Peter Espeut
Everybody has heard about fish stories, but this is a 'no fish' story.
Ten years ago this year, I was invited to become a member of an élite group of marine scientists, environmental lawyers and natural resource managers from all over the world dedicated to reversing the degradation of the world's seas and oceans and the living resources they contain. Every year, we meet in a different part of the world to discuss the state of the marine environment, and this year the story is particularly grim.
Many topics were discussed, but none more important for us in Jamaica than the recent fisheries study published on November 3, in the journal Science by some of our colleagues which, among other things, asserted that if we continued catching fish the way we were going, all commercial fish stocks in the world would collapse by the year 2048 - during the lifetime of most Jamaicans. Despite the United States mid-term election the day before, the study pushed itself into the headlines across the world (including in Jamaica), and has made the world stop and listen.
The lead author of the article is Professor Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada) who addressed our meeting last year. 'Collapse' of a species does not mean that every last individual fish is gone, but is defined as the annual catch for that species falling to 10 per cent of its historic maximum (so not species extinction but commercial extinction.)
The process is far advanced. By 1980, 13.5 per cent of all species fished commercially across the world had collapsed; by 2003 (the last year for which global data is available) 29.0 per cent of fished species across the world had collapsed. This includes several in Jamaica, such as groupers, which are now rare. Keep going like this and in 50 more years, everything will be gone! Worldwide!
Collapse Inevitable
One session consisting of some of the authors, as well as senior journalists from the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NBC News, who all had covered the story, discussed the backlash which imme-diately followed the publication of the journal article; it was surprisingly mild. Most of the global debate had centred on whether the collapse will happen in 2048 or 2068 or some other year, but no one doubted that if things remain the same, the big crash will happen soon. The US$80 billion seafood industry, which initially came out swinging, quickly changed its tune. Seafood.com which, on November 3, denied the overfishing, by November 10 was stating that they had "missed a big opportunity last week by flubbing." The industry could have taken the study and said that the Science article shows that without more protection of species and ecosystem diversity, and without more awareness of issues like agricultural run-off polluting fish nursery areas worldwide, the opportunity to maintain and increase wild catches will be lost.
Strategies
A co-author, Prof. Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University (who joined our select group the same year I did), reminded us that the study was not intended to be pessimistic; there is a way to turn the situation around, and if these strategies sound a lot like my columns over the last 15 years don't be surprised. We must (1) manage our fisheries; (2) create marine reserves; (3) maintain the quality of the habitats of our fish; and (4) control coastal pollution.
Our efforts to implement these strategies in Jamaica over the last decade or so have been fruitless, mostly because of the incompetence and badmindedness of certain government officials. Because we start further along the overfishing road (we already have the most overfished waters in the Caribbean - by far!) our commercial fisheries will collapse long before 2048.
What are we going to do about it? Our seafood industry has said nothing. Our fisheries authorities are lying low. Are we going to sit by while our marine fish slowly disappear?
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
