Fishy goodness
I’m a big fan of mackerel. It’s a fantastic fish. Not only is it healthy and nutritious, but it reproduces quickly, breeds in large numbers, and often benefits from effective and precautionary management. Good stuff. In fact, saba has been a sushi staple of mine for years, and I encourage you to give it a shot in the place of other more troubling sushi items (like unagi or hamachi, for instance) next time you visit a sushi bar.
That being said, some troubling news from the Atlantic has forced me to revisit my standard double-fisted endorsement.
The mackerel fishery off the coast of the British Isles has been growing in popularity now that the more traditional seafood options, such as haddock, have been depleted. One would hope that we can learn from our previous mistakes and manage this fishery in a precautionary manner that will prevent us from repeating the depressing boom-and-crash pattern that we’ve seen with cod, plaice, and other North Atlantic species.
Everything looked positive at first. A pole-and-line mackerel fishery in Cornwall, as well as several midwater trawl fisheries elsewhere in the British Isles, sought and received Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification. Management seemed to be sound and bycatch was low. Now, however, climate change has reared its head, and a new set of challenges is looming on the horizon.
Go north, young fish... actually, wait
Global climate change is affecting the water temperature of our oceans. The surface waters of certain areas of the Northeastern Atlantic are beginning to warm slightly, and this has driven the mackerel stocks further north. Their migration has taken them into Icelandic and Faeroese waters — the territories of two massive new predators whose presence had not been foreseen by management or certification authorities.
The mackerel stock in the Northeast Atlantic is managed under a joint quota that is split between the European Union, Norway, and Russia. Iceland, which has never fished this stock in the past, has now unilaterally declared that it will take over 100,000 mt of mackerel annually. The total quota set for the fishery for the EU, Norway, and Russia combined is just over 500,000 mt. The Icelandic fishing industry is taking an additional 20% on top of this, and is doing so in spite of the current international management efforts. The Faeroes have also announced that they will be substantially ramping up their mackerel fishery, which may compound the problem even further.
For cod and country
These international tugs-of-war over our fishery resources are never good. This kind of competition can lead to overfishing, increasing pirate fishing activity, and even — especially in the case of Iceland and the UK — direct confrontation. A few decades back, these two countries had a prolonged series of naval skirmishes over fishing rights. These “Cod Wars,” as they came to be known, included ramming, net cutting, and even shots being fired. Luckily no one was harmed, but the importance of this issue to the Icelanders and the British was underscored several times over.
A few days ago, the MSC stated that additional Icelandic and Faeroese fishing pressure on the mackerel stock may end up costing certified mackerel fisheries their blue stamps, which has caused outrage in the UK. Groups like the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association are up in arms — not just because they may lose their quota, but also because the MSC’s distant deadline of January 1, 2012 puts very little pressure on the relevant authorities to resolve the dispute.
It remains to be seen how the EU will respond to Iceland’s actions, but until we know more, we should exercise a bit of caution with our consumption of Atlantic mackerel… or, even better, buy domestic.
Tags: cod wars, cornwall, iceland, mackerel, msc, Norway, quota, russia, saba, scotland, trawl
Posted by Casson on Feb 25, 2010 in
News and Announcements,
whaling 
All tangled up
There is no doubt that Japanese illegal whaling is a problem. How and why it is a problem varies depending on your perspective, but the simple fact that something is rotten in the Southern Ocean is beyond debate. Whales are having their brains blown apart because of political pigheadedness, anti-whaling activists are causing tremendous economic harm to the whaling fleet, the government in Tokyo is losing face, Japanese taxpayers are wasting their hard-earned money, and sailors and whalers alike are being put in mortal danger by the high-pressure water hoses, butyric acid (which, incidentally, is not strong enough to “burn” anything), long-range acoustic weapons, and other offensive contraptions regularly used in these whale wars (wait — can I say that? Did I violate something?)
Anyhow, it is in everyone’s interest that action is taken to remedy this situation and restore some semblance of order to those frigid, choppy seas. In fact, Kevin Rudd – Prime Minister of Australia, the country in whose waters (as much as Antarctic waters belong to anyone) most of the mayhem occurs – has recently served the Japanese with an ultimatum: cease all whaling in the Southern Ocean by November of 2010, or face a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice. New Zealand, too, has vowed to support Australia’s challenge.
Whale, schmale... I want a new Lexus
The International Whaling Commission (IWC), a multilateral organization tasked with “managing” whale stocks, has proven to be relatively ineffectual. This is largely due to a voting structure that is quite conducive to electoral fraud. Rich countries are able to bribe tiny nations that have no interest in whaling one way or the other, and since population has no bearing in the IWC – Brazil, for example, has the same weight as Barbados – large, wealthy nations with a vested interest in the outcome of the vote can easily sway things their way with some well-placed deposits.
Since the IWC can’t manage to do its job, it has created a “support group” tasked with finding a way to tame this bugbear. Unfortunately, this support group’s plan – known as the Maquieira Plan after Christian Maquieira, the Chairman of the IWC and the mastermind behind this proposal – is just about the worst possible way to deal with this issue.
How do we solve the problems created by the Japanese scientific whaling program? Maquieira’s answer is simple: we legalize whaling.
I’ll say that again. Japan is illegally killing whales, so we solve that problem by… making it legal to kill whales.
Open season
Basically, the Plan proposes that the scientific whaling proviso – by which Japan lamely justifies its whaling enterprise – be stripped from the management regulations set by the IWC, but in exchange, the global moratorium on commercial whaling will be lifted, and those countries that currently hunt whales (Japan, Norway, and Iceland – the three problem-child states that have brazenly defied the rest of the universe for the last twenty-eight years and have continued to kill whales regardless of international law and public opinion) will be awarded kill quotas for at least the next ten years.
The quotas themselves have not yet been set, but they will include minke, humpback, and endangered fin whales — just like the ones that are currently being hunted. So basically, Chairman Maquieira’s eponymous plan is palm-meets-forehead moronic because it does absolutely nothing. It is also palm-meets-forehead brilliant, however, as it makes the reprehensible actions of the Japanese fleet legal, and thus no further “illegal activity” will be taking place in the Southern Ocean. Problem solved!
Telling it like it isn't
Maquieria’s Plan is not about saving whales. It’s about helping governments save face, and giving the policymakers in Tokyo a way out of this mess at the expense of the planet. Sure, there’s still blood in the water… and we’ll still have warehouses full of unwanted whale meat… and Japanese tax dollars will continue to fund an anachronistic, backwards industry… but hey, at least the politicians get to retain their pride, right?
Thankfully, no one has been fooled by this laughable piece of idiocy. Canberra roundly rejected the Plan and reiterated Rudd’s ultimatum. Moreover, environmental groups like Greenpeace have pulled no punches in calling it out as the absolute waste of paper that it is.
Whaling in the Southern Ocean is illegal for a reason — it is an unsustainable and environmentally devastating enterprise. Solving the problem of illegal whaling by legalizing it is like trying to reduce the rate of gun-related homicide by stabbing everyone to death.
We will end illegal whaling. We will do it, though, by saving whales – not by saving politicians.
Tags: australia, brazil, canberra, christian, fin, humpback, iceland, illegal, international whaling commission, iwc, japan, kevin rudd, LRAD, maquieira, minke, new zealand, nisshin maru, Norway, sea shepherd, southern ocean, tokyo, whale, whaling
