Turbot, Cod And Salmon


by Luke


Written in March 1995 (the month the Spanish trawler Estai was seized with armed force by the Canadian Navy)





Foreign overfishing has been blamed for the Atlantic cod fishery disaster. To prevent the same happening to the turbot Canada sent its mighty navy to arrest the Estai and her captain, outside Canada’s 200 mile zone, using machine gun fire in the process. At least that’s the reason Brian Tobin, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, gave. Isn’t it wonderful that Tobin joined the ranks of conservationists?




According to international law it appears to be an act of piracy and Tobin’s waffling about the evolving nature of that law did little to convince skeptics of the contrary. To be sure, there were previous extensions of off shore areas under national sovereignty. Canada increased its territorial sea from the three nautical miles to twelve in 1970 and asserted exclusive jurisdiction over the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy in 1971. A 200-mile Exclusive Fishing Zone (EFZ) was unilaterally declared in 1977. (Five years later the UN adopted the concept of a 200-mile exclusive economic zone, EEZ.) However, these changes were made public before they were put into effect.




Many environmentalists would probably not be too troubled by the legal complexities and perhaps even the show of force to save a species from extinction. After all it’s a question of protecting the earth for future generations. Seventy per cent of the world’s fish are either depleted, or near depletion, according to a recent UN report and this situation does call for urgent action. The Spanish seem to feel that it had nothing to do with conservation but only with who gets to sell the turbot to the Japanese.



Be that as it may, from now on - driftnetters beware and Greenpeace rejoice - Canada is firmly committed to conservation. But perhaps this is a little hard to believe coming from a government which, in the name of administrative efficiency, just gave the Minister of the Environment the power to eliminate environmental hearings into projects under federal jurisdiction and whose environmental record leaves a lot to be desired. This “administrative efficiency” shuts out concerned citizens, opens the door to potential abuse by a minister and would make any future deals like the one giving the green light to Kemano II look a lot cleaner, Tobin said he wasn’t going to wait until the last Turbot had disappeared no matter what he had to do. His action is not “the mark of a pirate... It’s the mark of a patriot”, he boasted.



Moreover, beside the imperative of conservation there is also a need for equity. This dispute can also be seen as one between nations belonging to the exclusive club of the twenty per cent of humanity consuming eighty per cent of the world’s resources and who are responsible for many of the global environmental problems. As many resources will get scarcer more such conflicts will occur. However, the rich squabbling with one another will do nothing to solve the problems of the poor and a solution to those is essential for the achievement of long term stability.




Quotas in the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) are, for practical purposes, voluntary because member states can launch an objection to their allocation. This starts an appeal process and in the meantime they are free to take the quantity they consider proper. This doesn’t make any sense for many people but it’s legal under NAFO rules. Beginning in late 1986 the European Economic Commission (EEC) adopted its own quotas, usually far above the levels set by NAFO. Canada retaliated by completely barring EEC fishing vessels from Canadian waters as of Jan. 1, 1988.



The Report of the Northern Cod Review Panel (also known as the Harris Report) recommended that Canada seek international agreement permitting it to manage all fish stocks indigenous to the Canadian continental shelf but extending beyond the 200 mile EEZ. Failing to achieve this objective, the report also stated, Canada should take unilateral action to acquire management rights in accordance with provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS III). This convention was adopted by the UN in 1982 after nine years of negotiations but it still hasn’t been ratified by the sixty countries needed to bring it into force. UNCLOS III requires coastal states and countries fishing in an area next to an EEZ to “seek either directly or through appropriate subregional or regional organizations, to agree upon the measures necessary for the conservation of these stocks in the adjacent area.” It does not say what a coastal state should do if it is not possible to arrive at an agreement.



Overfishing by some European nations has been a problem for many years. Among other things, a long string of revised versions of a paper by the Research Branch of the Library of Parliament entitled “Overfishing Outside The 200-Mile Limit: Atlantic Coast” attests to this fact. Arrogance and disrespect for the limits of nature and some NAFO rules have characterized their behaviour. Maybe also hypocrisy. When NAFO reduced the total allowable catch (TAC) for turbot from 60,000 tons in 1994 to 27,000 tons for 1995 the European Economic Union (EU) agreed. Sixty per cent of these 27,000 tons were allocated to Canada and the EU received a quota of 3,400 tons. The EU filed an objection and allocated 18,630 tons to itself. In 1994 they had a quota of 20,000 tons. Thus they were willing to contribute a share of 1,370 tons out of a total of 33,000 tons in necessary cutbacks. It’s difficult to know how the respective quotas are decided but the four per cent reduction offered by the EU could be seen as being not more unreasonable than the 83 per cent “imposed” by NAFO.



