This editorial elaborates on the ramifications of the new Chagos Marine Reserve in the context of pelagic fisheries

Charles Sheppard

English

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Marine Pollution Bulletin 60 (2010) 1899–1901Contents lists available at ScienceDirectMarine Pollution Bulletinjournal homepage: www.elsevier .com/ locate /marpolbulEditorialMarine protected areas and pelagic ﬁshing: The case of the Chagos ArchipelagoMost marine protected areas are only partially protected in thatthey commonly permit ﬁshing, a primary ecosystem-distortingactivity. Many indeed are no more than ‘paper parks’. The creationof no-take MPAs lags well behind several national declarations ofintent and certainly lags behind need. A letter calling for more ofthese no-take zones has been signed by 250 of the world’s leadingscientists (http://www.globaloceanlegacy.org/).Although the poor situation in the oceans is slowly changing, itis not without opposition from the pelagic ﬁshing industry. A twoday workshop was held earlier this year in connection with pelagicﬁsheries and the creation of the Chagos Marine Protected Area.This half a million square kilometres sits in the middle of the In-dian Ocean where, amongst other things, pelagic ﬁsheries will beprohibited from late 2010. It is a roughly circular zone about 450nautical miles in diameter. Detailed aspects of this are in this issueKoldewey et al. (2010). Chagos has a marvellously rich set of coralreefs, which was the motive driving the MPA creation by the UKgovernment in the ﬁrst place, but it is also is a region where tunaﬁsheries once operated. The Chagos MPA will double the no-takepelagic area in the oceans, but how signiﬁcant is this, both in quan-titative terms and in terms of the change in attitude towards thepelagic ﬁshing industry by placing such restrictions upon it?The case for protection has long been clear for marine specieswith low mobility, such as reef sharks and coral reef ﬁshes thatwould clearly beneﬁt from zero ﬁshing mortality throughout theirhome range throughout their annual cycle. But the most conten-tious question occupied the most time – that of closure also to tunaﬁsheries. The workshop was not very important for any formalconclusion which, apart from those unanimous and inevitable callsfor more research etc., was irreconcilably divided between the tunaﬁshers that were present and environmental scientists. But it wasilluminating for views gleaned during informal conversations be-tween sessions. Those of us who have advocated no-take MPAswere castigated by the industry on several issues. Firstly, we werelectured, the area is too small to make any difference to the oceanictuna ﬁshery (so we should not bother to make it a no-take zone).Others said the area was so big it will adversely affect the tunaindustry (so we should not make it a no-take zone). The tone ofthe language used privately was sometimes arrogant and aggres-sive, reﬂecting perhaps the presumed ownership that ﬁsherieshave exerted over the oceans. This ownership has been largelyunchallenged until recently, but now some governments are begin-ning to designate large MPAs and, ﬁnally, to apply no-take status topelagic ﬁsheries.Chagos is thus a test case in this sense. Some ﬁsheries propo-nents claimed that the data are so poor for Indian Ocean tuna thatthere was no science to back up a closure. So, of course, it shouldn’tbe closed. Another claimed the data from this part of the Ocean0025-326X/$ - see front matter  2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2010.08.023were so good that we must not stop collecting more. And so on.This kind of industry-favouring prevarication and obfuscation willbe familiar to any non-ﬁsheries scientist following ﬁsheries de-bates over the last two decades. I think that the resolution of the‘so poor’ vs ‘so good’ divide is that tuna data are in fact pretty goodin the Chagos area compared with other areas of that Ocean atleast, but that in scientiﬁc terms are still very feeble indeed. Thusboth are correct. The data are scarcely ﬁt for any useful purpose,despite years of ﬁshing during which useful data could and shouldhave been collected; they certainly are too poor to easily be used todetermine whether or not a closure will have any effect on tunaconservation or catches. Some in the tuna industry (the wordsbeing put to me in the wings of the meeting) hope it might bere-opened again soon – three years being a stated goal, when noproof could be found to show a signiﬁcant change. Of course, itwas said, one way to gain the desired data would be to continuethe