News

Asia’s marine waters are divided into 13 Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs), which together generate about 50% of the global marine fish catch of ~110 million tonnes annually. Here, I carry out a comparative analysis and valuation of these 13 LMEs with a focus on fish values even though marine ecosystem valuation is much broader than the valuation of fisheries. The following indicators were employed: Catch level, landed values, and subsidy intensity. These are key indicators of a fishery because (i) catch is an indicator of the amount of fish available in weight for food security purposes; (ii) landed value is the firsthand value from which wages, profits and economic impact originate; and (iii) fisheries subsidy is a policy instrument, which if used wrongly can lead to overcapacity and overfishing. In the second part of this contribution, I use the East and South China Sea LMEs to further illustrate the value of ocean fisheries and some of the threats they face. To carry out the comparative analysis, I extracted data from the Sea Around Us and Fisheries Economics Research Unit databases at the University of British Columbia. I also rely on the data and analysis of the OceanAsia project supported by the ADM Capital Foundation Ltd of Hong Kong. The analysis suggests that Asian LMEs are crucial in terms of food security, economic and social benefits to tens of millions of people in Asia and around the world; are under strong overfishing pressure; and that action is needed through effective management to stem the overfishing tide in order to ensure that these LMEs continue to sustain the delivery of goods and services through time. (Full publication)

In PNAS, McDermott et al. (1) analyze a 2014–2016 central Pacific fishing surge, focusing on the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) inside the Kiribati exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The authors incorrectly attribute the surge to the anticipated industrial fishing closure of PIPA and describe the phenomenon as a blue paradox (i.e., an unintended negative consequence of a conservation policy). However, a broader analysis demonstrates that this surge was unrelated to the closure of PIPA and was due to a strong El Niño event that created a fishing surge across multiple EEZs and high seas, not just PIPA (2). (Full publication)

A third of global fish stocks are overexploited and many are economically underperforming, resulting in potential unrealized net economic benefits of USD 51 to 83 billion annually. However, this aggregate view, while useful for global policy discussion, may obscure the view for those actors who engage at a regional level. Therefore, we develop a method to associate large companies with their fishing operations and evaluate the biological sustainability of these operations. We link current fish biomass levels and landings to the revenue streams of the companies under study to compute potentially unrealized fisheries revenues and profits at the level of individual firms. We illustrate our method using two case studies: anchoveta (Engraulis ringens; Engraulidae) in Peru and menhaden in the USA (Brevoortia patronus and B. _tyrannus;_Clupeidae). We demonstrate that both these fisheries could potentially increase their revenues compared to the current levels of exploitation. We estimate the net but unrealized fishery benefits for the companies under question. This information could be useful to investors and business owners who might want to be aware of the actual fisheries performance options of the companies they invest in. (Full publication)

OCEANCANADA NEWS​

2018 OceanCanada Conference

OceanCanada held its most recent conference at Dalhousie University in Halifax this past summer from August 27 to 30, with over 60 of our members in attendance, including partner representatives. Several presentations were made about past and current projects we have been involved in throughout the country, ten of which can be viewed here. We also collectively created a plan for the remainder of the partnership to March 2020, which largely involves the publication of a book tying together the research of our Working Groups through the Cross-cutting Themes of Access to Resources, Changing Oceans, and Governance. Conference delegates also enjoyed a guided bus tour to Lunenburg and Peggy’s Cove to get a firsthand look at fishing communities on the east coast. All in all, a very productive conference!

Human activities on land impact coastal-marine systems in the Lesser Antilles. Efforts to address these impacts are constrained by existing top-down and fragmented governance systems. Network governance may help to address land-sea interactions by promoting improved co-governance and land-sea integration. However, the conditions for, and processes of, transformations towards network governance in the region are poorly understood. We examine network governance emergence in four case studies from the Lesser Antilles: Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada. We find that governance is currently in transition towards a more networked mode within all the cases. Our results suggest that participation in collaborative projects has played an important role in initiating transitions. Additionally, multilateral agreements, boundary-spanning organizations, and experience with extreme events provide enabling conditions for network governance. Successfully navigating the ongoing transitions towards improved network governance will require (1) facilitating the leadership of central actors and core teams in steering towards network governance and (2) finding ways to appropriately engage the latent capacity of communities and non-state actors in governance networks.

OceanCanada partner Oceana Canada has released its second annual Fishery Audit.

The Fishery Audit reports on the state of fish stocks and tracks progress on how well the government is meeting its policy and management commitments. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has made significant investments in federal fisheries science, and the department continues to increase transparency by releasing its annual Sustainability Survey for Fisheries and departmental work plans. Despite the investments, there has been no measurable change in fisheries management or stock health.

Marine fisheries are in crisis, requiring twice the fishing effort of the 1950s to catch the same quantity of fish, and with many fleets operating beyond economic or ecological sustainability. A possible consequence of diminishing returns in this race to fish is serious labour abuses, including modern slavery, which exploit vulnerable workers to reduce costs. Here, we use the Global Slavery Index (GSI), a national-level indicator, as a proxy for modern slavery and labour abuses in fisheries. GSI estimates and fisheries governance are correlated at the national level among the major fishing countries. Furthermore, countries having documented labour abuses at sea share key features, including higher levels of subsidised distant-water fishing and poor catch reporting. Further research into modern slavery in the fisheries sector is needed to better understand how the issue relates to overfishing and fisheries policy, as well as measures to reduce risk in these labour markets. (Full publication)

Labour abuses, including modern slavery, are ‘hidden subsidies’ that allow distant-water fishing fleets to remain profitable and promote overfishing, new research from the University of Western Australia and the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia has found.

Humanity and the way we feed, fuel and finance our societies and economies are pushing nature and the services that power and sustain us to the brink, according to WWF’s Living Planet Report 2018. The report, released today, presents a sobering picture of the impact of human activity on the world’s wildlife, forests, oceans, rivers and climate, underlining the rapidly closing window for action and the urgent need for the global community to collectively rethink and redefine how we value, protect and restore nature.

A broad range of extreme events can affect fisheries catch and hence performance. Using a compiled database of extreme events for all maritime countries in the world between 1950 to 2010, we estimate effects on national fisheries catches, by sector, large‐scale industrial and small scale (artisanal, subsistence and recreational). Contrary to general expectations, fisheries catches respond positively to nearly all forms of extreme events, suggesting a valuable coping or compensation mechanism for coastal communities as they increase their catch after extreme events, but also an opportunistic behaviour by foreign industrial fishing fleets, as industrial catches increase. These effects vary according to country characteristics, with lower coping capacity for coastal communities and higher opportunistic fishing by foreign fleets in countries with poor governance, higher unemployment and direct exposure to prolonged armed conflicts. We also observe an accumulative effect resulting from the aggregation of multiple disasters that deserves further consideration for disaster mitigation. These findings may assist with managing fisheries towards increasing resilience and adaptive capacity such as early detection of potential impacts, protecting livelihoods and food sources, preventing illegal fishing by industrial fleets and informing aid responses towards recovery. (Full publication)