sustainable, the fishing industry itself may wish to consider additional types of certification to measure other factors of sustainability beyond just the biology of the targeted fish and those animals and habitats affected by the fishery. That’s what was argued in the March 2003 FN article when the “Fair Trade” label being used for coffee and a few other products, in addition to organic certification, was cited as an example of a secondary type of certification.
Why consider factors other than the biology of the fish in determining sustainability? Because some environmental groups have suggested that they don’t care if only large factory trawlers are left fishing. So long as the harvest method doesn’t endanger stocks, have a big bycatch or harm habitat, some have said that fishermen’s welfare or the structure of fishing communities is not their concern. While that’s certainly not the position of most conservation organizations, a lot of folks in government, economic theorists and free trade advocates are now of that same opinion, and it shows in their management recommendations.
However, consolidating fishing operations to this extreme, or even giving processors a lion’s share of fishing quotas (thus relegating fishermen to seagoing sharecroppers), is certainly not what most of us would define as “sustainable.” Economic, social and cultural factors are important and, indeed, if they’re not considered as well (e.g., energy inputs), then biological sustainability may also be threatened. If fishermen are not paid a living price, if communities do not have a stake in their fisheries, it will be difficult to protect the fish stocks themselves. Witness what is happening right now in Bristol Bay, where folks who should know better are clamoring for offshore oil drilling to come in because they can’t make it anymore fishing salmon at the current depressed world market prices.
That’s the second message from the workshop to the fishing industry: that we may wish to consider, as other food and fiber producers have, other factors in addition to biology for determining the “sustainability” of a fishery.
The final message coming out of the San Francisco workshop was that “sustainability” is not something that is hard and fixed. It is, rather, measured in degrees. Coffee, for example, may be shade grown and organic, but if the farmers are not paid a living wage, what does that do to the community? Will they continue to produce it? Will shortcuts be taken in production that could harm the soils, or the surrounding ecosystems? Doesn’t economic sustainability have to be considered as well?
In the fisheries, most fishermen would argue that of course they’re “for sustainability.” By this they generally mean that they want there to be a resource there so they can fish next month, next year and until, and if, they retire. Most also want there to be something to pass along to their children, or at least a boat and permits that have some value when their decision is made to sell. That’s kind of the way we’ve defined sustainability in the fisheries. Crude, but it worked. But as we know, too, if the price drops for the fish, making the fishery no longer profitable, or if the conditions the fishery is conducted under become too dangerous or intolerable, we wouldn’t consider that fishery sustainable.
What this means is that “sustainability” for fishermen means much more than the way a fishery biologist, a regional council, an economic theorist, or a government bureaucrat may define it. Defining “sustainability” too narrowly, and especially solely on biological grounds, could leave fishing communities and the people that make up those communities out in the cold.
At the follow-up conference to the 2002 “World Summit on Sustainable Development” recently held in Paris (13 November) a further examination of the meaning of “sustainability,” particularly in the context of fisheries, was presented by PCFFA President Pietro Parravano.
Speaking to and critiquing the various existing measurements for sustainability, the speech was intended to give the audience an idea of the concerns of the fishing community coming from a leader who is committed to the notion of sustainability. The attempt was to give a brief, realistic summary of where things stand and to caution conferees that some of the goals set out in 2002 in Johannesburg -- such as an end to “poaching” even if the laws being violated were unjust, or establishing marine reserves without being clear on what was to be achieved (other than no-fishing zones) or understanding the limitations of this tool (e.g., it does not protect against pollution) -- would never achieve true sustainability, and might do more harm than good in the long run. It was also an admonition to conferees, NGOs and governments that sustainability would never be achieved in conferences or by publishing papers but by gaining public support that affects real actions in the real world.
The following are excerpts from the address given at the conference by Pietro Parravano. Let us know what you think. How should we define sustainability in our fisheries? How should it be measured? What steps need to be taken to achieve sustainability?
Pietro Parravano is the current President of Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), the west coast’s largest organization of commercial fishing families, and Zeke Grader is its Executive Director. Molly Thomas is a former Intern and employee of PCFFA’s affiliate organization, the Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), whose interest is in sustainable fisheries, writing from Colorado. PCFFA’s Southwest Regional Office can be reached at: PO Box 29370, San Francisco, CA 94129-0370, or by phone to: (415)561-5080. PCFFA’s Northwest Regional Office can be reached at: PO Box 11170, Eugene, OR 97440-3370, or by phone to: (541)689-2000. PCFFA’s website is at: www.pcffa.org and its email is: fish1ifr@aol.com.
