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Dick Lee[1]
Today the Australian seafood industry is under threat. The future make-up and direction of the industry will depend upon the successful resolution of a number of issues. If this is not done, substantial benefits will be lost to the nation.
In this paper the ‘seafood industry’ includes wild harvest, aquaculture, processing, domestic and export marketing and the wide range of ancillary and support components. Two trends are evident in seafood today – an increasingly vocal and strident anti-commercial fishing lobby and a growing concern that the management and control of the commercial seafood industry has lost direction.
The value of the seafood industry to the national economy and Australian character cannot be overestimated. It is the fourth largest food producer in this resource rich country. It earns in excess of two billion dollars each year and employs some 100,000 people, many in regional areas. It supports shipyards, gear suppliers, restaurants, scientists and managers in every jurisdiction and region. It attracts overseas tourists to enjoy fresh seafood from pristine waters. It is estimated that the industry injects $10 billion worth of income activity into the Australian economy annually.
Australia’s EEZ, including that around the Australian Antarctic Territory, is one of the largest in the world, extending over 16 million square kilometres, more than double the land area. It is extraordinarily diverse ranging from polar to tropical temperatures and from abyssal depths to reef top. Animal and plant assemblages abound across the entire range. Australia’s commercial fishing fleet harvests some 600 marine species (200 different species of fish, 60 crustaceans and 30 molluscs).
In a sentence, the seafood industry provides to the country: protein rich, natural and nutritious food; employment, particularly in regional areas; on-water monitoring for security, safety, pollution and science; a positive balance of trade; research and development recognised world wide; seafood traditions that pervade the make-up of coastal communities and a host of intangibles. There are compelling reasons to maintain and promote a sustainable, viable seafood industry.
In a previous Baird Publications Conference, fisherman Barry McRoberts identified the fundamental, seminal threat to seafood that ‘stems from long held cultural biases which contribute little to the importance of commercial fishing’. Fishing is not prominent in our literature and traditions and representatives from the industry do not abound in our parliaments or institutions. Seafood does not reflect the same ‘image’ as sheep or cattle or wheat and this may be a reason why the industry is so vulnerable to attack from political and self-interest groups. The ongoing fragmentation within the industry has weakened its ability to mount a concerted defence.
Time and space permit only a brief review of some of the more significant threats to the seafood industry. Readers will appreciate that the sentiments expressed here do not apply across the board. Just as there are rogues and cowboys in the seafood industry that should not be allowed to operate, there are academics and scientists and fisheries managers that understand the industry and should be encouraged to speak out.
Is it not logical that a fisherman would care for the environment in which he works? If he damages it, he does not go to work tomorrow. Why then is there such a blatant and concerted campaign to lay the blame for damage to the environment and fish stocks on the commercial fishing industry?
Many Queenslanders will recall the Dugong War of the late 90s. Dugong numbers in the Southern Great Barrier Reef region were down by 50 per cent. The discovery of every dugong carcass was widely reported and all too often the deaths were linked to fishing – net scars, trawlers in the background, gill nets in the area, etc. In the end a number of dugong protection areas were established and the use of certain fishing gear banned which had severe consequences for the livelihoods of numerous fishing families and the supply of fish to the market. Less coverage was given to the abnormal weather conditions in 1992 and the resulting dispersal of 80-odd years of sediment accumulated behind the many dams and barrages in the rivers leading into Hervey Bay. The resulting destruction of 100,000 hectares of seagrass, the only food that dugongs consume, did not appear to get a hot press.
One can imagine the feelings of a fisherman who had just lost his lifetime business and occupation as he read the report that stated ‘addressing the dugong decline should not be considered as a problem but as a great opportunity to achieve a lot of major conservation actions.’
Environmental groups and authorities have been very vocal critics of seafood. But as in the dugong situation the criticism often has little to do with fish or fishing. Former Greenpeace director and founder Patrick Moore, who has quit Greenpeace, believes the environmental movement has been hijacked by political activists. ‘They’re using environmental rhetoric to cloak agendas like class warfare and anti-corporatism that, in fact, have almost nothing to do with ecology,’ he said.
In Australia and overseas trawling has most often been vilified for damaging effects on the sea bottom. Exaggerations such as ‘bottom trawling as an aquatic Armageddon’, or trawling as ‘scorched earth fishing’ or ‘similar to clear cutting’ and ‘computerised ships as large as football fields. Their nets – wide enough to swallow a dozen Boeing 747s…,’ ‘trawling on the reef’ and so on frequently appear. These comments and so many others are outlandish half-truths at the best, but very effective in influencing the public and sometimes our elected leaders.
There are many areas of the ocean bottom including Brisbane’s Moreton Bay that have been continuously trawled for generations but still produce fish and prawns in substantial numbers. Trawling in this case would appear much more similar to agriculture than to clear-cutting. There is even evidence that the trawling activity has actually increased the production of the species being harvested in some cases.
