Report Lauds “Alaska Model” for Fishery Sustainability; Points toward Ecosystem Management, Other Improvements
A new report that validates Alaska’s claim as a model of sustainable fishery management includes key recommendations to embrace broader ecosystem management and adapt fishery management to respond to effects from climate change.
The recommendations are included in a study commissioned by MCA: Conserving Alaska’s Resources written by Brad Warren of Seattle-based Natural Resource Consultants and released during a news conference in Anchorage today.
“We accept these recommendations as the next necessary steps toward furthering our stewardship of the marine resources of the North Pacific,” said Dave Benton, executive director of MCA. “Alaska has prided itself for being proactive and adaptive in its fishery management and these recommendations will maintain our leadership in sustainable fishery management.”
Among the recommendations in the 45-page report are:
- Continue to widen the objectives of fishery management in a careful, step wise manner to embrace the broader goals of ecosystem-based fishery management. The report notes that many ecosystem factors are already addressed by Alaska fisheries managers.
- Expand efforts to identify, prevent, and manage potential declines in nontarget species that interact with fisheries. Non-target fish and wildlife populations fluctuate, sometimes in response to fishery effects, often times from factors that have nothing to do with fisheries. The report cites the need to prevent “crises management” in response to such changes.
- Expand efforts to survey abundance of plankton and forage fishes. The report notes that the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has already prohibited fishing for forage species as a precautionary measure.
- Explore avenues for adapting fishery management to deal with continued warming in the North Pacific. The report provides a summary discussion of the potential effects of warming on North Pacific species, and calls for managers and scientists to explore avenues to address these potential problems.
“Alaska already is responding to many of these concerns and this report reminds us of the need
to continue to move forward. MCA is already taking action to strengthen cooperative research
between scientists and industry, and we continue to support careful, science driven application of
the precautionary principle as we see changes in our ecosystem,” Benton said.
“We have already begun to see impacts of climate change on species like pollock moving north in the Bering Sea,” Benton said. “MCA supports the work of the North Pacific Council as it looks at a possible moratorium on fishing in the Arctic Ocean.” The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is considering a moratorium on large scale commercial fishing in the Arctic until management plans can be developed that ensure any such activity is sustainable.
Benton praised the report’s overall conclusion that the “Alaska Model” is indeed one of the
strongest, most effective fishery management systems in the world. While some of the nation’s
other fisheries are dealing with overfished stocks and other conservation problems, Alaska has
no overfished groundfish stocks. Among the report’s findings:
- Alaska produces half the nation’s seafood with no overfished stocks of groundfish.
- Overall Bering Sea Aleutians groundfish biomass up 48% since 1977.
- Other flatfish and rock sole are up 580%; and spawning biomass of Bering Sea cod has tripled and Pacific Ocean Perch have recovered from depressed levels in the 1960s.
- Alaska produces 70% (by weight) of the worldwide total for seafood certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.
- 395,000 square nautical miles off Alaska are closed to some or all trawl fisheries year round.
“Despite the good news about the status of Alaska fish stocks, the report is right in concluding
that we cannot rest on our laurels,” Benton concluded. “That’s why we accept the report’s
recommendations as a means to move forward and improve on our record of science-based,
sustainable fishery management.”
Copies of the report Conserving Alaska’s Oceans are available at: http://www.marineconservationalliance.org/news/1359_MCA_Report_for_download.pdf or
from MCA. Call 907-523-0731 or email adminmca@ak.net
Additional Background follows:
Alaska Fishery Successes and Challenges Highlighted in New Report Conserving Alaska’s Oceans Calls for Continued Investment in Scientific Research
A new report calls Alaska a “paragon of successful fishery management” and says continued
investment in scientific research into such issues as global climate change is needed to keep it
that way.
“Alaska’s seas provide more than half the U.S. seafood catch, annually yielding harvests that exceed 5 billion pounds of fish and shellfish, and collectively constitutes one of the world’s most prolific marine ecosystems,” notes Brad Warren of Natural Resource Consultants of Seattle in his report Conserving Alaska’s Oceans.
But at a time of justifiable anxiety about overfishing worldwide and concerns about the impact of
climate change, it’s legitimate to ask whether fishing is tipping the balance of ecosystems of the
North Pacific, he says.
Warren’s conclusion: “Many of the vital signs of these waters are strong and scientists have concluded that, so far, the food web off Alaska’s shores is far from being ‘fished down’.” But he also strongly cautions against complacency, saying, “Our place at the feast is not guaranteed.
We can wear out our welcome if we overindulge, as fisheries in many parts of the world have
sadly demonstrated.”
In his 45-page report Warren takes a close look at fishery management practices, measures to protect habitat and reduce bycatch and trends in the status of major fish stocks. Most of those groundfish stocks show substantial increases since passage of the Magnuson Stevens Act, the federal law that manages the nation’s marine fisheries and none are currently listed as
overfished.
He notes that Alaska fishery managers have banned bottom trawling in 395,000 square miles off
Alaska to protect important habitat and ecosystems that provide the foundation of productive
fisheries and healthy seas.
Warren concludes that the Alaska model of science-based fishery management is “as good as it
gets anywhere in the world. They represent the state of the art in precautionary, science based
fishery governance of modern fisheries,” and deserve to be emulated elsewhere around the globe.
But he recommends embracing the broader goals of ecosystem based fishery management. He calls for a better understanding the impact of fisheries on marine ecosystems, a survey of abundance of plankton and forage fishes, and safeguarding open channels of communication
between fishery managers and their scientific advisors.
Several recommendations deal with planning to adapt fishery management in response continued warming in the North Pacific.
“Effects of a warming climate are now evident in the Bering Sea and elsewhere in Alaska,
changing the distribution, abundance and behavior of important commercial species,” Warren says. “These changes, which are well documented, will present serious challenges and altered opportunities for fisheries and many species that inhabit the region.”
Among those changes is a shift in pelagic species such as pollock from the Southeastern Bering
Sea to the north. Warren’s recommendation is for continued scientific research to understand
these changes and their cumulative impact. “With large and potentially destabilizing climate changes under way, filling critical research gaps may represent a prudent form of environmental insurance.”
“This paper makes no pretense of settling all the questions about the health of oceans of Alaska but any serious examination of the evidence reveals that overfishing and heedless management
are not major issues in the North Pacific,” Warren says in his introduction to Conserving Alaska’s Oceans.
“A more useful question is whether this justly celebrated management system can be further
improved to make it even more robust, particularly at a time when climate change may present
new challenges to fisheries.”
Conserving Alaska’s Oceans was commissioned by the Juneau-based Marine Conservation
Alliance (MCA) whose members include fishermen, processors and communities involved in the
Alaska’s groundfish and crab industries. Copies of the report and a companion chart are
available from MCA at 907-523-0731 or email adminmca@ak.net