I am the owner and operator of a small fishing boat out of the port of Half Moon Bay, California, just south of San Francisco. I have been active in fishing organizations in California, the United States and the world, that have played a critical role in leading efforts to protect fish habitats and ensure sound fishery regulations. I currently serve as President of the Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), a non-profit, non-governmental organization established by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) to conduct fisheries research, restoration, outreach and education. Since 1997, I have been a U.S. delegate to the World Forum of Fish Harvesters & Fish Workers (WFF) and that has given me the opportunity to visit and work with other fishing men and women throughout the world and learn of their problems. And, for the past three years I have been a member on the private Pew Oceans Commission, a blue-ribbon panel appointed to conduct the first comprehensive review of United States oceans policy in 30 years. So, I obviously have some experiences and opinions to share with you at this conference.
As you know, for there to be commercial fishing three things must exist: First, there must be fish stocks of a sufficient size to allow for a harvest. Second, there must be access to those fish stocks. Third, there must be markets (or a demand or need) for the fish. The most important of these is abundant fish stocks, because if there are no fish, there is nothing to access, and there is nothing to sell. It is important to remember, too, that having good markets for fish, as long as good fishing regulations are in place, provides an economic impetus for governments to protect habitats and manage for sustainability.
These fundamentals of commercial fishing are important to reiterate, because, in my experience, fishermen, scientists, conservationists and policy makers too often get lost in the minutiae of fishery management, arguing the “cure du jour,” whether it be implementation of “soft” or “hard” TACs [total allowable catch], or creating MPAs [marine protected areas], or establishing IFQs [individual fishing quotas], or whatever. They lose sight of the three essential elements of a fishery and the ability to think and act clearly. My remarks here today will be centered on these elements, and the WSSD Plan of Implementation timelines, as we discuss sustainable development and its implementation.
The WSSD Plan of Implementation calls for the control of illegal fishing by 2004. There is no doubt that for a number of major fish stocks unlawful fishing activity poses a major threat. The threat of poaching to Patagonian toothfish or Caspian sturgeon stocks, for example, is well documented and there are even consumer boycotts being organized to eliminate the markets for these fish taken illegally or lawfully. Poaching not only threatens fish stocks, it hurts law abiding fishing men and women, either by denying them fish to harvest legally or their ability to sell lawfully harvested fish -- as we have seen with the consumer boycotts.
The cooperative efforts of the Russian Federation, Canada and the U.S. are having results in curbing poaching in the North Pacific. In the southern oceans, the efforts of Australian authorities in seizing international toothfish pirates are to be lauded.
For there to be effective enforcement of fishing laws, however, three things must happen. First, developed nations, where much of the illegally caught fish is sold, have to enact strict measures to prevent the entry and sale of illegally harvested fish, even if it incurs the wrath of powerful fish importing lobbies.
Second, there must be cooperation among ocean nations in enforcing international treaties as well as bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements for the conservation of fish stocks. Most of the poaching does not occur off the coasts of developed nations, but rather on the high seas or offshore developing nations – too often nations without the financial wherewithal to support an effective enforcement presence. Developed nations, and especially my own, have an obligation to go beyond mere conservation rhetoric, and lend support to the worlds developing ocean nations. This means assistance in training enforcement personnel, this means material support, and this means financial support, if necessary.
Third, to effectively combat illegal fishing, fishery laws must be just and have the support of the fishing community who can accept these fishery regulations as scientifically based and in their long-term economic interest. No matter how great the enforcement presence, “illegal” fishing will not be stopped if the fishing community does not believe in or support the laws. How can you expect fishing communities, often times thousands of years old, to sit by and let their governments take away the fish to sell the quotas to fleets from other nations? How can you expect generations of fishermen to abide by laws made in some far-off capitol, without their input, to reallocate their fish to a multi-national conglomerate?
