Ready for Life Without Bluefin Tuna?

The decades-long decline of the bluefin tuna has reached a stop-the-presses moment: The European Union has ordered its member nations to stop reeling them in for the rest of the year.

That may seem like a positive step toward saving the species, but it comes because the union’s fishing fleets have already caught their quota for the year — a quota that scientists say is twice as large as it should be.

The most immediate practical impact outside the fishing industry falls on restaurant chefs faced with a sudden hole in their menus. The longer-term question is how to manage the world’s ever-deepening bluefin addiction....

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The Lede

NOAA Shifting to Industry Control Over Fishing Observers Death Knell for Independent Monitoring of Marine Mammal and Over-Fishing

From the Marine Fish Conservation Network:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2007

WASHINGTON - September 24 - A plan to put substantially more fishing observers under direct industry control precludes independent monitoring and saps protections for shrinking fish populations, endangered sea turtles and marine mammals, according to comments filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Under the plan, observers in the North and Mid-Atlantic, now under contract to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), would be industry selected and funded - a move that greatly expands a much-criticized model in use only for Alaskan groundfish monitoring.

Professional observers accompany commercial fishing vessels to ensure compliance with catch limits, by-catch rules and regulations protecting marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds and other non-commercial sea life.

Most of these observers now work under contract to the National Marine Fisheries Service, a branch of NOAA, or through a direct contract between the Service and the Observer Provider Contractor. But under a plan whose public comment period ends today, approximately half of all
observers would work for the fishing fleets they are supposed to police.

"Placing the observers under industry control undermines vital safeguards for marine mammals and other sea life by compromising the reliability of any report resulting from observer data," commented PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that professional observers are the only independent source of information for what occurs on the high. "This is like assigning investigation of white collar crime to corporate rent-a-cops."

Apart from the inherent conflict-of-interest for the observers on the approximately 2,100 vessels covered by the plan, other concerns include crippling already weak protections for observers facing interference, intimidation and harassment. Observer reporting can have direct and significant financial consequences for violating vessels, but the ability of NOAA to act on complaints by purely private observers is questionable, at best; Deemphasizing all observer activities not required for monitoring by-catch limits, such as marine mammal interactions, fishing gear entanglements and fishing quota limits; and Shielding much of the raw data from observer reports from review by researchers and regulators.

Significantly, the Alaskan groundfishing program which uses a similar industry funded system has been strongly criticized in evaluations conducted by NOAA, the Commerce Department Inspector General and independent experts. The Association of Professional Observers also
strongly opposes the latest plan, contending that the Alaska system produces "lower wages, fewer benefits and inferior employee retention - all of which ultimately affect the quality of the data collected by the observers and the resulting science based on observer data."

"Privatizing protection of ocean resources is precisely the opposite direction of where we should be heading," Ruch added. "While enlisting market forces can be a powerful dynamic, this plan creates direct economic incentives for the industry to evade monitoring and distort data."

CONTACT: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337

10 Solutions to Save the Ocean

10 Solutions to Save the Ocean
by Ali Kriscenski on September 26th, 2007

Many of us struggle with an awareness that the world’s oceans are threatened but often wonder what we, as individuals, can do. The oceans are vast, mysterious and complex. Even those who study them will never run out of new discoveries or understanding. But there are actions that make a difference. Conservation Magazine has compiled an article of essays from some of the brightest marine researchers, teachers and experts:

Martín Hall, Chief Scientist of the Dolphin Tuna Program at the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission

Daniel Pauly, Director of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre and Project Leader of The Sea Around Us

David Conover, Dean of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University

Amanda Vincent, Canada Research Chair in Marine Conservation at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre and Director of Project Seahorse

Kimberly Davis Deputy Director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Marine Conservation Program

Carl Safina, president and cofounder of the Blue Ocean Institute

George Sugihara, Professor of Biological Oceanography at The Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Ussif Rashid Sumaila, Director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre

Amanda Vincent, Canada Research Chair in Marine Conservation at the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre and Director of Project Seahorse

Tundi Agardy, Executive Director of Sound Seas

In Ten Ways to Save the Ocean Conservation editor Sarah Simpson says:
Saving the world’s oceans is going to take more than passionate declarations. So we asked a select group of innovative thinkers to go out on a limb. What string should we pull to give marine conservation a decided edge? Here are their answers.

The short list goes like this…
1. Eat lower on the marine food web and tap into a bountiful supply of protein
2. Elevate the role of small-scale fishers in the world market
3. Alter harvest strategies to account for evolutionary change
4. Invest in microcredit schemes for women in poor coastal communities to curtail overfishing
5. Tap into the firsthand expertise and ingenuity of fishermen and backyard inventors
6. Simple modifications to fishing gear save thousands of turtles and seabirds each year
7. Create new markets that reward careful fishing
8. Eliminate fuel subsidies to reduce destructive bottom trawling on the high seas
9. Text messaging is changing the face of marine conservation
10. Move toward wholesale zoning of the oceans—rather than piecemeal protection schemes



http://www.conbio.org/CIP/article30713.cfm