"Surreal" Protests As Fishermen Demand Cheap Fuel So They Can Keep Destroying Their Resource Base

[hatrack]

EDIT

Just as the oil price now seems to be all that stands between us and runaway climate change, it is also the only factor which offers a glimmer of hope to the world's marine ecosystems. No east Asian government was prepared to conserve the stocks of tuna; now one-third of the tuna boats in Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea will stay in dock for the next few months because they can't afford to sail. The unsustainable quotas set on the US Pacific seaboard won't be met this year, because the price of oil is rising faster than the price of fish. The indefinite strike called by Spanish fishermen is the best news European fisheries have had for years. Beam trawlermen - who trash the seafloor and scoop up a massive bycatch of unwanted species - warn that their industry could collapse within a year. Hurray to that too.

It would, of course, be better for everyone if these unsustainable practices could be shut down gently without the need for a crisis or the loss of jobs, but this seems to be more than human nature can bear. The EU has a programme for taking fishing boats out of service - the tonnage of the European fleet has fallen by 5% since 1999 - but the decline in boats is too slow to overtake the decline in stocks. Every year the EU, like every other fishery authority, tries to accommodate its surplus boats by setting quotas higher than those proposed by its scientific advisers, and every year the population of several species is pressed a little closer to extinction.

The fishermen make two demands, which are taken up by politicians in coastal regions all over the world: they must be allowed to destroy their own livelihoods, and the rest of us should pay for it. Over seven years, European taxpayers will be giving this industry €3.8bn. Some of this money is used to take boats out of service and to find other jobs for fishermen; but the rest is used to equip boats with new engines and new gear, to keep them on the water, to modernise ports and landing sites; and to promote and market the catch. Except for the funds used to re-train fishermen or help them into early retirement, there is no justification for this spending. At least farmers can argue - often falsely - that they are the "stewards of the countryside". But what possible argument is there for keeping more fishermen afloat than the fish population can bear?

The EU says its spending will reduce fishing pressure and help fishermen adopt greener methods. In reality, it is delaying the decline of the industry and allowing it to defy ecological limits for as long as possible. If the member states want to protect the ecosystem, it's a good deal cheaper to legislate than to pay. Our fishing policies, like those of almost all maritime nations, are a perfect parable of commercial stupidity and short-termism, helping an industry to destroy its long-term prospects for the sake of immediate profit. But the fishermen only demand more. The headline on this week's Fishing News is "Thanks for Nothing!", bemoaning the British government's refusal to follow France, Spain and Italy in handing out fuel subsidies. But why the heck should it? The Scottish fishing secretary, Richard Lochhead, demands that the government in Westminster "open the purse strings". He also insists that new money is "not tied to decommissioning": in other words no more boats should be taken off the water. Is this really a service to the industry, or only to its most short-sighted members?

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/08/fishing.climatechange

[Hannah Bell]

1. monbiot apparently thinks putting small producers out of business

to leave the field to large ones won't "destroy the resource base".

[bhikkhu]

7. The resource base is in full collapse, and has been for years

The recent oil shock just adds some punctuation to it. So its not really a matter of who gets to exploit it; in the first paragraph the problems with large-scale commercial fishing are touched on. The article covers one local problems that most people don't worry much about unless they are involved in the industry or involved in politics; but between climate change, energy problems, and resource depletion there are millions of people in various industries all over the world whose livelihoods are at risk. If the article's point is to argue that it is not the government's (the taxpayer's) responsibility, I'm not sure if the result is very different whichever side you choose. Europe doesn't really have much more money than we do to address the scale of the problem.

[Hannah Bell]

9. yeah, i notice all the majors going out of business. not.

[bhikkhu]

11. Some links:

On fish stocks:

BBC, Nov 2006: "'Only 50 years left' for sea fish"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6108414.stm


Underwater Times, Jun 2006: "Mediterranean bluefin tuna fish could be on brink of collapse"

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=59317046210


The Independent, Oct 2003: "North Sea Facing Collapse Of Its Ecosystem, Fish Stocks..."