What I am saying here, is that to meet this ambitious goal next year of the WSSD Plan of Implementation’s control of illegal fishing, we have to know that the fishery laws are not only scientifically based and designed to promote sustainability, but are developed in a transparent process and are fair.
The WSSD Plan of Implementation also has an ambitious goal of managing fishing capacity by 2005. Managing fishing capacity -- that is, matching fishing capacity to the stocks available for harvest -- is important not just for preventing overfishing, which can be accomplished most of the time by establishing an enforceable total allowable catch (TAC), but to assure the economic viability of the participants in the fishery. By that, I mean assuring there are enough fish for every fisherman, or every vessel, to be economically sustainable.
A number of nations have confronted the issue of limiting fishing capacity, and others are now in the process, including the U.S. The elements of managing fishing capacity are fairly straight forward, although in practice it can be more difficult. First, is placing a limit on the number of individuals or vessels that can participate in a fishery, usually starting with a moratorium. An immediate step here, of course, is halting all subsidies for new vessel construction until a plan for managing fleet size is in place.
Second, is to determine what level of fishing effort the stock can sustain and then determining the number of participants, individuals or vessels, the fishery can economically sustain. This is seldom an easy calculation, since there are natural fluctuations in stock sizes, and often-times wide disagreement about what constitutes “economic sustainability.”
Third, is working toward the ideal or “optimum” participant level, whether it is individuals or vessels. In most fisheries this means a reduction in the number of participants, which can be through attrition, or vessel buy-backs or buy-out of rights to a fishery. It is well to remember too, that the issue is not always the glib “too many fishermen for too few fish.” Factors such as types of fishing gear, vessel sizes, and even markets have to be considered when calculating optimum participant level in a fishery.
It is certainly recognized by most that management of fishing capacity is useful for the biological sustainability of fisheries and critical for the economic viability of fisheries, but it is not as simple as perhaps the 2005 goal in the Plan of Implementation makes it seem. To be implemented, plans for managing fishing capacity must have the buy-in from the participants in the fishery. There has to be buy-in before there can be buy-outs. Like fishery laws, the process for development of plans for managing fishing capacity must be transparent and fair.
The last thing that should be noted, is that managing fishing capacity alone will not bring about sustainability in fisheries without also addressing habitat damage, from all different sources, as well as unacceptable levels of bycatch.
Most of my fishing, and that of the members of my Federation, is centered on salmon. With Pacific salmon, fishermen came to understand the concept of ecosystem management early on. In the 19th Century, California fishermen learned the hard way that their fishing was only one of many factors affecting the health of fish stocks, as hydraulic mining inundated salmon streams, followed later by logging, dams and massive water diversions. In the 1960’s, activism by commercial fishermen began working to change a California policy from one that “it is not in the public interest of the state to maintain the salmon resource” to getting the State’s Legislature to establish late in that decade a Citizen’s Advisory Committee on Salmon & Steelhead Trout, made up of commercial and recreational fishermen and scientists. The Committee submitted its first report, “An Environmental Tragedy,” to the Legislature and then-Governor Ronald Reagan in 1971, and in its report the following year said, “Good salmon and steelhead management is a marriage of environmental protection and restoration, artificial propagation and sound fishing regulations.” Fishermen understood this concept early on. Indeed, fishermen are now among those working to establish coast-wide ocean-monitoring instrumentation systems to help us better understand oceanic factors affecting Pacific salmon and other fish, such as the Ocean Observations & Coastal Systems Act (S.1400) now before the U.S. Congress.
During the three years I spent with the Pew Oceans Commission, the interconnectedness of systems also became apparent. As Commissioners, we not only toured the coasts, but we spent time in the American heartland, in farm country. There the connection between land use and, in this instance, a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico became apparent, along with the more apparent relationship between coastal land uses, such as development in coastal wetlands, and the health of our oceans. What I am saying is that when we manage ocean ecosystems, we have to be cognizant of the need for good management of terrestrial ecosystems as well. Implementing ocean ecosystem management will likely not succeed, or not very well anyway, unless we also do a good job managing our coasts, estuaries, rivers and riparian ecosystems.