However, it’s important to keep in mind that less than five per cent of cod and turbot stocks are outside Canada’s EEZ. Thus the management of these stocks, for all practical purposes, has been Canada’s sole responsibility for over seventeen years. Tobin himself admitted that Canada does not have an unblemished record. This is an understatement if one looks at the disaster of the cod fishery and perhaps now the turbot as well.



The danger to fish stocks has been known for a long time. The first attempt to counteract this was the establishment of the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (ICNAF) in 1949. Regulatory controls and enforcement measures were however not effective in curbing overexploitation. The fishery became less economically viable year by year beginning in the 1950s. The harvest increased continually reaching a peak of 800,000 tons in 1968. The result was a collapse of the fishery. (It is believed that between 1850 and 1950 the sustainable yield was 250,000 tons per annum, but this seems doubtful to this writer.). In response to this Canada extended its territorial sea from three to twelve miles in 1970 and declared the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy to be within its exclusive jurisdiction the following year.



The concept of an annual TAC was implemented in 1970. Individual quotas were assigned to member states beginning in 1971 but they were free to ignore the quotas by filing an objection. In the mid-1970s it became apparent for the first time that the very survival of the Canadian groundfish industry was threatened. Canada declared a 200-mile Exclusive Fishing Zone (EFZ; EEZ after 1982) in 1977, ICNAF was dissolved and NAFO became its successor. However, NAFO’s jurisdiction is outside the EEZ with Canada being the sole manager inside the 200-mile zone. Canada began to take almost all the fish there. Previously they were mostly taken by foreign trawlers. In 1974 Canada’s share was less than ten per cent of the total; in 1983 it was over 92 per cent. The TAC for cod under Canada’s stewardship almost doubled between 1978 and 1984 and remained at the level of around 250,000 tons per annum for about eight years.



TAC and actual catch began to decline in 1989. In the same year federal scientists found that the stock was much smaller than estimated just two years before and suggested cuts of over fifty per cent in order to preserve it. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced a reduction of less than twelve per cent “to minimize job losses and maintain the stock close to its present size”. In February 1989 the Northern Cod Review Panel headed by Dr. Leslie Harris was appointed. It reported in March 1990. Among its 29 recommendations were conservation measures including a further reduction in the TAC for 1990 which was rejected by the Minister “because of the additional hardships it would produce”. By 1992 it was clear that the cod fishery was in deep trouble. A two year moratorium on northern cod fishing was declared in July of that year. It became a permanent one later because the fish, which had sustained people for 500 years, was reduced to such small numbers that nobody knows to this day whether it’ll come back in large enough numbers to be harvested.



A variety of factors played a role in the demise of the cod fishery but it is clear that Canada’s record in safeguarding the stock is not a brilliant one. If conservation was not the real motive for the seizure of the Estai what could have been the reason? How about old fashioned domestic politics and, perhaps, greed? During the last federal election campaign the Liberals made a lot of promises and have done exactly the opposite in some instances. Tobin is now widely, and understandably, applauded by many people of Newfoundland as a man of action. Liberal party fortunes will surely be on the rise in that province.



Maybe, in a way, the Spanish are just a scapegoat in spite of the abuses and wrongs they have committed. If they are, “the patriot” Tobin might be better compared to the thief who, in order to escape detection and apprehension, runs through the department store shouting “hold the thief, hold the thief”.



