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Ocean Unite

KEY ISSUES

OVERFISHING

Ortiz Rojas
© Ortiz Rojas

Everyone knows about overfishing – but alarm bells just got even louder. A study reveals that catches are falling 3 times faster than UN estimates – not because we are choosing to catch less fish, but because they simply aren’t there. Over the course of a few decades, rampant fishing activities have led to 90 per cent of fish stocks being either fully fished or overfished. Reckless fishing activities are costing the global economy trillions of dollars, and are robbing our children of jobs and food for the future. Transitioning to sustainable fishing will boost the dwindling global catch feeding millions, raise fishing profits by $75 billion a year, and leave 36% more fish in the sea. What’s not to like?

It’s past time to get serious about ending overfishing and we know exactly how to stop it and regenerate Ocean life. It requires establishing more marine reserves, setting precautionary catch limits, stepping up monitoring and enforcement, fighting bycatch and discards, ending illegal fishing and stopping the perverse subsidies that fuel overfishing.

TALKING POINTS

Download talking points

  • The UN estimates that worldwide, fish provides about 3 billion people with almost 20% of their intake of animal protein, and 4.3 billion people with about 15% of such protein.
  • According to the FAO, 90% of fish stocks are now either fully fished (59.9%) or overfished at biologically unsustainable levels (33.1 per cent) . This is the highest proportion ever recorded.
  • The number of underfished fish stocks have reached the lowest levels recorded, rapidly declining over the past decade from 24% to just 7%.
  • According to the FAO, just one in three fish caught around the world never makes it to the plate, either being thrown back overboard or rotting before it can be eaten.
  • “Fully exploited” is not necessarily undesirable if it is the result of an effective and precautionary management approach. However, it does indicate that fisheries are producing catches that are close to their maximum sustainable limits. This means that the maximum potential for these fisheries have been reached and a cautious approach to the further development of fisheries management is urgently needed to avoid these fisheries becoming over-exploited.
  • While there are controversies in some quarters over the “correct” figures on the status of the world’s fish stocks, the bottom line is that the ocean is in crisis and business as usual is exhausting its natural capital. It is in all of our long term interest to support precautionary, ecosystem based measures that focus on ensuring sustainability for decades to come.
  • Studies have shown that industrialized commercial fisheries typically reduce the biomass of the stocks they target by 80% within 15 years of exploitation (Myers and Worm 2003, Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities).
  • A report released by the University of British Columbia says that countries have been drastically underreporting the amount of fish that they have been catching. The researchers compared the UN FAO data with estimates from a broad range of sources from over 400 people worldwide, and found that the annual catches were much bigger than previously thought, and the fall in catches much steeper than officially recorded.
  • This misreporting has masked the fact that overfishing has caused catches to fall globally 3 times faster than estimated by the UN, not due to the fact that countries are fishing less but because they have systematically exhausted fisheries.
  • A FAO and World Bank report in 2009 estimated that poor fisheries management means that global marine fisheries are worth US$50 billion per year less than what they could be– a sum equivalent to more than half the value of the global seafood trade.The cumulative economic loss to the global economy of this mismanagement over the last three decades was estimated by the report’s authors to be in the order of two trillion dollars.
  • According to a recent updated study, global fisheries subsidies are estimated at about US$35 billion in 2009, with harmful subsidies constituting the highest categories at over US$20 billion.
  • Global bycatch may amount to as much as 40% of the world’s total fisheries catch, totalling 28.5 million metric tons per year (Davies et al. 2009, Defining and estimating global marine fisheries bycatch, Oceana 2014, Wasted Catch).
  • A 2°C warming is projected to cause a 30–70% increase in the fisheries yield of some high-latitude regions by 2055 (relative to 2005), a redistribution at mid latitudes, but a drop of 40%- 60% in the tropics and the Antarctic (medium confidence in the direction of trends in fisheries yields, low confidence in the magnitude of change).
  • Model projections suggest a potential loss of up to 13% to annual total fishery value in the US, or globally over 100 billion USD annually by 2100.
  • Overcapacity – or too many boats chasing too few fish – of fishing fleets fueled by perverse subsidies significantly adds to overfishing, particularly for fisheries that are economically marginal and require those subsidies to break even or make a profit.
  • Loss of key marine habitats- such as coral reefs and seagrass are also threatening the global fishing industry, according to new research.

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN?

  • To ensure recovery it is essential that development models promote sustaining marine life, in particular the huge financial and environmental benefits that can be gained from long-term protection, rather than short- term extraction.
  • This means a reduction in fishing effort to ensure an increase in productivity and profit as well as to buffer the effects of climate change (http://www.stateoftheocean.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/IPSO-2019-Report-Final_web-PDF.pdf), the scrapping of harmful fisheries subsidies that promote overfishing and illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, and protection measures to help rebuild fish stocks.
  • An economic analysis in 2018 (Sala et al., 2018) concluded that if subsidies were removed, and adequate labour and human rights were enforced, most high seas fishing would be too uneconomic to survive.
  • These subsidies can then be redirected to support the establishment of a global network of marine reserves which will also have many long- lasting benefits including more fish, bigger fish, and more types of fish both within the reserve but also outside due to the “spill-over” effect.
  • Moratoria and bans need to be introduced for highly damaging activities such as bottom-trawling, deep-water gillnets and long-lining that results in very high levels of bycatch of marine animals such as seabirds, sharks and turtles.
  • The World Trade Organization must agree in 2019 on how to get rid of harmful fisheries subsidies that contribute to overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Their goal should be to achieve SDG 14’s target to end perverse fisheries subsidies by 2020.
  • The Ocean Prosperity Roadmap: Fisheries and Beyond explores how a transition to sustainable resource use – for example, by fishing smarter, not harder – can reduce poverty while increasing economic growth, food production, and fish populations.
  • It’s also high time to eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Learn how here.
  • Fisheries reform can yield triple bottom line gains in terms of greater economic profits, food security, and conservation benefits.