The WSSD Plan of Implementation calls for the establishment of a network of marine reserves by 2012. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), including marine reserves, have been discussed by my organization for at least the past five years and are a major topic of discussion and concern among most every fishing organization, commercial or recreational. MPAs, including no-take marine reserves, are a tool that can be used in some instances to foster ecosystem protection or even the rebuilding of certain resident fish stocks. They may be useful in protecting discrete habitats of importance, or helping to protect or rebuild resident fish populations, but their value is limited.
Pollution or overfishing of migratory stocks knows no boundaries. MPAs, including no-take reserves, aren’t going to stop ocean pollution or halt overfishing of migratory fish stocks. Nor are they of much value when there are oceanic regime changes. Simply declaring areas off limits to fishing without controlling other human impacts or being mindful of what is happening elsewhere in our oceans may do little to protect biodiversity or ecosystems. For many, however, marine reserves are an easy answer. It may make folks feel good, it may give scientists their own private areas of study, it may be good for some eco-tourism operator. Marine reserves are of dubious value, I fear, and give the public a false sense of security regarding ocean health, unless they are coupled with strong measures to prevent ocean pollution and ensure responsible fishing practices. The emphasis on reserves, of late, has taken away from the more difficult and necessary task of tackling ocean pollution, and of studying and understanding oceanic systems. While some marine reserves may be justified, and that was noted in the Pew Oceans Commission report, let us not lose sight of the much more important task of protecting all ocean waters from increasingly widespread pollution, not just some percentage where fishing might be banned.
The other note I wish to make about MPAs, is that they must be based on good science, not advocacy by scientists. Their establishment must include public participation, particularly from fishermen who are the most familiar with ocean waters. And, there must be monitoring of MPAs or reserves to assess their impacts.
At the outset I mentioned the importance of maintaining healthy fish stocks as critical for the survival of our fisheries and fishing communities. While many of the elements of the WSSD Plan of Implementation are important underpinnings for sustainable fisheries, I cannot emphasize enough the need for good fisheries research and stock assessments. We cannot operate our fisheries on ignorance, yet that has been what we’ve been doing in too many fisheries for too many years. We cannot know of the impacts of illegal fishing or overfishing without good research. In fact, we may not even know if overfishing is occurring without such research. We cannot manage fishing capacity without research, since it is the data that will tell us what the capacity is. We cannot implement ecosystem management without research, nor can we site and monitor MPAs without research. Perhaps the best thing all of us here can do is work to assure that funds are available from all of our governments for the necessary research to base sustainable development decisions on. Here, too, wealthier nations should lend assistance to developing nations to assure we have good research, good data on our oceans and fisheries throughout the world.
We can work to keep the cost of research down by tapping the knowledge of fishermen – working collaboratively with scientists – and utilizing their vessels wherever possible. Moreover, we need to develop resource information systems that act as repositories for the research data to determine trends, to find the information gaps and simply to make information available to all – to democratize our decision-making. Even in the world’s richest nation, finding funds for fishery research will not be easy, I know. My organization is currently floating a legislative proposal for a special research fund in light of current record U.S. budget deficits. It will be even more difficult for developing nations, but we must conduct the research to have the information upon which to make sound decisions for sustainable development.
Last, I wish to caution at this conference and in our discussions on sustainability in the future to be mindful there are other talks going on in the world with very different agendas. It is critical as we go forward that participants at these forums on sustainability be included in trade discussions taking place, including those at the WTO Ministerial level, to assure that trade policies foster sustainability and not undermine conservation. Conservation cannot be subservient to global trade; trade policies must support sustainability.
The theme of this Conference is implementation of the WSSD. Gathered here are leaders from governmental and non-governmental organizations alike. What strikes me, however, as important as this Conference is and the value I am certain that will come from its proceedings, is that we need to get the Plan of Implementation before the people. If people don’t know about the WSSD Plan of Development, don’t understand it or don’t see its value, then it will be difficult to get government support or private sector support for implementation. If after this conference, we take the time to discuss the plans for world sustainability with those we represent, with our colleagues, our friends and neighbors, our communities, than I believe implementation will happen. If we do not, and nothing happens but more papers, I fear we will be back here in five or ten years talking to ourselves, wondering why the Plan of Implementation is not moving, wondering why human despair has worsened, wondering why we failed. Let us not fail. Let us assert our leadership in carrying forward a global ocean policy that reflects economic, environmental and cultural sustainability. Thank you.