Vision for the North Atlantic Biodiversity and Sustainable Development

I will argue that there will be great need of innovation and a rapid expansion of market-based solutions that enable national economies in the North Atlantic and around the world to grow and create the next generation of well-paid jobs.

People around the North Atlantic are still as dependent on fish stocks as in the past.  If we are to produce an enduring and successful new regime, stakeholders’ human rights will need to be observed. This requires all of them — fishermen, harvesters, processors, marketers and environmentalists — to be allowed access to the negotiating table.

Rural communities will only survive if they live in harmony with nature, use and conserve natural resources sensibly and unite to protect and promote their distinctive way of life.

Commercial fishing practices in Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands have already moved strongly in the direction of sustainability. All three countries have gone through some tough times in developing their fisheries management policies.

I believe strongly in the ability of practical solutions to provide sustainable development. Placed as we are between America and Europe, the islands of Greenland, Iceland and the Faroes straddle the middle of the vast mid-Atlantic ecosystem. We are endowed with rich natural resources in the form of fish stocks.

Together with the waters of Canada, USA, Norway, Russia  and countries of the European Union our seas have been part of a vast natural hunting ground. For the last five centuries the Atlantic has endured a growing onslaught of ever increasing exploitation by ever more efficient technologies. It has to stop. Our joint aim must be to convert this huge bio-economic battleground into a sustainably managed ecosystem.

Certainly the new trade routes will provide vast new opportunities; so do the oil and mineral reserves and the likely changes in fishing opportunities for cod, herring, capelin and most other fish in the North Atlantic. Inevitably, the risks will also multiply and the race to obtain a share in new sources of materials and wealth will certainly aggravate international conflicts.  

To date, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands have decided to stay outside the European Union. But many of our stocks interlink with stocks of other nations. How do we manage these multi-national resources to achieve sustainability – by which I mean biological and social sustainability at the highest possible level of welfare?


I believe that free and voluntary Commercial Agreements between vested stakeholders are the key to successful long-term sustainability. Some of these agreements are custodians of natural resources and some represent the interests of the various users.  We need committed and active partners in the stewardship of fish stocks and other natural resources. The management decisions must reflect the needs and aspirations of a fully inclusive consultation that is representative of all levels of government, national and international companies, nonprofit and voluntary organizations and the associations of those who own land, vessels, equipment. Finally, I believe the system must be based on the bedrock of strong property rights.

I have little faith in inter-governmental resolutions and their inevitable growth into treaty organizations that almost always fail to deliver. Property-based systems are simply much more responsive to changing conditions, including climatic conditions. Property rights effectively marshall the competing interests produced by the movements of straddling and migratory fish stocks.

I emphasise my belief that nothing beats common sense and practical economic solutions.  For example, I think it should be a natural goal for the creation of a new environmentally efficient fleet of fishing vessels.

 I think there must also be openings for young new talent. Entrepreneurial mindsets and creative talents must be given a chance. There should be a strategy to encourage and use new and innovative thinking and novel forms of problem solving.   In essence, we actually need to build a new entrepreneurial culture if we are to create effective fishery management and solve the social challenges that will arise.  The public needs to be educated in what must be done and creative talents in visual presentation are often underestimated in the North Atlantic. 

Commercial agreements based on strong property rights must also be have a bedrock of good science. The scientific goal is simple.  It must aim at the restoration and maintenance of abundant populations of fish stocks.

My own special field is the wild Atlantic salmon, one of the most studied of all fish species.   My conclusions are that future management programs will have to protect the native salmon stock, limit the interceptory netting on migratory routes and maximize sustainable returns for both the home and host nations and their peoples.  My organisation’s aim for the salmon is a restoration of abundance. Why should that not be our goal for all fish stocks?

I believe that biological research studies should be fully academic in nature. That means that fishery scientists should be freed from the interference they presently suffer from competing interest groups or fears their careers might suffer if their studies fail to suit national fiscal policies.  As I see it, the role of governments should be confined to a regulatory function that ensures biological abundance, the observance of human rights and the elements of fair competition.

In the future, we will need even more refined management.  One of the shortcomings of the Icelandic quota system is that it does not differentiate between the various cod fishing areas and the various sub-populations of cod.  It does not allow for closing areas based of the status of sub-populations.

The long term answer to the problems of our fish stocks lies, not in counting the fish on our immediate doorstep but in rising to the challenge of ensuring that the stocks as a whole can support and sustain the needs of the local communities throughout its range.  We almost certainly should manage cod, not by human needs for geographical areas, but according to areas based on biological assessments of populations and sub-populations.  We also need multi-species models that include prey and predator.  

While I am on the topic of cod, it seems a good time to mention what appears to be a flurry of interest across the region in cod aquaculture.  For many years, the global market’s need for more and more fish is the reason why large-scale salmon farming was introduced to the North Atlantic.  About one million metric tonnes of Atlantic salmon is now produced annually, mostly in the coastal areas of Norway.  Sadly, this industry developed too fast and the foreseeable and unforeseen negative effects rapidly escalated. No area has escaped some damage, and in some the damage has been extreme.

It now seems that some are planning a similar headlong approach to meet the demand for Atlantic cod.  Millions of government EUROS as well as private money are to be spent on the infrastructure to set up cod farms and developing cod that have suitable genes.  In a recent press interview a fisheries minister encouraged entrepreneurs to speed up this process and said, in effect,: “Let the scientists worry about solving problems for the environment at a later stage,”  and this is exactly the way that salmon farming developed.  There has already been mortality in cod farms from bacterial infections that on first look appear to have been caused by an unknown bacterium from a family that includes other deadly bacteria.  It seems that we have still failed to learn our lessons. 