Surely there is justification and every reason for trawling to produce food on the very small part of the ocean floor that is accessible. The anti-fishing adherents should be reminded that as a signatory to the Law of the Sea Convention, Australia is required to conserve the living natural resources of its EEZ, and optimally utilise those resources.
Recreational fishing is a very popular sport in Australia. Unfortunately, a vocal few continue to blame commercial fishing for perceived reductions in ‘their’ fish and call for ‘recreation only’ status for certain species.
The Garden State Seafood Association in New Jersey, USA, has effectively exposed the utter folly of this approach. Legislators here were persuaded to declare striped bass as a ‘game fish’, reserved for anglers only. What follows is a synopsis of the Association’s argument.
Myth: The only way to conserve a fishery is to restrict commercial harvesting.
Reality: From a conservation perspective it doesn’t matter whether a recreational or a commercial fisherman kills a fish. Dead is dead. Which is preferred, a commercial industry that can be effectively and precisely controlled or an unknown number of amateurs operating without control.
Myth: Commercial fishermen take more than their share of ‘community owned’ fishery resources.
Reality: Much of the amateur rhetoric misidentifies commercial fishermen as consumers, when in fact they are just the first link in a chain that extends through the buyers, wholesalers, retailers, restaurants and the consumer.
Myth: Fish caught by recreational fishermen contribute more to the economy than those taken by commercial fishers.
Reality: The one-off trade in tackle, boats, four wheel drives, accommodation, etc. entered into by the recreational angler pales into insignificance when matched against the ongoing contributions of the seafood and support industries, supermarkets, restaurants, chefs, etc. etc.
Myth: Aquaculture is able to replace the wild caught fish for the consumer.
Reality: Only hybrids of the striped bass are being grown in ponds in New Jersey and they are inferior in taste. Similar comments have been made about some aquaculture fish in Australia. In addition the environmental impacts of global aquaculture are far more severe than wild-caught fishing.
As a result of the commercial ban on striped bass in New Jersey, diners in any of that State’s restaurants cannot enjoy the fish on a night out. He or she of course can drive across the border to New York or Pennsylvania and eat it there.
Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) has been defined as ‘development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs’ and is now one of the cornerstones of fisheries management. ESD is often coupled with conservation or preservation and often the inference is to maintain the system – the status quo.
In the real world however, ecological and economic change are the norm, not the exception. El Ninos, earthquakes, cyclones, volcanoes, floods, tsunamis and all the other natural phenomena do happen. It is perhaps the supreme arrogance to think we would even attempt to control the marine ecosystems in the face of such natural upheavals.
Ecosystems thrive on diversity and adversity. The most prolific growth on the Great Barrier Reef is on the southeast corners of each reef, facing the prevailing wind and seas. The coral observatories, protected by enclosures, display less diversity and strength than those outside. To lock an ecosystem away, to protect it from change is to weaken it.
In a similar way the dynamics of fish populations and the intricacies of the encompassing ecosystems are complex beyond comprehension. One renowned fisheries scientist from Australia, Dr Geoffrey Kesteven, considered it was impossible to manage wild fish stocks, the ocean systems were simply beyond our control to influence them. ‘Biological Dogma, Economic Fantasy’ was the title of one of his papers describing attempts to set a figure for maximum sustainable yield in the Northern Prawn Fishery.
And yet there are ‘experts’ still setting quotas, boundaries, TACs [Total Allowable Catch (ed.)] and other limits to natural populations. Input controls such as limited entry, gear limits and other traditional restrictions on fishing have had limited success with often damaging effects on adjacent fisheries. After years of trials the same mistakes are being made. Fishermen, like the fish they chase, will adapt to change and fishermen have a certain ingenuity which is hard to overcome. As an example when the number of fishing days was drastically cut in the Alaskan halibut fishery in the 1980s, the fishermen managed to catch the same tonnage in 2 days as they had previously done in 160.
This ingenuity has limits though and in the Weipa area of the Northern Prawn Fishery the banana prawn catches have been very low for the past three years. Stock problems and pollution have been suggested as the cause but those fishermen with years of experience in the area say it is simply not enough days allowed for fishing. Claims of eight hundred tonnes of prawns being lost to the fishery each year are reported and if confirmed represent a scandalous waste of a valuable resource.
An alternative to restrictive regulation to manage a fishery reverts back to ancient times and centre around ownership. Hardin’s ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ successfully portrays the problem. Without ownership, fishermen have to catch as much and as quickly as they can, before someone else does. Buybacks and restrictions will only exacerbate the problem. By contrast owners will shoot for sustainability and invest in the future of the fishery.