ﬁshery for scientiﬁc reasons: ‘scientiﬁc ﬁshing’ perhaps, like‘scientiﬁc whaling’.So let us look ﬁrst at some key aspects of tuna industry, andwhat it is doing to the ocean.1. Total catchOf the total Indian Ocean tuna catch, Chagos provides, appar-ently, only 2% by some measures (4 or even 6% by others). Welearned that the annual capture in the Indian Ocean is 30–40% ofthe standing stock. To a population biologist that is a terrifyinghigh level, but the ﬁshing industry lives with such ﬁgures regu-larly it seems, playing dangerously with the capital in the way re-cently seen by gambling bankers. But, as with the recent bankingcrisis, greatest chances are taken when it is not their own capitalthey are playing with, and we can see the dismal results of bothindustries around the world. Even that 30–40% ﬁgure is dubious:the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission itself has recently commis-sioned a report that highlights many inadequacies of data and per-formance (Anon, 2009). Even aside from the under reporting, anindependent assessment of the population trends (derived fromthe ﬁsheries stock assessments) of the two main tuna ﬁsheriesin the Indian Ocean show that both the yellowﬁn and blueﬁn tunahave declined to the point where they have breached the conser-vationist benchmarks of concern and would qualify for listing bythe IUCN Red List as being Vulnerable (see Juan-Jorda et al.,2010). In the much better investigated Atlantic tuna ﬁshery, itwas determined that under reporting was probably a factor of2.5 (Sloan, 2006). Multiply, if you will, the 30–40% admitted cap-ture by some unknown multiplier! Such under reporting is notlimited to the Atlantic: we might remember Japan’s admission ofunder reporting its southern Blueﬁn tuna catch also, after it was1900 Editorial /Marine Pollution Bulletin 60 (2010) 1899–1901caught out (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1765413.htm). It requires a ﬂight of fancy to imagine that tunaﬁshers are better behaved in the more anarchic Indian Ocean.The inshore artisanal element, for example, is another large un-known, and the ocean suffers from pervasive illegal and unregu-lated ﬁshing.2. Migratory catchThe argument was made that a tuna stock is presumed to be amigratory species. What is not caught in the Chagos MPA could, ifit migrates, be caught elsewhere in the Indian Ocean, so what is thepoint of protecting one part only? Numbers supporting or quanti-fying this assertion were not produced or discussed in any mean-ingful way, however. Of course some are migratory, possibly themajority, but the key question in relation to the value of a large pe-lagic protected zone is: what proportion? This is important, espe-cially given the comments made by some to me that if the no-take status of Chagos is maintained, then their ships would simplyline up along the border and catch the ﬁsh as they emerge. In otherwords, why make things difﬁcult for the tuna ﬁshery? However, Si-bert and Hampton (2003) model this situation in Paciﬁc archipela-gos and ﬁnd that ‘‘the median lifetime displacement of skipjackranges from 420 to 470 nautical miles. The lifetime displacementof yellowﬁn is about 20% less”. So, there is very likely to be a largeresident tuna population, a source, or reservoir perhaps, in thearchipelago. Nobody has much idea for that ocean. Sibert andHampton (2003) go onto comment on the assumption that thesetuna are high migratory: ‘‘The term, ‘highly migratory’ appears tohave no operational deﬁnition in relation to the natural historyof tunas. Rather, it is a legal term deﬁned only in the context ofthe Law of the Sea.” Further: ‘‘. . .the results also suggest that PaciﬁcIsland countries can implement effective domestic managementpolicies to promote conservation and sustainable utilization oftuna stocks within their EEZs”.If this applies at all to Indian Ocean archipelagos too then thereis great beneﬁt to be gained from the large no-take region in Cha-gos for this important pelagic group also.3. Bycatch and wasted catchThe quantity of bycatch in the Indian Ocean tuna ﬁshery is alsounclear. It is barely known for the iconic turtles and seabirds, andlargely unknown for most other groups. It is known that sharks aregreatly desired and valued, for example, and that lines can be, andare, set to preferentially target high value items such as shark ﬁnsfor Asian markets. The FAO report that shark numbers in the IndianOcean are currently at about 10% of their stocks of not long ago,and over half of the world’s oceanic pelagic sharks have declinedto the point where they are