Course:ECON371/UBCO2009WT1/GROUP2/Article8
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Group 2
Article 8: Countries agree of Pacific fish pact
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/3063239/Countries-agree-on-Pacific-fish-pact
Summary
In a large effort to protect South Pacific fisheries, more than 20 Southern Pacific countries have gathered to agree to enforce a policy to regulate non migrating high seas fish. South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO) has renewed expiring interim policies as well as creating policies to protect orange roughy and other pelagic species.
Why do we need such an Agreement
In the last few decades, fishing on the high seas has become a major international problem. The Convention gave all States the freedom to fish without regulations on the high seas, but coastal States, to which the Law of the Sea conferred exclusive economic rights, including the right to fish within 200 miles off their shores. However, many countries began to complain that fleets fishing on the high seas were reducing catches in their domestic waters.
Two major factors threaten the sustainability of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks: overfishing and the impact of human activities. Efforts to conserve and manage the long-term sustainability of fish stocks are undermined by overfishing, which is driven in part by the need for higher economic returns to compensate for over-investment in the industry and excess fleet capacity, which has been encouraged by generous government subsidies. Human activities that put fish in peril include oil spills, destruction of mangrove swamps and estuaries, industrial air pollution, and production of nutrients, pesticides and other materials that run off the land and pollute the oceans. Some fishing practices, such as using dynamite on coral reefs to kill fish, also destroy critical habitats. Introducing exotic species either accidentally or deliberately into a marine environment can also harm other species in the ecosystem.
The legal and political difficulties of managing fish stocks that straddle both national waters and the high seas were not abolished by exclusive economic zones. This new agreement shows how regional responses to those challenges of negotiation between countries can help strengthen the global high seas fisheries regime.
What the Agreement Does
The Agreement legally binds participating countries to conserve and sustainably manage fish stocks and to settle peacefully any disputes that arise over fishing on the high seas. Specifically:
1. Establishes the basis for the sustainable management and conservation of the world's fisheries, 2. Addresses the problem of inadequate data on fish stocks, 3. Provides for the establishment of quotas, 4. Calls for the setting up of regional fishing organizations, 5. Tackles problems caused by the persistence of unauthorized fishing, 6. Manage deep sea fish stocks.
Not only does this create a stronger form of protection for the already diminishing fish stocks in the high seas, but it forms a foundation in which countries can model after. Pacific Ocean regulation of high seas faces many large problems, one of which is the inability for countries to agree on policy plans given different agendas. This is a great step in the right direction. By gathering under self interest these countries were able to avoid overwhelming amounts of red tape that frequently prevents the United Nations from achieving similar goals on an international protectionist stage.
Where this Agreement still falls through
Though this agreement is very helpful in getting many countries to agree about the South Pacific fisheries, there may be a few South Pacific countries which have not signed on and will 'be free' to fish as they please. And unfortunately, as is always the case with ocean fisheries, we are facing the problem that this is an open access resource. Even within the countries that have joined there will be people who will continue to fish illegally, as their payoff is higher than the risk of getting caught.
This problem is still an enforcement issue, and a more effective way of finding and punishing those breaking the rules is what needs to be decided on.
Prof's Comments
It sounds like a promising idea. It is not that surprising that the agreement applies only to species that are not that mobile. Essentially it is an agreement about how to share these species. It can be thought of as establishing property rights, at least weakly, for the fish.