New Zealand and Iceland have privatised major fisheries and assigned fishers individually transferable quotas (ITQs) that give them a right to a percentage of the catch in each fishery. The quotas are transferable and the right to fish commercially belongs to the fishers, not to the public. In other words what was once a common resource is transformed into private property. In March 2001, the Marine Stewardship Council certified the Hoki fishery as ‘a well-managed and sustainable fishery.’
Science, above all, should be an attitude – ‘we don’t know, but let’s find out.’ But with the over riding provisions of the precautionary principle in everyone’s mind that attitude has frequently become ‘we don’t know and you’re not going out there until we find out’. I recently mentioned a substantial population of fish that are not being targeted at the moment to a ‘Fisheries Manager’ in Australia. His response: ‘What do you want to do – go out there and destroy them as well?’ I cannot understand why a person with that attitude would be employed in such a position.
John Galbraith is reported to have coined the phrase, ‘The prestige of mathematics has given economics rigor, but alas, also mortis.’ – In fisheries science, mathematics and computer modelling cannot replicate the complexity of the ocean ecosystem. Perhaps dependence on the computer and mathematical models and a heavy bureaucratic workload has taken the fisheries scientists away from the source, the reason they are employed, the fish and the fishermen.
As an example, the recently amended fishery law in the US, the Sustainable Fisheries Act mandates that the fisheries be maintained at a level that can continually produce maximum sustainable yield for all species. Is it possible to have an ocean full of all the species of fish at the same time or in a natural situation do the numbers of each species vary in relation to one another? In this case the Act appears to fly in the face of nature.
Closer to home fishermen have made a genuine effort to get answers or provide information about seabirds or fish in an isolated region, environmental or meteorological phenomena, sightings of coral spawn or other events in the ecosystem. Personally I have been offered fifty years of meticulous logbook data on a fishery where a major management decision was pending. The responses from various authorities? – ‘the information was not “official” or “quantifiable” or “statistically relevant”’ and politely refused.
There is an enormous body of important knowledge readily applicable to fisheries science and management and it is largely untapped.
I have the utmost respect for the skills of an experienced fisher. Unlike the skills of a trade or profession, they cannot be written down and packaged for transfer to others. It is akin to an instinct but none the less exceedingly valuable.
Fisheries biologists and managers could improve their standing and their ‘body of knowledge’ by incorporating into their projects and plans the information and observations made by the people who are at sea every day.
The commercial seafood industry is under threat on a number of fronts today and if the rhetoric of the anti-fishing lobbies is not countered the future is not bright. At some point, the value (or the loss of it) of the industry to the nation will be realised by our leaders and steps will be implemented to re-establish such an important primary industry.
The questions being asked now are: Will that turning point be too late for the industry to recover? Will the necessary catching and processing skills be retained in a shrinking workforce? Will the export markets remain? Will the skills and infrastructure necessary to support the industry be available? Will the necessary scientific and management personnel be retained? Will the issues highlighted above be addressed and resolved?
Certainly the fishing scene will be different in the future. Our estuarine, coastal and ocean ecosystems have been modified and will continue to change in ways that affect the target species. The loss of mangroves and wetlands to canal estates, the flow of pollutants into the waterways, the increasing reach and influence of recreational boating and tourism have and will continue to have an effect on fisheries production.
The direction and extent of Australian fishing in the future is impossible to predict. Will we follow the Kiwis and go into big boats and deep water? Will we copy our Asian neighbours and go offshore? Will aquaculture resolve its problems and become the fishing industry of the future? Will we revert to an industry dominated by family operators?
Or will we lose such capacity from the seafood industry that we have turn to foreign operators under licence to harvest our resources. Only one thing is certain – we will be harvesting the living resources of our EEZ. How and by whom are the major questions.
The seafood industry is a major and essential contributor to the Australian community. Its future depends to a large extent on the people attending this conference and others with an interest in seafood.
The forest industry achieved a substantial turn around by improving the public perception of their industry and a concerted, well-planned, grass-roots, political campaign. Seafood deserves nothing less.
In Australia people have the right to make a song and dance about the accidental deaths of porpoises or dugongs and the opportunity to wax lyrical about the pristine waters of the Barrier Reef. But the practice of condemning, without valid reasons, an important industry utilising efficient techniques to contribute to the health and wealth of the nation is objectionable anywhere in a world in which thousands of people are starving. Hopefully our political leaders will realise this before more of the industry is lost.
[1] Dick Lee has a background in the seafood industry in Australia and the Pacific, and in the RAN. He is currently a consultant on fisheries in PNG and the Solomon Islands. This paper was originally presented at the AUSMARINE EAST conference in Brisbane 28-30 October 2003 and is reprinted with permission of Baird Publications.
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MarStudies/2003/15.html