Forward by Daniel Pauly:

The event held in the modern city of Xiamen, documented below, and at which several colleagues from UBC also participated (William Cheung, Vicky Lam, Mimi Lam, and Tony Picher), was the main reason for my recent trip to China. However, I took this opportunity for a presentation at the very modern Third Oceanographic Institute in Xiamen, and for a one day-visit to Greenpeace China, in their Beijing Headquarters. Greenpeace China has only 4 staff working full time on ocean and fisheries issues, and even though they are motivated and well informed, the challenges they face seem overwhelming. On the other hand, their more numerous colleagues working on energy and pollution clearly face even worse challenges, as evidenced by the foulness of the air on that day. Altogether, a very instructive trip.
 

Following essay by Yuwei Wang, Xiamen University

From November 10-12, 2015, an international event on “Sustainability of China’s Fisheries [in a] Fast Changing World” was held in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China. The primary goal of this forum, organized by Professor Bin Kang, of Jimei University, was to enable the fisheries, mariculture and marine conservation communities in China to interact with international colleagues. Following a day of formal presentation starting with a keynote by Dr. Daniel Pauly titled “Why reliable catch estimates matter: global comparisons of trends in marine fisheries”, the forum concluded with three workshops, devoted to the issues of each of these communities. I joined the workshop on the management of China’s domestic marine fisheries, which was led by Drs. Daniel Pauly and Chang IK Zhang, an influential researcher from (South) Korea.

Most workshop participants were concerned about the decline of the marine fisheries resources of China, particularly in the East China Sea, which for historical and political reasons, is a very sensitive area. Thus, international cooperation between the three countries exploiting the East China Sea, China, Japan and Korea is required, notably to share data and conduct joint assessments of the stocks they all exploit. Dr. Zhang, building on his broad international experience, strongly argued that a regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) is needed that would coordinate joint research activities and the organize the required data sharing, while maintaining an appropriate degree of confidentiality with regards to sensitive issues.

However, some Chinese researchers pointed out that official data and reports are, in China, kept very distinct from the various datasets gathered and the analyses published by scientists who, moreover, are not provided enough support for them to collect data and perform stock assessments. The workshop participants agreed that this policy of relying exclusively on secret or semi-secret ‘official’ data and reports while ignoring broadly available and vetted scientific data and analyses may have the further decline of Chinese fisheries as outcome.

This bleak prospect is aggravated further by the Government not having earlier engaged with small-scale fishers/boat operators, whose enormous number (and hence fishing power) it is therefore unable to stem, at least currently. Dr. Zhang, in this context, expressed surprise that, in contrast, e.g., to Korea, the majority of Chinese coastal fishers are usually not member of associations. He suggested that in fact, without these fishers being part of association that could control their activities and mitigating the damage they do (indirectly, e.g., through peer pressure) is nearly impossible. It is thus encouraging that the Chinese government has recognized this problem, and has begun, in some provinces, to encourage the self-organization of coastal fishers.

Even if the issues of fisher organization and data reliability were solved, and regular stock assessments were performed for the major resources species, the question of the management regime to adopt would still remain. Should a quota system be introduced in China? How should quota be set and allocated? Should quotas be transferable?

There are successful and failed examples of quota management all around the world. The US quota system appears to work, and its judicious use has led to a rebuilding of previously overexploited stocks on most of that country’s fishing grounds. The quota system also currently works well in Iceland, but it experienced serious disruptions. Iceland has an individual transferable quota (ITQ) system which started in 1990, notably for cod fishing. However, most of these quotas (remember: they were transferable!) were gradually acquired by a Wall Street-based US corporation which went bankrupt in the financial collapse of 2008, thus forcing the Icelandic Parliament to pass legislation to repatriate quotas that should never have left the country.

 

In late November Dyhia Belhabib from the Sea Around Us was in Banjul, The Gambia, to speak at a workshop funded by the MAVA Foundation through the project Sea Around Us in West Africa.

The purpose of the event was to explain catch reconstruction data, the methods behind the data, and to gain feedback from stakeholders in the country.

The room was humid and bustling and was filled with fishers, government representatives, and a host of other organizations eager to discuss the future of fisheries in the country. Dyhia found everyone to be extremely engaged in the conversation.

“There was a lot of participation; everyone in attendance expressed their opinions and their concerns,” she said.

The Gambian government rely on fisheries data to make policy and management decisions, and therefore the quality of the data affects the quality of the decision making.

Fishers, who want their fisheries to be sustainable, suggested they would be able to participate in data collection, to make up for data that sometimes is not available.

“The artisanal fishers wanted to voluntarily report catch data, and they wanted to be taught how to use the logbooks,” said Dyhia.

 

In addition to the fishers’ keen interest in reporting data, the government stated that they would provide additional agents to travel to fishing regions and help collect data.

“So on the one hand you have a government that is willing to spend effort to collect data, and on the other side, you have the fishers who are willing to provide the data themselves,” said Dyhia.

