By
FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff
The growing pressures to feed, shelter and clothe 7 billion, and
quickly multiplying, people is stressing the planet’s natural resources and
forcing the way this natural capital must be managed and used, according to
many of those challenged with changing the paradigm.
“There’s an importance to having diversity,” Janet Coit, director
of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), said this
spring at a fishing symposium in Warwick, R.I. “Ecosystem management is a
mystery and understanding the relationship between species and how to manage
them is a real challenge.”
The longstanding traditional — and many would argue severely
flawed — management strategy for fisheries and other natural resources has been
to focus on one species/resource in isolation. But with a global population
that has increased nearly 4-fold since 1900 and that is predicted to reach 9
billion by 2050, the status quo is severely outdated, if it ever truly worked
at all.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for
example, is encouraging states to work together to implement ecosystem-based
fisheries management in Chesapeake Bay. NOAA officials say such an approach
would help restore, enhance and protect “living resources, their habitats and
ecological relationships to sustain all fisheries and provide for a balanced
Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.”
The rich estuarine ecosystem of Chesapeake Bay, much like
Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay, has long
supported major fisheries, the tourism industry and the livelihoods of many
people and their families. But during the past several decades, the populations
of many of the fish and shellfish in these vital waters have declined
dramatically, because of pollution, habitat loss and overfishing.
To address the decline of a certain fish population, for instance,
the traditional management strategy would be to decrease the number of that
species that could be removed by fishing in a given year. But, as scientists,
policymakers, fishermen and environmentalists are learning, the fishing of a
single species is only one variable that impacts the health of its population
and, ultimately, an entire ecosystem.
Other elements, long ignored, come in to play, such as
interactions with other species, the effects of pollution and other stresses on
habitat and water quality, and a changing climate.
Adapt or die
Jonathan Hare, director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science
Center in Narragansett, R.I., told those who attended the late-March Southern
New England Recreational Fishing Symposium, that climate change is real and has
and will continue to impact local fish and shellfish populations.
He said climate change can have a negative or positive impact on
fishing, noting that some species will migrate into southern New England waters
and others, most notably cold-water fish such as cod and winter flounder, will
migrate out. Either way, increasing ocean temperatures have significantly
affected marine life, inducing shifts in distribution and changes in abundance.
Scientists studying the distribution of four commercial and
recreational fish stocks in Northeast waters have found that climate change can
have major impacts on the distribution of fish, according to a recent NOAA
study. But the effects of fishing can be just as important and occur on a more
immediate time scale, the study noted.
The four species studied — black sea bass, scup, summer flounder
and winter flounder — have varied in abundance and have experienced heavy
fishing pressure at times during the past four decades. For the study,
scientists examined the distribution of the four species using Northeast
Fisheries Science Center research trawl survey data collected between 1972 and
2008.
“The study combined a range of resources at the center, long-term
oceanographic data and trawl survey data,” said Richard Bell, a research
associate working at NOAA’s Narragansett laboratory and lead author of the
study. “Using these data, we demonstrated how a combination of fishing and
climate can influence the distribution of marine fish. It is not one or the
other.”
To more effectively assess the health of any given fishery or
natural resource and to determine the best way to manage it, the entire
ecosystem must be taken into account, according to Hare.
The traditional stock-by-stock management approach assumes that
what happens to one stock has no impact on another. Not true. In fact,
different fish species interact with each other in many ways, according to the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and failing to account
for these interactions can stymie efforts to rebuild stocks and manage them in
a sustainable way.
For example, adult cod in Northeast waters eat a variety of other
fish species, including herring, hake and flounder. An effort to re-build a cod
stock that ends up shifting fishing effort onto to these species will work less
well than one that protects both the cod and its prey, according to WHOI.
Better approach
An ecosystem is a geographically specified system of organisms,
including humans, the environment and the processes that control its dynamics.
