Comments Andrew Sharpless has made

For Colin

Thanks for your question about the study which compared the status of a 121 fisheries using "catch shares" - a form of privatization - with the more than 11,000 fisheries that do not.  This article, as reported in an article in LA Times and elsewhere, concluded that privatization correlated with more healthy fisheries.  

Andy Rosenberg, a fisheries expert at the University of New Hampshire, quoted by Ken Weiss in the same LA Times article, offered a good response when he noted  "it's not like catch shares solve all of the problems of fisheries management."   He also noted that New Zealand's orange roughy stocks nose-dived despite the switch to catch shares in the early '90s.

According to the LA Times article, Rosenberg went on to say "It remains crucial for governments to limit the total catch to keep stocks healthy enough to reproduce. And then there's the problem of fairly distributing the shares, or quotas. Inevitably, some fishermen will feel shortchanged and scream that the government 'has stolen our heritage.'"

"The study's authors," according to the LA Times reporter, "acknowledge that catch shares are not a panacea."

Catch shares do an excellent job at stopping the "fishing derby" in which fishermen race to catch as many fish as they can before the sector quota is reached. They also can make it easier for fishermen to reduce bycatch, since they have more time to catch their share.

However, they do not, as the free market idealogues would have it, solve the need for careful, scientifically based quotas, and reasonable and practical limits on destruction of nursery areas and counting, capping and controlling bycatch. All this requires a strong, independent government fishery manager with a backbone and a strong staff of scientists behind him.

Andrew Sharpless CEO Oceana

Update! Japanese Meeting Concludes

After a five day summit, what has the world's five biggest tuna fisheries achieved?  According to the chair of the meeting, Masanori Miyaharaa, "...a big step, a historical step, I think."  According to WWF, not much.

As for Sam's comments, there is no doubt that longliners catch and kill bluefin.  Log books filled out by longline fishing vessels over a recent three-year period show that from January through June, tuna longline vessels in the Gulf caught and kept about 280 bluefin.  The vessels discarded about 430 more - and many of these discards surely died.  Tagging studies show that bluefin in the Gulf of Mexico range in the water column from the surface to dives as deep as 1,000 meters, but generally stay in the upper 300 meters.  While a longline set for swordfish will indeed be shallow, a longline set for tuna ranges as deep as 300 to 1,200 feet.

Andrew Sharpless CEO Oceana

focus should be on sustainability

One reason this issue is highly controversial is because of the amount of fish necessary to feed the farm raised fish.  For example, it takes five lbs of wild fish to "grow" one lb of salmon.  So, this label would encourage practices that could ultimately deplete our oceans more quickly and make the 2048 collapsed fisheries scenario happen a lot sooner.

I understand why consumers (and the fishermen) want an organic label for seafood.  The organic food business is booming and consumers enjoy the good taste and feeling that come from healthier and more natural organic products.  But, unfortunately, in this case, the only thing consumers may ultimately find is no fish rather than organic fish.

Andrew Sharpless CEO Oceana