- There are many examples of “tragedies of the commons,” whether in the atmosphere as a result of carbon dioxide pollution, or in the oceans because of marine plastics. But arguably the largest in the world is caused by overfishing, a new op-ed argues.
- The general absence of effective fisheries regulations that ensure the conservation of healthy fish populations endangers whole oceans and the billions of people who depend upon fish for their livelihoods.
- “Currently, fisheries ministers are myopically obsessed with the pain the industry always claims it would suffer next year if the right conservation policies were adopted. They should look instead at how long we have been getting it wrong, and how quickly things could be turned round,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
The way the oceans are managed is meant to be like a successful medieval commons. Most medieval commons weren’t open-access, but commoners had distinct rights in law and committees organized the grazing. Commons were saved from overexploitation by the practice of “stinting”: commoners decided how many cows the pastures could stand and limited themselves accordingly.
That way, commoners prevented the tragedy that befell those commons where access was open, where selfishness and lack of governance meant overgrazing prevailed, and the cows died. The ruin of commons that went unmanaged was a phenomenon first described in the 19th century by a fellow of the Royal Society, William Forster Lloyd. His observations were exhumed in the 1960s by a Californian ecologist, Garrett Hardin, who gave them a compelling headline, “The Tragedy of the Commons.”
Hardin conceded that there were some well-managed commons, but also, crucially, that a well-managed common could evolve into a tragic one. When commoners perceive that other commoners are cheating, it becomes “every commoner for themselves.”
“With an unmanaged common,” he wrote, “ruin is inevitable.”
There are many analogies for a ruined terrestrial common, whether in the atmosphere as a result of carbon dioxide pollution, or in the oceans because of marine plastics. But arguably the largest in the world is caused by overfishing, where the absence of credible regulation endangers whole oceans and the billions of people who depend upon them. It is hard not to recognize several trending tragedies of that kind across the Northeast Atlantic this autumn.
First is the warning from scientists that the state of mackerel stocks, the last really valuable population of fish left in these parts, has worsened dramatically this year. Some of the most developed nations on Earth, including EU member states and the U.K., but also Norway, Iceland and Russia, are unable to agree on a sharing arrangement, so they have been setting their own unilateral quotas. The sum of unilateral quotas for mackerel “has resulted in catches that have exceeded the scientific advice by, on average, 39% since 2010,” according to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), whose scientists are now calling for a 77% cut in mackerel landings next year, which has been met with predictable rage by the fishing industry.
The veneer of competence projected by the officials responsible for managing the sea around our shores is wearing dangerously thin. Multiple years of quota overallocation, flawed enforcement and consequent overfishing are coming to a head. In EU and U.K. waters, scientists have advised a zero catch next year for Northern Shelf cod, as we now call cod from three intermingling populations in the west of Scotland, North Sea and English Channel. A zero catch is also advised for Celtic Sea cod, haddock, whiting, herring, Irish Sea cod and North Sea horse mackerel. The lack of fish to catch has resulted in a 25% decline in the number of active fishermen in the U.K. since the Brexit vote in 2016, mostly from the inshore fleet.
Overall, 54% of fishing opportunities given to the U.K. fleet this year were above scientific advice — and it has been roughly the same proportion since Brexit. That is overfishing, by anyone’s definition. Garrett Hardin would say our common is badly managed and our waters are going to ruin.
This sounds remarkably like the conclusion recently arrived at by the U.K. Office for Environmental Protection. It said that the marine environment in England and Northern Ireland is in “a highly degraded state, with evidence pointing to ongoing deterioration.”
As with all tragedies of the commons, selfishness and failures of governance are to blame. The EU’s Common Fisheries Policy has failed to achieve its aim of an end to the overfishing of all stocks by 2020. But the EU has just been overtaken for utter ineffectiveness by Britain’s own 2020 Fisheries Act, which sets out eight pious principles, four of them about sustainability. A court case to test the act brought by my organization, the Blue Marine Foundation, has shown that ministers cannot be held to any of them.
The appeal court said the judge was right: ministers have the power to make any decisions they like, even if these look insane, such as the granting of a quota for Celtic Sea cod equivalent to the entire adult spawning population. They have the discretion and cannot be held to account. So much for a post-Brexit fisheries law that was meant to be “world class.” A child of 5 could see that it isn’t.
Ideally, what should happen now is a reform of the law to make sustainability the number one objective of the Fisheries Act, as Labour called for in opposition. Ideally, that would happen as part of the act’s five-year review.
In the meantime, what will help is if Labour pushes through its proposals for protecting marine protected areas in England. This will give fish and their habitats a break. But the current fisheries law could be made to work right away if ministers took different and better decisions.
Experts argue that U.K. waters could produce revenues of something like $4 billion a year, not $1.3 billion as of today, if they were better managed. Economists say the stocks that have been crashed would recover within four years and justify much higher catches, if ministers prioritized recovery.
Currently, fisheries ministers are myopically obsessed with the pain the industry always claims it would suffer next year if the right conservation policies were adopted. They should look instead at how long we have been getting it wrong, and how quickly things could be turned round.
If they don’t start taking the long view, ruin is inevitable.
Charles Clover is the author of The End of the Line and is a co-founder and senior consultant for the Blue Marine Foundation.
Banner image: Fishing gear. Image courtesy of Thomas Merritt via Unsplash.
Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: Regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) regulate commercially valuable fish species like sharks, but their own activities often go unseen and unregulated, listen here:
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