considered threatened by the WorldConservation Union. But quirky rules and poor monitoring alsoactually permit gross under reporting of bycatch. Lancetﬁsh canand have been caught as frequently as the targeted tuna. But theirﬂesh is apparently soft and undesirable, so they are jerked off thelines before they are landed on the deck. Whether, with their jawstorn off, they can survive seems unlikely, but because they don’ttouch the deck they are not recordable as bycatch. In this way,thousands of tons of carnivore are removed annually from theocean system. One ﬁsheries expert did assure me that in the Cha-ogs context this only happened for the one year when the observa-tion was reported.An important element in the general ecology which is almost al-ways overlooked, is the supply of bait for longliners. Some detailson the Atlantic ﬁshery are revealing, where apparently 500 millionsquid are taken annually, largely for the supply of bait (Sloan,2006). The Falklands and other southern Atlantic islands weredeveloped for their squid ﬁshery several years ago. You may befamiliar with those satellite images of light at night, in whichyou will see that the Falklands squid ﬁshery lights up almost asstrongly as London or New York. The squid ﬁshery is apparentlyin decline now, not surprisingly perhaps. However, to the ﬁshingindustry there is room for doubt: at one conference recently a ﬁsh-eries expert admitted this decline but blamed. . . climate change!As one scientiﬁc colleague put it: ‘‘It is difﬁcult enough to get peo-ple to care about ﬁsh – what hope for squid!”. Another wastefulproblem comes from the observation (Sloan, 2006) that by theend of a successful hunting trip, the bottom third of the tuna insome ships’ holds may be too squashed from the weight of ﬁshabove to be of much value. Some presumably can be used fortinned cat food, but the rest is used as fertiliser for ﬁelds of crops.To an ecologist, the energetics implied by inputting a top carnivoreinto the base of a new food chain is astonishingly wasteful. Toomuch of this sort of proﬂigacy could be the difference between col-lapse of a species or its survival, and between continuing revenueand beneﬁt or its loss. It is only possible because wild pelagic ﬁshcapture is more akin to clear-fell logging than to harvesting.4. What can be done?Depressingly, probably little on a global scale will be done intime regarding management of multi-national ﬁsheries over amultitude of EEZs. The literature on excesses of the blue waterﬁshing ﬂeet is huge, yet nothing much has happened. If proof isneeded, just look at past decades of history and the trends of ﬁsh-ing intensity and ﬁsh stocks (Roberts, 2007). This applies even inthe generally much more regulated European Union and its NorthSea ﬁshing industry. Wakeﬁeld (2009) recently reviewed thisfrom a legal perspective and concluded that the situation is longpast being supportable, and even the EU itself recently concludedthat it has, in fact, messed up on a truly massive scale. The fact isthat we know the key facts, and have done so for many years, butfacts are not enough. It is difﬁcult to ﬁnd examples where indus-trial ﬁshing has succeeded without collapsing the stocks. Tradi-tionally the ﬂeets have just moved on: deeper, further offshore,but there are fewer and fewer places left. As has been pointedout for the whaling industry, from a company perspective it paysnot to ﬁsh sustainably, but rather to maximise a return now, liq-uidate the asset and invest the earnings elsewhere, rather than tosave some for later. In an analysis of 27 Scombrid stocks over halfa century (mostly Atlantic and Paciﬁc but with the only two In-dian Ocean stocks for which there was sufﬁcient data) Juan-Jordaet al. (2010) commented: ‘‘Threat status has increased over timewith 20 out of 27 stocks having declined at a sufﬁcient rate toqualify as treated according to IUCN A1 criteria”. These authorsalso say with regard to the Atlantic stocks ‘‘This is equivalent toa 69% decline in spawning stock biomass, 10% decline in themean age of adults and 9% decline in the mean body size of thecatches. . .” Despite this, some piecemeal activities are occasion-ally proposed and even implemented, such as a meaningful levelof observers on ship, not always with the enthusiasm of theﬁshers.5. The way aheadThe only sure way to protect a widely distributed ﬁshed stock isto close off access to a large proportion of the spatial distribution ofthe stock. More simply, the way ahead is with simply governed, no-take protected areas, and the Chagos example is one of several newinitiatives (Nelson and