Ebou Mass Mbye, acting Principal of Fisheries in The Gambia, stressed the importance of reliable and comprehensive information for fisheries sector management. As reported in the Daily Observer, a major newspaper in The Gambia:

“He sincerely hoped that this one day workshop would be successful and would lead to better knowledge and understanding of catch reconstructions.”

Dyhia believes the workshop went a long way in educating the various fishers, NGO’s and government officials in attendance.

“It was great – I was not expecting so much positive feedback,” she said.

For more information read an article about the Sea Around Us in the Daily Observer, a media outlet in The Gambia.

 

The 2015 Forum on Sustainability in China’s Fisheries, in a Fast Changing World, was held in Xiamen, China, along the southeastern coast of the country.

The forum brought together local and international scientists and researchers who study marine fisheries and aquaculture in China and other parts of the world. The objective of the forum was to discuss the current status of Chinese fisheries, and the challenges and opportunities for attaining sustainable fisheries and aquaculture.

Members of the Global Fisheries Cluster at UBC were invited to the event, including Daniel Pauly, William Cheung, myself, IOF faculty member Tony Pitcher, and Research Associate Mimi Lam.

William gave a talk that highlighted the impact of climate change and ocean acidification on global marine biodiversity and fisheries, and he used the projected change in species distributions and catch potential in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea as examples. Daniel presented the reasons why reliable catch estimates are so important and showed some examples from the Sea Around Us catch reconstruction project.

On the last day of the forum there was a group discussion session. Daniel led a discussion on marine fisheries, and William led a discussion on climate change and marine biodiversity. William’s group identified a gap in the literature in reviewing the current understanding of climate change effects on China’s fisheries. Thus, the discussion of his group mainly focused on the planning and development of a review paper on this topic.

On November 11, I was invited to give a presentation at a workshop on blue economy best practice sharing in the APEC region, which was held at the APEC centre in Xiamen. In this workshop, participants discussed all the issues related to the economic aspects of the marine and freshwater ecosystems: like ecotourism, coastal eco-aquaculture, wetland ecological restoration and coastal blue carbon. I gave a summary of my study on the impact of climate change on the fisheries economics at both the global scale and along the northwestern coast of British Columbia.

Following the sustainability forum Daniel, William and I were then invited by the Third Institute of Oceanology with the State Oceanic Administration to give a talk at their institute. The audience showed great interest in both catch reconstructions and climate change impacts on fisheries.

After all the meetings in Xiamen, Daniel left China for another meeting in Israel.   William and I headed to Qingdao because we were invited to visit the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Fisheries Sciences. During this visit, William presented his work on the impact of climate change on global fisheries, and I shared my experiences in catch reconstruction with the group.

Overall, most of the Chinese researchers found the catch reconstructions to be very valuable for their research, especially for those estimating the catch of the Chinese distant water fleet (DWF) in West Africa. Many scientists also realized the urgency for addressing the mpacts of climate change on Chinese fisheries. During this trip, we met with fisheries researchers in diverse fields and received a great deal of positive feedback on our research. We all hope that there will be more chances for our group to collaborate with the Chinese researchers in the future.

The Paris climate talks have begun and the world is watching in rapt attention as global leaders stake-out our carbon future. Meanwhile, in Canada, a recent profile of Dr. Daniel Pauly in Macleans magazine sought to understand our climate crisis from a different angle – namely, our past.

The profile, written by Evan Solomon, looks at Dr. Pauly’s ground-breaking research into “shifting baselines,” an idea he developed in the 1990’s that seeks to understand current fish population numbers in relation to their historical numbers.

“You need to know the past in order to anchor the events in the present,” said Dr. Pauly. “We know now that about half of the knowledge about fish who are not here anymore is lost every generation. Half!”

So how does Dr. Pauly’s fish population research relate to increasing carbon emissions?

“This idea is so important for climate change and the conference in Paris,” said Dr. Pauly. “The changes going on are so rapid and deep, but the loss of knowledge and contextualization from one generation to another is so subtle that often strong changes cannot be perceived.”

The Macleans article describes Canada’s baseline target for carbon dioxide limit as creeping upwards. Under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada set its baseline target to 1990 levels. Then, after Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, the baseline was reset: this time, to 2005 levels.

“Suddenly, that was the new normal,” Solomon writes.

Over the years successive negotiators at climate conferences have allowed baseline carbon dioxide emission targets to rise. Over time, these became the new normal, allowing carbon emitters – much like fishing countries – to avoid making difficult changes.

“Shifting baseline is also called collective amnesia,” said Dr. Pauly. “You don’t know the loss because it was never transmitted to you properly. You forget how it was so you find the present acceptable, normal, when it is not that at all.”

From November 20 to December 11, leaders from more than 195 countries will meet in Paris to discuss the future of the planet. But will oceans be on the agenda?

COP21, the “Conference of Parties”, is the 21st United Nations Conference on Climate Change. It is being hyped as the most important climate event since COP15 in Copenhagen, which produced the Copenhagen Accord — a political agreement that was deemed by many to be a failure. Here Yoshitaka Ota, Nereus Director (Policy), and William Cheung, Nereus Director (Science) and long-time Sea Around Us partner, discuss whether these negotiations will be successful, what’s at stake for the future of the world’s oceans, and what else can be done to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Why is this year’s event so important?