Key numbers from The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018

  • Total global fish production in 2016: 171 million tonnes
    • Share of that from marine capture fisheries: 79.3 million tonnes
    • From freshwater capture fisheries: 11.6 million tonnes
    • From aquaculture: 80 million tonnes
  • Amount of production consumed by humans as food: 151.2 million tonnes
  • Amount of production lost to spoilage a/o thrown away after landing and prior to consumption: 27 percent of all landings.
  • First-sale value of all fisheries and aquaculture production in 2016: $362 billion
    • Share of that from aquaculture: $232 billion
  • Number of people employed in fisheries and aquaculture: 59.6 million
    • Percentage of those who are women: 14 percent
    • Region with the most fishers and fish farmers: Asia (85 percent of the total)
  • Number of fishing vessels on the planet: 4.6 million
    • Largest fleet by region: Asia (3.3 million vessels, or 75% of the global fleet)
  • Percent of global fish production that enters international trade: 35 percent
  • Value of fish production exports: $143 billion
  • Net export revenues for developing countries ($37 billion) exceeds revenues from their net exports of meat, tobacco, rice and sugar combined
  • World’s largest fish producer and exporter: China
  • World’s largest import market of fish and fish products: The European Union. Number two: The United States; Number three: Japan.
  • Most unsustainable fisheries: Mediterranean and Black Sea (62.2 percent overfished stocks), the Southeast Pacific (61.5%), Southwest Atlantic (58.8%)
  • Most sustainable fisheries: Eastern Central, Western Central, NE, NW and Southwest Pacific (all <17% of overfished stocks)

*http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1144274/icode/

Renee brings nearly a decade of internal operations experience to the Ocean Unite team. Prior to joining the team, Renee worked for eight years at The Pew Charitable Trusts where she began as an administrative assistant supporting their Shark, Tuna, and Whale conservation campaigns as well as the Senior Director of International Ocean Conservation. Particularly adept at identifying operational issues and developing methods to solve them, Renee moved into an operations role working across Pew’s international Ocean conservation projects, then all their environment conservation projects, and later the breadth of Pew’s programmatic work. She has degrees from California State University, San Bernardino, and Temple University in Philadelphia, and recently relocated from Washington, DC, to the California coast. As hard as this team works to protect our magnificent Ocean, Renee is the only person on the team who lives at the beach and relishes in enjoying the beauty of the Ocean every day.

Brittney is Ocean Unite’s digital and social media manager and is a consultant for Communications Inc. Comms Inc. is an agency which works with the not-for-profit sector, with a particular specialism in the ocean and wider environment. They are well known within the international ocean community and enjoy the trust of, and a working relationship with, most of the large international environmental NGOs and coalitions. Recognised for their ability to deliver fast, cost-effective and productive communications and campaigning, they are particularly valued for their strategic contribution based on a sound understanding of the issues, the political landscape within which the issues exist and a creative approach to bringing about change. (www.communicationsinc.co.uk)

One of the principals of Communications Inc., Sophie has nearly 20 years of experience in strategic communications. Comms Inc., is an agency which works with the not for profit sector, with a particular specialism in the ocean and wider environment. They are well known within the international ocean community and enjoy the trust of, and a working relationship with, most of the large international environmental NGOs and coalitions. Recognised for their ability to deliver fast, cost-effective and productive communications and campaigning, they are particularly valued for their strategic contribution based on a sound understanding of the issues, the political landscape within which the issues exist and a creative approach to bringing about change (www.communicationsinc.co.uk).

Nathalie has almost two decades of experience working in environmental advocacy. She worked for over 15 years for Greenpeace International, focusing mainly on biodiversity issues. For many years she worked as Senior Oceans Political Advisor focusing on international ocean governance and marine conservation. More recently she was the deputy director of the Political and Business Unit. She has wide experience of attending and leading delegations at international environmental meetings, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species, and ocean-related negotiations at the UN General Assembly. When asked why she feels strongly about protecting the ocean, she says that not only is it home to the weirdest and most wonderful creatures on the planet, tomorrow’s life-saving drugs could be found at the bottom of the sea, not to mention the discovery of an anti-wrinkle cream that actually works!

Karen has over 25 years of experience working for international non-governmental organisations on environmental issues around the world with a particular focus on protecting marine biodiversity and building resilience to climate change. In 2015, Sack established Ocean Unite, co-founded by Sir Richard Branson and former Costa Rican President José María Figueres, to engage leadership voices and the business community to accelerate ocean health and resilience. Ocean Unite is committed to helping secure the strong protection of 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030. It has also developed a groundbreaking partnership with the insurance sector to address ocean risk.

She was senior director for international oceans at The Pew Charitable Trusts, where she developed their international oceans program including their ending illegal fishing strategy and initiated and was the managing partner of the Global Ocean Commission. Before that she was head of Greenpeace International’s political and business unit and head of their international oceans programme. In 2004, she was the first person from a non-governmental organization to speak at a regular session of the United Nations General Assembly, where she represented the concerns of over 60 environmental organizations from around the world over the plight of our oceans. Karen is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network. She has master’s degrees in international environmental law and in international political economy.