How much fish can be safely caught? A Greens/EFA public hearing European Parliament , Brussels, 3 May 2011

1. How much fish can be
safely caught?
A Greens/EFA public hearing
Sebastián Losada, Greenpeace International
European Parliament , Brussels, 3 May 2011

2. Managing the exploitation of a
fish population sustainably

determining how much fish can be safely taken from a
population over a period of time taking into account the impacts
on the ecosystem;

establishing how such fish should be taken and by whom;

ensuring that an agreed set of rules are complied with.

3. State of the stocks
targeted by EU fleets
Source: EC, Consultation on Fish Opportunities for 2010

4. How did we get there?
Climate change
Destructive and wasteful
fishing practices Acidification
Pollution
Overcapacity
IUU fishing
Habitat loss
Subsidies
Lack of awareness Flawed science?

5. How much fish can be safely caught?
Limitations to the answer

Ecosystem context vs single species approaches;

Methodology tailored to data-rich situations, not always
(actually rarely) the case;

Progress in stock assessment techniques but how to deal with
uncertainties;

Some problems include: unreliability of data, failure to
incorporate all sources of uncertainty into assessments and
management advice; failure to quantify the ability of
assessment and management approaches to meet
management goals.

6. How much fish can be safely caught?
Are we asking the right questions?
The question needs to be answered by the scientific
community, but scientists' work is placed within a concrete
management framework
Is how to maximize catches the right question?
Or is it rather how to ensure low levels of risk and maximize
ecosystem resilience?

7. Maximum Sustainable Yield

Difficulties in moving towards other approaches...

MSY is difficult to avoid (widely endorsed);

Limit rather than target. Still then, too much focus on target too
little on robustness;

Bmsy is typically 20-30% of the unfished biomass.

8. Two areas of progress
Accuracy (stock assessments which faithfully represent
reality)
Robustness (stock assessments which if followed minimise
the risk of failure)

9. GP Submission CFP reform 1992
No explicit account is taken of uncertainty of scientific
assessments.
It is necessary to develop, test and adopt a management
procedure for each fishery which has been demonstrated to
work in the face of these various types of uncertainty.
The uncertainty must be explicitly taken into consideration so
as to maximise the probability that fish stocks and the
environment remain healthy and productive.

10. Some questions we need to answer

What are the best tools to implement the precautionary and
ecosystem based approaches? How do we incorporate
uncertainty?;

How to make sure that there is no political interference in the
work of scientists;

How do we make sure scientists are asked the right
questions? What level of risk is acceptable?

11. High risk should not be an option

We need to make sure that high risk scenarios are not chosen;

Society needs to be aware;

Robustness of advice is key;

Politicians have a key role to play: they need to make sure the
right questions are asked.

12. De-linking science from politics
Council Decision 2004 TACs 2011 TACs
increase of 0.1% to 4.9% 1.9% of all TACs 3.6% of all TACs
increase of 5% to 9.9% 1.9% of all TACs 5.7% of all TACs
increase of 10% to 19.9% 5.7% of all TACs 30% of all TACs
increase of 20% to 39.9% 9.5% of all TACs 1.4% of all TACs
increase of > 40% 12% of all TACs 2.9% of all TACs
So there is improvement, but... this can also place scientists
under greater pressure!

13. The example of bluefin tuna

BFT subject to unusual public scrutiny;

Great pressure on the stock assessment process;

BFT-E, the stock assessment chooses a high recruitment
scenario

BFT-W, the stock is collapsed or at MSY?

14. The example of bluefin tuna

15. Final remarks

Where are we at? We need stock recovery;

For many years we have taken risks leading us to this
situation;

We need to change the framework. Scientists need to be
asked the right questions;

We want advice consistent with a low risk strategy (and high
probability of rebuilding to begin with).