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AAAS: Cod, Tuna, Sharks, and the Privilege to Fish

By jjacquet on February 18, 2008.

This week at triple-A S, there was a triplet of fish discussed: cod, tuna, and sharks. The news is bleak.

Today at AAAS, a panel of scientists compares the fate of tuna to that of cod, which helped shape the economies of whole nations in the early 20th century. Leading the discussion were UBC's Rashid Sumaila and Daniel Pauly, Barbara Block from Stanford University, Andy Rosenberg from the University of New Hampshire, Mark Kurlansky, author of Cod and other scientists from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Their talks all converge on the point that warning signs are clear that tuna stocks are on the brink of disastrous decline.

In economic terms alone, the decline in tuna is huge loss."At its peak in 1968, cod fisheries in Atlantic Canada provided US$1.4 billion in revenues," says Sumaila. "By 2004, they delivered only US$10 million." He estimates revenues from yellowfin tuna in the Western Central Pacific peaked in 2001 at US$1.9 billion and dropped by 40 per cent in only three years to US$1.1 billion.

The panel is calling for new joint management between juvenile and adult yellowfin and bigeye tuna catching nations, which could result in millions of dollars for local economies, resulting in win-win outcomes for fish and people.

Earlier in the weekend, Julia Baum spoke about how, in addition to the scalloped hammerhead, nine other shark species will be added to the IUCN endangered list later this year (there are already 126 species of shark on the IUCN's list).

Maybe it all comes down to how we see the oceans and our right to use it. On Saturday, Daniel Pauly was part of the session on "The Privilege to Fish," organized by Mimi Lam of the UBC Fisheries Centre and Meaghan Calcari with the Moore Foundation (which sponsored the session). Pauly spoke of "renegotiating our contract" with the oceans. He said that prehistorically if a hunter needed flint for a harpoon, he didn't need to ask anyone for permission to use the flint and he didn't need a mining license. He just took the rock and made a flint. That's the mindset we are used to. But it's time to renegotiate. Given the current state of fisheries, fishing must now be seen as a privilege, not a right.

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Kind of an academic solution, renegotiating our contract with the oceans. Nice idea, but we have zillions of nice ideas. That's not the hard part. Making one of them happen is the hard part.

Do you think there is any hope for fisheries, or are they virtually all certain to be destroyed by over-exploitation?

I think Milan it depends on how we see fisheries. This came up a few times at AAAS over the weekend. Callum Roberts said in a talk that we can now see the end of fishing within our lifetime as a real possibility. He then clarified that our perceptions of fisheries as we know them may end. There may be plenty of slime and jellyfish to harvest....but we are running out of time to save the large predators of the sea. I personally believe there is hope. But that might be a shifting baseline also, I don't know...I am young and have only entered into the fisheries world within the last three years. Maybe after 30 years I won't be so optimisitc.

Oh also to Mark: "The Privilege to Fish" symposium was a thoughts-based discussion, not solutions-based. It was more a conceptual discussion of our relationship with the ocean, with some discussions on privatization and other issues. Many people will say that if we don't understand both the proximate and ultimate reasons we are destroying the oceans we will never be able to shift human behavior.

Hi Milan, If there is one thing that gives me hope, it's the understanding that all creatures on this planet have struggled for existence and that simple will to live could well see fisheries suriving on the other side (though not likely in their former abundance).

I think people differ greatly on this issue. For example, if it were completely unidentifiable as my own, I would have no problem with a picture of my naked ass being posted on the Internet. Others would be absolutely horrified by the prospect.