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:7k4-AX2e6CwJ:100777.com/node/544+mediterranean+fish+stocks+collapse&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a


UN report, Feb 2008: Fish stocks could collapse

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-02/23/content_6478724.htm


Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Nov 2006: Global fish stocks collapse

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:OgfxUb0GwXQJ:www.oceanconserve.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx%3Flinkid%3D63220%26keybold%3Dfish%2520stock%2520collapse+mediterranean+fish+stocks+collapse&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us&client=firefox-a


On the fishing industry:

Wordpress, March 2008: Fishing industry on the verge of collapse

http://st4tic.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/fishing-industry-on-the-verge-of-collapse/


Greenpeace (late 90's archive): "CANADIAN ATLANTIC FISHERIES COLLAPSE"

http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/cbio/cancod.html


MyChatham.com, July 2008: The Fishing Industry in Chatham, MA "A continuing trend over the past century has been the overexploitation and eventual collapse of species after species. Atlantic halibut, ocean perch, Haddock and Yellowtail Flounder once fed millions of Americans.
Now even the venerable Atlantic Cod, resilient to years of overfishing, could join the ranks of species written-off as commercially extinct...."

http://www.mychatham.com/chathamfishingindustry.html


"Alaska's Fisheries ....Over-exploitation and poor fisheries management in the 1940s and 1950s took a heavy toll on the industry. It was only through drastic measures adopted with statehood that saved the commercial fishing industry in Alaska from collapse...."

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0724-interview_benton.html


....and so on. This is really only scratching the surface. My point is that the OP highlights the difficulties of one approach to a fundamental worldwide problem, which is how to manage the decline of an industry. Not that I have the best answer to that, but suggesting that it is a problem made up by corporate interests to divest the small operators does nothing towards a solution.

[Hannah Bell]

12. you missed my point, which has nothing to do with the state of fisheries,

but with the way environmental concerns are used to consolidate industries & eliminate independent producers.

i can assure you, the big fishery interests are still in operation.

it's interesting, "bhikkhu," your concern for the environment here. in a previous post you advocated something like tending one's own garden - where economic exploitation was concerned.

why the discrepancy?

if YOU just stop eating fish, i'm sure all will be well. why would we need gov't action, when if we all just join together & live right, the problem is solved?

[bhikkhu]

13. To clarify, I simply disagree with your point.

You see environmental concerns being used to consolidate the fishing industry, I see the fishing industry in the midst of a long term collapse where everyone suffers. I haven't seen any indication of whether large producers or small producers will fare better, but they have both been suffering for some time.

The OP is an article concerned with whether and how much the EU will be involved in bailing out small producers. I don't know enough of the pros and cons and details of that to have an opinion.

[Hannah Bell]

14. The profit margins of large concerns are just fine. & If they overfish

the commons, they just move into fish farming. No problem for them, big problem for small producers & 3rd-world fishers.

Those folks will be nice cheap labor for the corporate fish farms of the future.

Rev. Moon of Korea (Korean/US intelligence) is one of those large concerns. His businesses are doing great, & he has lots of cash to buy off legislatures.


"...members of his movement managed to integrate virtually every facet of the highly competitive seafood industry. The Moon followers' seafood operation is driven by a commercial powerhouse, known as True World Group. It builds fleets of boats, runs dozens of distribution centers and, each day, supplies most of the nation's estimated 9,000 sushi restaurants."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-0604sushi-1-story,0,3736876.story

It might surprise people that one vendor provides most of Portland's sushi joints with at least some of their mackerel, salmon and yellowtail. But there's more: A significant body of evidence suggests that True World Foods is secretly controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon...You can hardly buy a California roll in this country without getting their surimi ," says Monica Eng, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune who began investigating the ties between True World Foods and the Unification Church in 2004."

http://wweek.com/editorial/3232/7668

True World Group, a vertically integrated supplier of fish from boat to table.

