Can the oceans be harboured? A four step plan for the 21st century

Review of European Community and International Environmental Law

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 37-47

  Stone, Christopher D ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC INSTRUMENT; ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT; MARINE ENVIRONMENT;

EID: 0033062219     PISSN: 09628797     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9388.00176     Document Type: Article

References (13)

1. In the most recent data, the FAO excepts the Mediterranean Sea, where factors such as eutrophication and the depletion of predators may explain the sustained progression of landings until collapse in the late 1980s, as well as the Indian Ocean, where the lack of fisheries development for small pelagics was noted and attributed to the intensity of upwellings and offshore advection: 'The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, 1996' (Rome, FAO Fisheries Dept., 1997), 33-34.
2. As of 1994, 60% of the 200 major fishery resources are mature or senescent (show declining yields). Furthermore, the annual relative rate of increase of reported landings on the global scale has significantly decreased from 1950 to 1994 and has been approaching zero, indicating that the maximum production threshold is being approached. 'Review of the State of World Fisheries Resources: Marine Fisheries' (Rome, FAO, 1997), FAO Fisheries Circular No. 920 FIRM/C920.
3. See 'Dioxins dominate Denver gathering of lexicologists' Science, 266 (18 November 1994), 1162 (evidence suggesting that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, and other organochlorine chemicals may have abetted a virus that killed 20,000 harbour seals in the North and Baltic seas in 1988).
4. For nothing proposed can I claim originality. For example, regarding the tax, Elizabeth Borgese long ago proposed ...a 1 percent tax...on fish caught, oil extracted, minerals produced, goods and persons shipped, water desalinated, recreation enjoyed, waste dumped, pipelines laid, and installations built... . This functional, not territorial, tax would be levied by Governments and paid over to the competent ocean institutions (e.g., FAO, UNEP, IOC, IMO, International Seabed Authority) for the purpose of building and improving ocean services (e.g., navigational aids, scientific infrastructure, environmental monitoring, search and rescue, disaster relief, etc.) E. Borgese, The Future Of The Oceans: A Report To The Club Of Rome, (Montreal, Harvest House 1986), 63. As indicated in the text following, I am less inclined than Dr. Borgese to tax some of these ocean activities.
5. Of course the prospects vary with the strength of management regimes that may unfold. The FAO's most recent estimates for 2010 project between (pessimistic/optimistic) total production at 107/144 mmt of which the capture sector will contribute 80/105 mmt: FAO Fisheries Department, Projection of World Fishery Production in 2010 〈http://www.fao.org/waicent/ faoinfo/fishery/highligh/2010.htm〉.
6. S.M. Garcia and C. Newton, 'Current Situation, Trends, and Prospects in World Capture Fisheries', in Ellen K. Pikitch et al, eds., Global Trends: Fisheries Management (Bethesda, Md, American Fisheries Society, 1997), 20.
7. See Anne Swardson, 'Fishing Crisis in World's Oceans: 90 Nations at UN Conference to Consider Limits', International Herald Tribune, 15 August 1994. Note however that tastes shift continuously; and a shift in fishing practices that led to food exploitation of 'lower' species could conceivably produce the same protein, ton for ton, as the current mix of catch (discussed below).
8. Of course the prospects vary with the strength of management regimes that may unfold. The FAO's most recent estimates for 2010 project between (pessimistic/optimistic) total production at 107/144 mmt of which the capture sector will contribute 80/105 mmt: FAO Fisheries Department, Projection of World Fishery Production in 2010 〈http://www.fao.org/waicent/ faoinfo/fishery/highligh/2010.htm〉.
9. See Garcia and Newton, n. 5 above, at 3.
10. FAO, 'Special Chapter: Marine Fisheries and the Law of the Sea: A Decade of Change' in The State of Food and Agriculture 1992 (hereinafter SOFA 1992), at 29-30 (using the 1989 global fisheries data). In a separate study, the US Department of Commerce has estimated that rational fisheries management, including a rehabilitation-permitting reduction in pressure, would increase domestic fishing revenues $2.9 billion a year in US waters alone.
11. See US Department of Commerce, NOAA Strategic Plan: A Vision for 2005 (May 1996), 89.
12. My calculation treats as an annuity an estimated value of the catch that could be sustainably harvested on an annual basis from the optimal (rehabilitated) stocks at the level of their maximum economic yield.
13. The increased supply would be expected to dampen the price per unit, so that the projected revenue increase might be viewed as exaggerated. But studies indicate that with rational management, revenue gains through superior quality and market delivery should more than offset additions to supply. See J. Wilen and F. Homans, 'Unravelling Rent Losses in Modern Fisheries: Production, Market,or Regulatory Inefficiencies?' in Pikitch et al, n. 5 above, at 256. Of course, many other factors will influence fish prices in the long term, including changes in income, shifts in taste, and changes in supply and demand for terrestrial agricultural products.