Bradner, 2010). Given that most of theoceans are a free-for-all and suffer the ‘tragedy of the commons’,proﬂigate over-exploitation and waste probably will not changein time in most places unless such ‘common’ access is restricted.Editorial /Marine Pollution Bulletin 60 (2010) 1899–1901 1901Perhaps this can only change in areas that fall under a simple,single, determined and responsible jurisdiction. Where there iscomplex jurisdiction, such as in EU waters, where it now takes fourbarrels of fuel to catch one barrel of ﬁsh (Brander, 2008), it proba-bly cannot change. Mostly, countries lack politicians courageous orinﬂuential enough to try and do something where there are multi-ple interests. Lobbying by special interests is clearly powerful ofcourse: in Britain, when several years ago a junior Minister openeda marine science conference by saying that he supported no-takeMPAs around Britain, only two weeks passed before he was onthe main morning news back-tracking, saying that perhaps MPAswere a bit excessive after all! In very fortunate contrast, a later se-nior Minister (the UK Foreign Secretary, no less) then declared theChagos MPA no-take zone, this being possible because of its statusas a UK Overseas Territory. Its jurisdiction is simple (compared tothe EU at least) which made the move possible. Perhaps the solu-tion can come only from such relatively simple jurisdictions, andthe larger they are, the more hope there is for overall sustainabil-ity. The diameter of the Chagos no-take MPA is roughly the size ofthe median range of some tuna species, so even though that MPAwas declared because of its reefs, its beneﬁt for pelagic species willalso be critical. As The Economist stated in August 2010 (p. 67,based on Beare et al. (2010)) ‘‘...there is much to learn about ﬁsh-eries biology. But one lesson is clear. Laying off, even just for sixyears, has as big an effect on migratory ﬁsh as it does on sedentaryones.”This is what led to the tuna industry concern, even indignation,described above – a rule being established in the free-for-all. Thiswas not just a shock (but was it really? see Worm et al., 2009)but is a warning of possible regulation elsewhere too. Given the re-cent call for many more such areas as noted earlier, no Ministerresponsible for such areas in any ocean need be embarrassed anylonger for taking the correct and necessary action.AcknowledgementsI thank Heather Koldeway and Matthew Gollock from Zoologi-cal Society of London, John Turner from Bangor University, NickDulvy from Simon Frazer University, and Chas Anderson, for veryhelpful comments on the manuscript.ReferencesAnonymous., 2009. Report of the IOTC Performance Review Panel: January 2009.Indian Ocean Tuna Commission. p. 56.Beare, D., Hoker, F., Englehard, G.H., McKenzie, E., Reid, D.G., 2010. An unintendedexperiment in ﬁsheries science: A marine area protected by war results inMexican waves in ﬁsh numbers-at-age. Naturwissenschaftern 97, 797–808.Brander, K., 2008. Tackling the old familiar problems of pollution, habitat alterationand overﬁshing will help with adapting to climate change. Marine PollutionBulletin 56, 1957–1958.Juan-Jorda, M.J., Dulvy, N.K., Cooper, A.B., Freire, J., Mosqueira, I. 2010. Trends inspawning stock biomass, mean age, mean size at capture and threat status inrelation to exploitation status in Atlantic Scombrids SCRS/2010/061.Koldewey, H., Curnick, D., Harding, S., Harrison, L., Gollock, M., 2010. Potentialbeneﬁts to ﬁsheries and biodiversity of the Chagos Archipelago/British IndianOcean Territory as a no-take marine reserve. Marine Pollution Bulletin 60,1906–1915.Nelson, J., Bradner, H., 2010. The case for establishing ecosystem-scale marinereserves. Marine Pollution Bulletin 60, 635–637.Roberts, C. 2007. The Unnatural History of the Sea. p. 457.Sibert, J., Hampton, J., 2003. Mobility of tropical tunas and the implications forﬁsheries management. Marine Policy 27, 87–95.Sloan, S. 2006. Ocean Bankruptcy: World Fisheries on the Brink of Disaster LyonsPress Guilford, CT, p. 304.Wakeﬁeld, J., 2009. Fisheries: a failure of values. Common Market Law Review 46,431–470.Worm, B. et al. 2009. Rebuilding Global Fisheries 325. no. 5940, pp. 578–585.Charles SheppardDepartment of Biological Sciences,University of Warwick, United KingdomE-mail address: charles.sheppard@warwick.ac.uk

Marine Protected Areas and Pelagic Fishing: The Case of the Chagos Archipelago

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Marine Protected Areas and Pelagic Fishing: The Case of the Chagos Archipelago

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