Inventing Fish
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Inventing Fish I’m Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory. We are all aware of the crisis in world fisheries that has brought many species to the verge of extinction. Fishing is, of course, big business. According to a Hamilton Project report based on US National Marine Fisheries Service statistics, fishing in the US represents some $90 billion in annual revenues and supports over one and half million jobs. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration classifies 17% of US fisheries as “overfished,” and resource management schemes, applied by zones and species, are at the center of an industry response to this serious natural resource challenge. What is astonishing is that, beyond national catch, an estimated 94% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported from foreign suppliers. In reality then, American demand is up, national supply is inadequate, and foreign fishers, often operating without harvest limits, are providing an enormous majority of the product we eat. The paradox is obvious: whatever we do to sustain the national industry will be countered by external suppliers operating outside sustainability management regimes to meet an ever-growing market demand. Historically, management regulations were usually established by permits for controlled entry into area waters, limited season lengths, and catch quotas – procedures that have proven controversial and often inadequate. A new approach, called catch shares, is a management system that assigns “property values to various stakeholders with the goal of establishing incentives to promote long-term sustainability of fish stocks.” The Hamilton Report further explains: “Catch shares are a family of policies…that can be customized to the particular circumstances of a community. All catch shares enable fishery management councils to establish the total amount of fish that can be caught based on sustainability criteria. But catch shares differ in their implementation. One version…assigns tradable fishing rights to individuals, giving each fisherman a share of the total allowable catch. This design aims to encourage fishermen with low costs to purchase shares from those with high costs . Another type of catch shares gives a fishing community an exclusive privilege to harvest a designated area of the ocean.” Today, despite some criticism and objection to consolidation, a bias against smaller operators, and the decline in related new boat construction, roughly half of the fish caught in the US is harvested from a fishery under catch share management. All this, nonetheless, does not address the resultant threat to the economic stability of the industry. Is there anything to be done? Well, yes, there might be another way to “invent” additional value to the given catch in whatever amount by using every fish, and every part of those fish, as a new contribution to the total revenue. According to “Wasted Catch,” an excellent study by Oceana, “global by-catch may amount to 40 percent of the world’s catch, totaling 63 billion pounds per year. Some fisheries discard more fish at sea than what they bring to port… While by-catch data is often outdated and incorrect, researchers estimate that 17-22 percent of U.S. catch is discarded every year and…could amount to 2 billion pounds every year, equivalent to the entire annual catch of many other fishing nations around the world.” So there is one step to be taken: find more value in the 20% of the fish already taken, a market value now abandoned for lack of innovation or effort. Further, the Iceland Ocean Cluster, a cooperative of start-up marine-based companies, has taken a second, even more imaginative step – the utilization of 100% of every fish taken -- filets for traditional food processing, roes for caviar and other food products, liver for canned goods and pate, fish oils and intestines for enzymes in skin creams, cosmetics, and medical products, livers for Omega-3 oil in capsules, skin transformed into leather for clothing, medical products, and collagen, and heads and bones dried and transformed into protein and supplements for export to Asian markets. All these revenues are new, measured in new employment and increased return from an existing product by creating demand for an existing resource. All this value is available to the industry now, without another fish taken. We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio. World Ocean Radio is produced by the World Ocean Observatory. Find our podcast on iTunes, and at World Ocean Observatory dot org.
World fisheries are in crisis, with many species pushed to the edge of extinction. The current system is a recipe for disaster: demand is up; external suppliers operate outside of management regimes; sustainability seems an impossibility. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill will discuss inadequate and controversial management regulations and a new approach called “catch shares” which aim to establish incentives to promote the long-term sustainability of fish stocks. And he will introduce an imaginative concept by some marine-based companies to utilize 100% of every fish caught: for supplements, food products, medical products, clothing, and more, thereby increasing the return of an existing resource.
About World Ocean Radio
Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory and host of World Ocean Radio, provides coverage of a broad spectrum of ocean issues from science and education to advocacy and exemplary projects. World Ocean Radio, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, is a weekly series of five-minute audio essays available for syndicated use at no cost by college and community radio stations worldwide. A selection of episodes is now available in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Swahili, and Mandarin, enabling us to reach 75% of the world's population. For more information, visit WorldOceanObservatory.org/world-ocean-radio-global.
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Frozen tuna in the hold of a fishing ship.
Alex Hofford | Greenpeace | MarinePhotobank.org
Frozen tuna is seen in the hold of the Chinese ship 'Heng Xing 1' in an area of international waters near the exclusive economic zone of Indonesia. The mainland Chinese-owned vessel, which is Hong Kong-registered and Cambodian-flagged, was caught illegally trans-shipping frozen tuna from a Philippine fishing vessel and two other Indonesian vessels in the Pacific high seas. 2012.
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