Is it worth investing in fisheries any more ?

Najma Sadeque
27-01-08

Persuading people to examine a reality different from what they have been accustomed to believing is difficult enough. Trying to convince of something that is not always visible to them with their own eyes is almost impossible, especially if it doesn't suit their own interests. And nothing could be worse if the topic has never been thought of at all. Yet it is time now for Pakistan's fisheries industry to have second thoughts about "modernizing" their vessels and boosting their export catch at a time when the oceans have been depleted by 80 percent through irresponsible, worldwide overfishing.
Few people in the world are aware of the fact that large-scale fishing which the industrialized countries indulge is not cost-effective. - The fact is that if the entire investment required had to come from their own pockets, they wouldn't be fishing at all. They would look for greener pastures elsewhere. The truth is that the world's fishing industry spends pays an astounding $124 billion a year to catch only $70 billion worth of fish.
So why does the global fishing industry operate at a loss? It doesn't. The loss is borne by the people, whether or not they come into the tax-paying bracket. The fishing industry derives the difference of $54 billion from government subsidies. In other words, just as is large scale western agriculture, the unsuspecting citizen pays for the fishing industry's profits !
There are about 3.5 million fishing vessels in the world - not counting the tiny, hand-rowed boats. Of these, only 35,000 are the lucky recipients of the $54 billion in subsidies, a fact that most people and most small fisherfolk - who don't get any of it -- aren't aware of because it is little-publicized. And these vessels certainly don't include the little fishing boats of genuine, indigenous fishermen.
Most mind-boggling of all is that these 35,000 government-subsidized fishing vessels that monopolize 100 percent of the fishing subsidies also monopolize half the world's fishing capacity, leaving more than 3 million others out in the cold! The starkest example in the Mediterranean is Italy which has the smallest number of trawlers among the Mediterranean countries, but has so huge a capacity that it rakes in more than half the entire Mediterranean catch. The consequence has been falling fishstocks and over one hundred marine species endangered in that region.
Overall, Mediterranean people eat the most seafood in the world, although some may argue that the coastal people of South and South East Asia may possibly be consuming as much or a little more, even if their diet includes the cheapest and smallest varieties of seafood, and species that others don't fancy. The global average is 35 pounds per person annually - although it must be kept in mind that at least half the world's people don't get to eat seafood at all whether because they are too far from the ocean or too poor to be able to afford it. The Spanish lead the fish-eaters, averaging 90 pounds a year. The Italians, Greeks and French average half as much.
But the shortfall of fish supplies from their own waters has not happened so much because populations have grown. It was because of the increased use of both wasteful and destructive fishing methods, that fish stocks began to collapse. Had environmentally-responsible methods been pursued and sustainable and limits been respected, there would have been enough for everybody.
Although the Mediterranean countries have doubled their catch in the last sixty years, there has not been enough fish in their sea for their populations since the 80s. To maintain that, they have to import a good deal of fish. And guess which country is included on the list of nations they import from. Which are the countries that are most after imported seafood?
Ironically, the Mediterranean countries are among those that are themselves fishing nations but are now in danger of losing their fishery industries altogether -- the 21 nations that crowd around the Mediterranean Sea. Not that they are the only fishing nations in trouble. Northern industrialised fishing countries are in as much or worse straits.
The only reason the Pakistan government and our larger-scale fishing industry is interested in catching fish is for the export earnings which historically have never benefited the people at large, least of all the fisherfolk, but is spent in self-serving discretion.
This is borne out by several facts. Firstly, while the government spared no pains to devise a Deep Sea Fishing Policy, in six decades it never bothered to give priority put the horse before the cart and give priority to its own fisherfolk citizens by producing what was more urgently needed - a Domestic Fishing Policy along with social and developmental allocations for the fisherfolk and coastal communities including those who are indirectly dependent on fishing. The areas they live in highlighted by little or no social or physical infrastructural development - the coastal equivalent of Pakistan's neglected rural areas.
A sector that was once the exclusive domain of small fishermen who always fished sustainably even while supplying the local market, increasingly began to be taken over by non-fishermen and even non-locals entering as investors rather than as a way of life that always was to fisherfolk.
The European Commission itself estimates that the European fishing fleet suffers from as much as 40 percent overcapacity ! To utilise that 40 percent excess capacity, they do what most fishing vessels have been doing all over the world -- go intruding in other countries waters! The capacity ballooned because of subsidies being made easily available to the biggest vessels. When financial incentives are being offered there are few businessmen in the world who will not snap it up at once because unfortunately, as yet for the most part, long-term environmental considerations are not taken up before making business decisions.
The Mediterranean is overfished. Its fishing industries catch twice as much there today than they did in 1950, and catches have been dropping since the 1980s. Even then, the Mediterranean is no longer able to provide enough fish to meet local needs. But it is not because of the growing population as much as it is because of overfishing, especially through bottom trawling which is the most environmentally destructive method employed here. Had it not been for bottom trawling that scrapes the seafloor and wipes out the entire habitat while scooping up both wanted and unwanted fish, turning the rich biodiversity into lifeless deserts, the catch would have been 80 percent more.
It so happens that the European fisheries sector is awarded about 2.5 billion Euros in subsidies annually. Pakistan, even in collaboration with other South countries that genuinely need subsidies for survival, cannot even dream of matching that. These subsidies include fuel subsidies and outright grants, contributions to social security and fuel tax exemptions, as well as deals with some African and Asian fishing nations which give access to European fleets access to their territorial waters.
Apart from that, there are developing as well as very poor countries that are bent on exporting seafood just for the foreign exchange even if it deprives local livelihoods and depletes their own waters. Government policies have little to do with the public interest and rights. That includes Pakistan. The United Nations has warned that 85 percent of species worldwide are already being fished at or above sustainable levels.
Other independent surveys have concurred that stocks of all the popular commercial fish worldwide have been so terribly overexploited and overfished so irresponsibly, especially through catches of small fry and juvenile fish that have not reached adulthood to be able to reproduce, and destruction of habitat, both coastal mangrove forests and coral reefs and seamounts, that the oceans are already empty by 80 percent !
Should Pakistan be party to such predatory behaviour, including self-destruction by mopping up whatever fish stocks are left? If it continues to pursue it's goal of billion dollar export earnings through seafood exports, our territorial waters will more quickly than expected be emptied of what fish we have left, and there won't be a singe dollar or euro coming in from shrimp or fish, let alone a billion. Investors may be rich enough to cut and run ahead of time. But our entire fisherfolk community would be destroyed, abandoned as usual, and left without livelihoods or sanctuary.
For all inland people to be able to enjoy a weekly fish dish, the only solution is to leave fishing to small, artisanal fishermen, who alone have been fishing sustainably for thousands of years. At the same time, the younger generations of fisherfolk need to be educated, trained and absorbed into livelihoods other than fishing. Sustainable fishing can only support so many fishermen and no more.
Furthermore, Pakistan should now be thinking of creating national marine parks - which should include all our depleted mangrove areas - as is being initiated in some other countries, where no fishing is allowed whatsoever, so that marine life can always be safe to grow and replenish itself. Just as is done with national parks on land to preserve our threatened biodiversity.
It is most important to realize that fishing can never again be a growth sector except by guaranteeing its own destruction. It should have never been an investment one in the first place.