October 19, 2012 — Top environmental ministers from scores of countries all over the world are meeting this week in Hyderabad, India. Their goal: to reach agreement on how to protect 10 percent of the world’s ocean.
Actually, they had set that goal two years ago under the Convention on Biological Diversity. You might be thinking, here we go again — easy to agree on goals; hard to agree on how to meet them.
But it matters. The U.S. Commerce Department just declared major fisheries in New England, Alaska and Mississippi a “disaster.” Another new study found that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral since 1985. British and French fishermen have clashed as boats from Britain sailed into French waters on the hunt for scallops. But that bell tolls not just for the fishermen — it tolls for us as well. Fish are the primary source of protein for an estimated one billion people around the world.
The journal Science recently published the first comprehensive analysis of more than 10,000 fisheries — roughly 80 percent of our global fish catch. The conclusion: fish populations worldwide are swiftly declining. This global analysis paints a stark new picture of a global ocean fished to exhaustion in an increasingly hungry world.
So, why are we hopeful? It’s because the analysis of global fisheries has a silver lining. We have not reached a point of no return. We have time. Solutions exist.
The good news is that many large commercial fisheries are already benefiting from the improved management of the last decade. The harder problem is with smaller-scale fisheries that local communities rely on for food and income. The fact is that small-scale fishers — who fish within 10 miles of their coast — account for nearly half of the world’s global catch and employ 33 million of the world’s 36 million fishermen, while also creating jobs for 107 million people in fish processing and selling [pdf]. Mostly poor, they live mainly in areas lacking fisheries management, monitoring and enforcement. No one is in a position to formally declare their fisheries “disasters.” They must just endure their situation. Or — take control of it.
A rising tide of local communities is doing just that. Here’s the emerging recipe proposed in that same Science study: Give local fishers exclusive access to their fishing grounds in the form of territorial use rights, or TURF.
In exchange for the privilege of exclusivity, local fishermen agree to establish and protect no-take zones. Results include increased fish populations, richer marine habitats, and coastlines less vulnerable to climate change — and more food for people.
Unleashing the self-interest of local fishermen to advance both conservation and economic development can create one of those rare win-win scenarios.
A growing body of research shows that fish populations inside a no-take zone can more than quadruple. Fish numbers outside the reserve can double. And, exclusive access enables investment and better management, increasing the catch’s value.
It works. We’ve visited several local fisheries in Mexico and the Philippines this year — with heads of leading research institutions, NGOs and government agencies — and in each case, we witnessed increasing fish populations, increased catch value and better-protected reefs.
Read the full story in the New York Times