Are we as a species unable to learn from our mistakes?  We do not want our coastal cod stocks to face such an adventurous and potentially dangerous exercise until we can assure ourselves it can be handled safely.  Pilot schemes for cod should be limited to small projects and kept isolated from our natural stocks.  Having said all of that, the future is likely to require aquaculture to the world.  I am only asking that it be done responsibly and certainly not at the expense of our natural fisheries. 

We must also do a better job or managing what are known as Industrial fisheries.  In fact, these fisheries will likely become more of a concern.  There are many reasons to suspect that cod, salmon and many other species need a greater supply of capelin and sandeels than they can now find. I find it very difficult to see the logic of scooping prey species away from our valuable stocks of salmon and cod, just to feed salmon farms or subsidized European pig farms.

More and more conservation elements should be introduced into our management regimes. Hook and line and other stationary fishing gear which does little or no damage to the habitat should be favoured over those that wreck the habitat. It is vital that the cost of habitat damage be set against the short term harvesting benefits of more effective fishing gear. Additionally, the problem of discards and by-catches should be better addressed than at present.

TO SUMMARIZE SOME OF MY GENERAL AREAS FOR CONCERN:

(1) THE NEED FOR REGIONAL QUOTAS BASED ON BIOLOGICALLY RELEVANT REGIONS and not those based on human communities, geography or historic fisheries. 

(2) OPTIMUM EXPLOITATION that focuses fishing effort on the various age groups that can best withstand fishing pressure.

(3) CONSERVATION ELEMENTS, including closing areas to allow shrinking fish stocks to recover and avoiding high-grading discards and other similar by-catch issues.
 
(4) AQUACULTURE, where we simply cannot afford more mistakes and must base all future decisions on a much less risk tolerant approach.

(5) SAFEGUARDING THE FOOD CHAIN through the reduction and much greater control of industrial fishing and a ban on trawling in areas where it is damaging habitat.

Now let me turn to a broader view. We can see that the better aspects of the fisheries management model in use in the North Atlantic is by no means followed throughout the world’s oceans.  In global terms ocean capture fisheries have a turnover of about US$ 100 billion annually.  Rough calculations based upon case studies of individual fisheries suggest that the global fishery could produce profits of at least 50 billion US$ annually.  Nevertheless, in spite of some recent bright spots, much of this industry is not making money and without its inappropriate government funded subsidies it might be losing as much as US$ 10 – 20 billion annually.  At the same time, the majority of the most valuable fish stocks world-wide are being seriously overexploited and collateral environmental damage is resulting from inappropriate fishing methods.

What is needed are strong individual property rights in fisheries (TURFs, ITQs, even, in some cases community rights) that are transferable between fishers and other users.  Strong individual property rights are the key elements that create the incentives for a “continuing capital investment in nature” and they should ensure the right basis for robust fish stocks. If this were done, many more people would share the benefits of the kind of high per capita national income that my fellow countrymen and I enjoy.

As you can see, I am primarily concerned with two issues; good science focused on supporting abundant populations and strong property rights to rationalize the use of those resources.  I also realize however, that there are other important issues that are worthy of our attention. 
If we are to succeed making the North Atlantic a showcase example of better fisheries management persuading participants to accept the need for restraint is an essential ingredient.  While property rights systems have been shown to increase the economic returns to participants in such systems, there are yet further ways to increase those returns and thus enhance property rights systems.  While the enforcement of conservation measures and strict fishing rules are the first steps in sustainability, the payoff to participants can be significantly enhanced through marketing the environmental gains these systems make possible. Sustainability is an incredibly marketable concept with a significant payoff to participants. 

All the interest groups need to pool their resources and get the message across that the region is taking serious steps to secure and promote sustainable development. We must proclaim our aim to make the fisheries of the North Atlantic an example to the rest of the world.

CONCLUSION

To briefly summarize my position regarding the future of the North Atlantic:  it requires an interlocking set of efficient processes, not unlike the ecosystems that support us.  We should only accept government regulations that have as their goal an abundance. It must be based on disciplined and focused biological assessments that are independent of political pressure and it must depend on audited data and efficient models.  We need new multi-specie programmes, if not full ecosystem models, to reach our goal of abundance.  Capture technologies need to be efficient and open to innovations and we  should maximize the value of our harvests through clever marketing that builds on a worldwide acceptance that the North Atlantic is place of SUSTAINABLE fisheries that deliver the best products to every customer.

Those of us who live, work and care about the North Atlantic, need to be prepared for an economic and biological marathon in the decades ahead.  There will be fierce competition for the vast range of opportunities and if the race is not run sustainably, the costs to the environment could be staggering.  If we do not make SUSTAINABILITY the highest principle of our economic activities the ocean that has sustained our cultures for more than a thousand years may no longer be capable of doing so.

If we do not succeed, I fear that those of us who live in the North Atlantic will end up as a rural part of a European social problem.  We treasure our independence, and in the future, we should be in a position to face and select our major trading partners, be they North Americans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese or indeed European with an abundance of first-class products that are the envy of the world.

Orri Vigfússon,  Chairman
North Atlantic Salmon  Fund