Ecosystem approaches to management use integrated approaches to study and
manage the resources of an entire ecosystem. This approach considers the
cumulative impacts from various sources and the balance of conflicting uses,
and includes multiple factors such as pollution, coastal development, harvest
pressure, watershed management, and predator/prey and other ecological
interactions.
“Ecosystem-based fisheries management is a way to sustain the
benefits people get from the ocean by accounting for the interconnections among
marine life, humans and the environment,” Greg Wells, speaking for the Pew
Charitable Trusts’ U.S. Oceans Environmental Group, told the nearly 100 people who
attended the Southern New England Recreational Fishing Symposium. “We need to
make decisions based on understanding how an ecosystem works to be able to
maintain it health and productivity.”
The theme of that March 24 daylong conference was how to grow
recreational fish to abundance through ecosystem-based management. “We need to
protect and grow our recreational fishing resource in Rhode Island,” said Rich
Hittinger, symposium director and first vice president of the Rhode Island
Saltwater Anglers Association, which sponsored the event.
Hittinger noted that, according to NOAA, the recreational fishing
resource in Rhode Island supports 2,000 full-time jobs and has a $208 million
annual impact on the state’s economy.
Ensuring the long-term health of important marine species will
depend upon the ability to understand and account for the interactions among
those species, their environment, and the people who rely upon them for food,
commerce and sport, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The organization has recommend that ecosystem-based fisheries
management be incorporated into the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Among the ideas it has
presented include:
Reduce waste from bycatch. Bycatch refers to the
non-target fish, marine mammals, birds, turtles and other wildlife that are
caught and then discarded — often dead or dying. Despite legal requirements for
managers to report on and minimize bycatch, government scientists estimate that
close to 1 out of every 5 pounds of fish taken from the sea is wasted. The law
should be strengthened to avoid bycatch, minimize the mortality of these
animals, and meet a 1996 provision establishing adequate levels of bycatch
monitoring and reporting.
Protect fish habitats. Coral reefs, fish spawning
aggregation sites and other marine habitats provide vital areas for fish to
reproduce, feed and/or take shelter. Little has been done to reduce damage from
destructive fishing practices and non-fishing activities even though the law
requires managers to designate and, to the extent practicable, protect
essential fish habitats. Congress should enhance habitat protections, including
measurable goals and conservation provisions that are reviewed at least every
five years, to minimize adverse effects on habitat and to promote restoration
and conservation.
Conserve forage fish. Small fish such as menhaden and
herring are a primary source of food for many species of birds, marine mammals
and large fish, including the striped bass, tuna, and salmon that support
important commercial and recreational fisheries. However, forage fish
populations are too often managed without adequate consideration of their vital
role as prey, or not managed at all. Congress should require managers to
protect forage fish with
science-based catch limits that account for their unique role in the ecosystem.
Start smart. Unprecedented shifts in the
range and behavior of fish populations because of climate change and the
continuing demand for fish will create situations where fishing can expand to
new areas, or new species will become fishery targets. Currently, a fishery can
begin without adequate information about its potential impacts on the ecosystem
or management measures to prevent overfishing and habitat damage. Congress
should establish a more common-sense approach that would identify these
potential impacts and establish science-based management before fishing is
allowed.
Plan for the whole ecosystem. Fishery management
should be guided by ecosystem plans instead of by decisions predominately based
on a single stock without regard to the health of other species, their common
habitat or impacts on the broader marine environment.
The concepts behind ecosystem-based fisheries management also can
and, many would argue, should be applied to how we manage the use of rain
forests, wetlands, salt marshes, farmland and open space. The use of any
natural resources comes with tradeoffs — societal, economical and
environmental. There are consequences to other wildlife, tourism, business, and
land and water quality.
Those who support ecosystem-based management say the planet’s
natural resources need to be managed with a cautious approach.
“Focusing on a system rather than a single population takes into
account habitat, prey, competitors,” Wells said. “It also addresses managing
the human uses of the ecosystem. Humans have a major impact, good and bad.”