William Cheung: This will be the one to set the limits. The target is to lower global warming to a 2 degree Celsius increase by the end of the century. Current projections have the increase at 4 to 4.5 degrees. A 2 degree increase is the point where we can avoid major risk.

Yoshitaka Ota: This is the time when the global community has to come up with a consensus — south and north, developing and developed countries. We have to move forward beyond natural and regional interests.

 

Do you think this commitment is possible?

Cheung: It will be difficult but we need to make every effort to achieve that. Before the discussion, there was an invitation to each country to submit commitments to reduce their CO2 emissions. But if we sum up all the existing commitments, the estimate is that it will reduce global warming to 3.5 degrees by the end of the century, which will lead to major impacts on ocean ecosystems and their goods and services. Thus, the current commitments by the countries are not sufficient. There is still a major gap to fill. It is a challenge that all the countries should recognize and resolve in this meeting.

The effects of climate change are expected to impact developing countries the most, where there is often a large dependence on fisheries and where adaptability is more difficult. Image: “Fishing Boats, Madagascar” by Rod Waddington, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Why is this approach to global climate change negotiations not working?

Ota: In addition to setting agreements between countries, which is often difficult to achieve, this round of negotiations is trying to also add a bottom-up strategy. Each country is setting their own commitments before COP21. But the efforts are not enough to achieve the reduction we need. More work to agree on more ambitious emission limits needs to be done.

Are ocean issues being properly discussed in these negotiations?

Cheung: Historically, a lot of the discussions didn’t consider the oceans. Recently, with the push from the NGOs, scientists and other stakeholders, the importance of the oceans in the climate change debate is more visible. Given the demands and services that the oceans provide — fisheries, marine life, carbon absorption, and cultural impacts — not achieving the targets will add to the costs of insufficient actions.

What do you think the general public doesn’t know about climate change effects on oceans?

Cheung: The global ocean has already done a tremendous service to us by absorbing 93% of the additional heat caused by these emissions since the 1970s. The ocean also has captured 28% of CO2 emitted from our (and our ancestor’s) activities since 1750. However, this is achieved with great costs. As the ocean absorbs heat and CO2, its ability to moderate more CO2 emissions actually reduces. Also, acidification, warming, and deoxygenation of the oceans impact marine organisms and ecosystem services. Without the ocean, the earth is not liveable.

Ota: Our entire global environment and earth system is supported by the ocean. People with homes near the ocean are already moving because the sea levels are rising. But for many people, the concept of the ocean is that it’s far away and not their immediate concern. They think we will lose coral reefs and that the ocean will alter slightly. They think it’s a minor alteration and that we can rely on the ocean’s recovery capacity and its accommodating nature for it to come back. But there are certain changes to the ocean that are irreversible because of climate change. If your children’s children can never see coral reefs or a beautiful ocean, that’s deprivation. We shouldn’t create environmental injustice intergenerationally.

 

“There are certain changes to the ocean that are irreversible because of climate change. If your children’s children can never see coral reefs or a beautiful ocean, that’s deprivation,” says Yoshitaka Ota, Nereus Director (Policy). Image: “Coral Reef at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge” by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CC BY 2.0.

How is the situation different for developing versus developed countries?

Cheung: Marine areas that are more severely impacted by climate change both on land and in the oceans are in developing regions. For example, tropical Indo-Pacific regions, where there are many developing countries with a large dependence on fisheries resources, are projected to have a large decrease in potential catches because of climate change.

Ota: The issue of oceans is quite holistic, because it includes both the environmental functions of oceans at the same time as the human dimensions. With this COP, we understand the impacts of climate change on human society. Almost every sector of our society will be negatively impacted. But there is also an important discussion that we need to have on equity and social justice.

More vulnerable people are more susceptible to the impacts of climate change. Adaptability is more difficult in developing countries because they have fewer resources. The countries that rely on fisheries are not the big countries, and they are most affected by climate change. We have to share the burden, without making vulnerable people even more vulnerable. There are many things at play — north and south divisions, developing and developed divisions. Even within society, there are gender, indigenous and intergenerational issues. Our kids are going to be affected by and have to live with the results of these discussions and we need to show them that we can think beyond our own interests.

If these negotiations are not successful in lowering CO2 emissions to a sufficient level, what else can be done?

Cheung: Although COP is really important, there’s a lot of important work to be done afterwards. We have to monitor the commitments made by each country. There are bottom up changes like provinces, cities, and private sectors setting more ambitious emission limits than their countries have committed. There can be bolder changes in green technology and reducing emissions at individual levels. This creates an environment that pressures other organizations and cities to do the same. This can fill in the gaps at the country level that they may not be able to achieve at the international negotiations.

For further information or interview requests, please contact: Lindsay Lafreniere Communications Officer, Nereus Program Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries The University of British Columbia l.lafreniere@oceans.ubc.ca