...links between Moon's religious organization and the fish businesses are spelled out in court and government records as well as in statements by Moon and his top church officials. For one thing, Moon personally devised the seafood strategy, helped fund it at its outset and served as a director of one of its earliest companies.

Sometimes the links are more direct. The boatbuilding firm US Marine Corporation shares its headquarters offices with the church and lists the church as its majority shareholder, according to corporate records.

It's an interesting story about a company's 30-plus years in the making, which included the purchases of large portions of fishing villages, and a drive to expand the market overseas...."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nellie-b/the-truly-fishy-side-of-t_b_19008.html

The tax exemptions & non-profit status are helpful too....

[bhikkhu]

15. There's the substance - thanks.

I will do some reading up.

[Hannah Bell]

16. a couple of moon's us companies: not going out of business anytime soon.

http://ioealabama.com/

http://www.isa-ak.com/

& he's just one of the big players. who won't be regulated anymore than they desire to be, & who use captive regulation to take out small producers, under the guise of environmental protection.

[The2ndWheel]

2. More energy use equals a larger impact

We don't get to escape that. If we find a way to use solar and wind on ever increasing scales, we'll just fuck things up in a different way than we do with oil/gas/coal/whatever.

[phantom power]

3. Checkmate

[Trillo]

4. Odd these sailers never heard of sails. n/t

[phantom power]

5. Then again...

1) That might be something like taking away my car, and saying "use a horse and buggy." I may not be able to procure a horse and buggy. And I would not really know how to use them if I had them.

2) Back when everybody used sailboats for fishing, there were a lot more fish in the ocean, and a lot fewer people. I wonder if a sailboat-based fishing outfit could make a living in current ocean conditions.

[Trillo]

6. Change engines to hybrids.

There are, I forget what they're called, axial rotor type blades that spin with wind from any direction. These could be used to generate electricity to charge batteries and power an electric drive motor. Call it a more modern type of sail or wind power.

I'm afraid I just don't see gasoline prices ever falling back to where they were, given peak oil and increasing consumptions. However, I can see powerful interests lobbying for corporate welfare in the form of energy subsidies for their fishing vessels, while the little guy pays full price for the same fuel. How fair is that?

[Trillo]

10. Cousteau had this idea back in the 1980s

Here's a wikipedia image of one such vessel.


There's more information on The Alcyone wind power hybrid engine ship at cousteau.org: Says it saves about 35% on fuel costs.

Another technology worth exploring would be microturbine generators to power an electric motor to get vastly better fuel efficiencies, as well as photovoltaic sails (do some internet searches) to help charge batteries to power an electric motor.

[Nihil]

8. Kick, rec, hurray!

> The fishermen make two demands, which are taken up by politicians in
> coastal regions all over the world: they must be allowed to destroy
> their own livelihoods, and the rest of us should pay for it.

:grr:

[kristopher]

17. What actually happens when a "fishery collapses"?

Setting aside for a moment the price of fuel and its impact on fisheries.

For MOST species of fish, there isn't much of a threat of extinction from overfishing. The collapse of a fishery is caused by lack of enough fish to catch at a profit. Most fish are "r selected", meaning they have lots of young and give them little care; also meaning there are plenty of fish left after a "collapse" to repopulate the species. So when a fishery collapse occurs it is a term referring to the economics of fishing; not the actual environmental threat posed to a given species.

That isn't saying that we can't make a species of fish extinct. Some are more long lived and reproduce much less than most species - for example, the orange roughy was nearly wiped out before anyone realized its life cycle. I *believe* most species that are found around coral reefs fall into this category.

IMO a much bigger threat is ocean acidification caused by CO2. Fishing is more of a self correcting problem if we exercise some basic resource management skills such as enforcing bans on drift nets.