There is an interesting parallel to the events on the Grand Bank right here in BC. The Fraser Report stated that it was impossible to pinpoint the exact cause for the disappearance of (supposedly) more than one million sockeye salmon from the Fraser River in 1994. However, illegal fishing by native AND non-native fishermen due to a lack of monitoring by federal Fisheries Officers was identified as a major cause. Ottawa was severely criticized for cutting back enforcement staff and for not making sure existing staff had enough power to enforce regulations. Apparently the Fraser River sockeye fishery came within twelve hours of being destroyed and one has to wonder whether the standard TAC of eighty per cent of returning salmon is a wise one. Dave Schultz, salmon coordinator with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), said in 1993: “No matter how exact our science or excellent our management becomes, we are still dealing with creatures of the wild. Salmon are unpredictable and will remain that way.” Wouldn’t it be wiser to err on the side of caution? Of the 16.5 million sockeye that head back to the Fraser 13 million were killed in commercial, native and sports fisheries allowing barely enough through to seed the spawning beds. Can this be called conservation minded? In a news conference The Hon. John Fraser stated: “We lost the Atlantic cod, at least for many, many years, and most of the public believes that that is a national Canadian scandal. Most of the public here wonders whether we are on the verge of doing the same with the salmon.”



Tobin said bold action is needed because the DFO’s mismanagement had put Canada on the verge of an environmental and economic disaster. He also threatened to cancel a commercial fishing agreement with the Sto:Lo unless they could answer questions about financial mismanagement. (It’s difficult to understand how answers about allegedly unjustified expenses would help to preserve the salmon.) “In effect”, he said, “this agreement is in receivership and will remain in that state until all of the concerns raised in the audit (by Peat Marwick) have been met.”



The BC Fishery Survival Coalition released a document on the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy (AFS) consisting of a collection of DFO memos and reports a day before publication of the Fraser Report. One such memo claimed that the AFS was “out of control”, another that the “general public believe that the fishery officers have no enforcement power or control” over AFS activities. Indeed, it seems to be a common belief that natives put the salmon fishery in jeopardy. The Coalition’s members were probably quite happy about Tobin’s statements concerning the Sto:Lo.



The BC Fishery Survival Coalition has always opposed the commercialization of the native food fishery, notwithstanding the fact that their quota comes from the commercial licenses bought back by the federal government often at prices above market value. In fact this was the reason for its foundation and they called the AFS the “biggest crisis to hit the BC commercial fishing industry”.



The legal share of natives of the salmon fishery is five per cent of the total, or less, depending on the number returning. Their allocation is less than for the sports fishery. Almost ninety per cent is taken by the commercial fishery. Illegal fishing, as pointed out by the Fraser Report, occurs in all sectors. Moreover, Canada’s system of quota licenses could itself be a major threat to the salmon. To quote from the paper “Quota Licensing in Canada’s Fishing Industry” published by the Research Branch of the Library of Parliament: “In harvesting a common quota, fish become private property only once they are caught ... A free-for-all `race’ for fish stocks ensues ... The situation ... threatens the preservation of stocks ... there is little incentive to conserve it ... The result is stock depletion and too much harvesting capacity.” (p.1)



Maybe the Spanish were right and it is just a question of who gets to profit from the resources. If this is correct it is not surprising that natives get the same treatment as foreigners. Judging by the third world conditions one finds in many native communities in this country it’s just another aspect of a general pattern. The federal government failed to act in a timely manner to protect the cod. the arrest of Spanish fishing vessels and the non-renewal of agreements with First Nations will neither save turbot nor salmon. Tobin has a long way to go before qualifying as an environmentalist.



Natives were fishing here for thousands of years before the arrival of the Europeans. There is evidence for extensive trade including trade in salmon. Their land and resources were taken from them in a way contrary to international AND British law. Until 1990 they were even deprived of their legal right to fish under Canadian law. No restitution has been made and yet Tobin threatens to withhold the sales agreement with the Sto:LO unless certain irregularities are corrected. (An agreement “allowing” a people to sell what is rightfully theirs, since their land has never been ceded, speaks volumes by itself.) Furthermore, in good colonialist fashion he insists on the appointment of an outside body to supervise the St:Lo fishery. If there are irregularities it is up to the St:Lo nation to correct them.



The rape of Mother Earth has to stop, regardless of who does it. Conservation is indeed a compelling necessity. If the St:Lo imperil the survival of the salmon it concerns us all because we are all living here and they must stop. But how they could possibly endanger the salmon given their small share of the harvest is difficult to see. Tobin’s threats of withholding the little they get legally is not the proper way to go about it. Reducing the total catch while increasing the share natives get might be the way to go. It certainly would do something about both, conservation and equity.