Daily Archives: March 2, 2013

5.1 Fisheries Policies for Sustainability

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If Seafood fisheries in British Columbia are to remain sustainable then there must be adherence to a regime of regulations . Management of fisheries in the past has often led to depletion of resources. Examples can be drawn from herring and salmon resources in BC, the anchovy and sardine examples of Pacific Coast of North and South America, and the Atlantic Cod. The unsustainable practises of Drift net fisheries, bottom trawling, and by-catch are examples of why there are problems.(see reference No.5 below).

Here is an opportunity to emphasize best practises for ecologically sustainable fisheries. The Precautionary Principle is at the base of a requirement for sustainable fisheries.

Resource references:

1. In the report “Progress Towards Environmental Sustainability in British Columbia’s Seafood Sector., May 2001″ there are a number of excellent graphics which present a framework for sustainable fisheries.
http://www.bcseafoodalliance.com/BCSA/AMRSummitReport.pdf

The topics below are dealt with in length and provide excellent examples of displays and interactive presentations which could be set up on sustainable fisheries.

Sustainable Fishing and Aquaculture
Sustainable Harvest of Target species and Stocks
Limiting the impacts of Fisheries on Non-Target species,
Limiting Impacts on Habitats and Ecosystems
Ensuring effective management and regulation.

2. The Geoduck Fishery: has established a Code of Conduct for responsible Fishing.

http://www.geoduck.org/pdf/UHA_Code_Report.pdf

3. 2006 BC Seafood Industry report http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/omfd/reports/YIR-2006.pdf

4. Seafood Statistics:

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/omfd/fishstats/index.html

5. FIsheries Issues:
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/fisheriesissues.htm

Go to the sustainable aquaculture section

5.2 The Ecosystem Approach

From: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5352 Oceans in Peril: Protecting Marine Biodiversity publ 2007

An ecosystem approach promotes both conservation and the sustainable use of marine resources in an equitable way. It is a holistic approach that considers environmental protection and marine management together, rather than as two separate and mutually exclusive goals. Paramount to the application of this approach is the establishment of networks of fully protected marine reserves, in essence, “national parks” of the sea. These provide protection of whole ecosystems and enable biodiversity to both recover and flourish. They also benefit fisheries by allowing for spillover of fish and larvae or eggs from the reserve into adjacent fishing grounds.
Outside of the reserves, an ecosystem approach requires the sustainable management of fisheries and other resources. Demands on marine resources must be managed within the limits of what the ecosystem can provide indefinitely, rather than being allowed to expand as demographic and market forces dictate. An ecosystem approach requires protection at the level of the whole ecosystem. This is radically different from the current practice, where most fisheries management measures focus simply on single species and do not consider the role of these species in the wider ecosystem.
An ecosystem approach is also precautionary in nature, meaning that a lack of knowledge should not excuse decision-makers from taking action, but rather lead them to err on the side of caution. The burden of proof must be placed on those who want to undertake activities, such as fishing or coastal development, to show that these activities will not harm the marine environment. In other words, current presumptions that favor freedom to fish and freedom of the seas will need to be replaced with the new concept of freedom for the seas.”

Reference:

1.Canessa, R., Conley, K., and Smiley, B. 2003. Bowie Seamount Marine Protected Area: an ecosystem overview report. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci., 2461. …
http://www.seaaroundus.org/…/ASynthesisResearchActivitiesFCEcosystemBaseFish.pdf –

2. http://archive.nafo.int/open/sc/2008/scs08-10.pdf.

Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization Serial No. N5511 NAFO SCS Doc. 08/10 SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL MEETING – JUNE 2008 Report of the NAFO Scientific Council Working Group on Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (WGEAFM) NAFO Headquarters, Dartmouth, Canada 26-30 May 2008.

In recognition of an amended NAFO Convention (currently awaiting ratification) which has principles of an Ecosystem
Approach to Fisheries Management, Scientific Council established a Working Group on the Ecosystem Approach to
Fisheries Management in September 2007. Terms of Reference (ToR1) for this WG relate to the identification of eco-
regions within the NAFO Convention Area (NCA) and the development of ecosystem health indicators.

3. A synthesis of Research Activities at the Fisheries Centre on Ecosystem-based Fisheries Modelling and Assessment with emphasis on the Northern and Central Coast of BC..2007,
S.Guenete,V.Christiansen,C. Hover,M.Lam D.Preikshot, D. Pauly

5.3 Fishing Down Food Webs

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5.0 Humans as a Part of Ocean Systems:

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5.1 FISHERIES POLICIES FOR SUSTAINABILITY:

If Seafood fisheries in British Columbia are to remain sustainable then there must be adherence to a regime of regulations . Management of fisheries in the past has often led to depletion of resources. Examples can be drawn from herring and salmon resources in BC, the anchovy and sardine examples of Pacific Coast of North and South America, and the Atlantic Cod. The unsustainable practises of Drift net fisheries, bottom trawling, and by-catch are examples of why there are problems.(see reference No.5 below).

Here is an opportunity to emphasize best practices for ecologically sustainable fisheries. The Precautionary Principle is at the base of a requirement for sustainable fisheries.
Resource references:
1. In the report “Progress Towards Environmental Sustainability in British Columbia’s Seafood Sector., May 2001″ there are a number of excellent graphics which present a framework for sustainable fisheries.
http://www.bcseafoodalliance.com/BCSA/AMRSummitReport.pdf

The topics below are dealt with in length and provide excellent examples of displays and interactive presentations which could be set up on sustainable fisheries.

Sustainable Fishing and Aquaculture
Sustainable Harvest of Target species and Stocks
Limiting the impacts of Fisheries on Non-Target species,
Limiting Impacts on Habitats and Ecosystems
Ensuring effective management and regulation.

2. The Geoduck Fishery: has established a Code of Conduct for responsible Fishing.

http://www.geoduck.org/pdf/UHA_Code_Report.pdf

3. 2006 BC Seafood Industry report http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/omfd/reports/YIR-2006.pdf

4. Seafood Statistics:

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/omfd/fishstats/index.html

5. FIsheries Issues:
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/fisheriesissues.htm

Go to the sustainable aquaculture section

5.2 The Ecosystem Approach

From: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5352 Oceans in Peril: Protecting Marine Biodiversity publ 2007

An ecosystem approach promotes both conservation and the sustainable use of marine resources in an equitable way. It is a holistic approach that considers environmental protection and marine management together, rather than as two separate and mutually exclusive goals. Paramount to the application of this approach is the establishment of networks of fully protected marine reserves, in essence, “national parks” of the sea. These provide protection of whole ecosystems and enable biodiversity to both recover and flourish. They also benefit fisheries by allowing for spillover of fish and larvae or eggs from the reserve into adjacent fishing grounds.
Outside of the reserves, an ecosystem approach requires the sustainable management of fisheries and other resources. Demands on marine resources must be managed within the limits of what the ecosystem can provide indefinitely, rather than being allowed to expand as demographic and market forces dictate. An ecosystem approach requires protection at the level of the whole ecosystem. This is radically different from the current practice, where most fisheries management measures focus simply on single species and do not consider the role of these species in the wider ecosystem.
An ecosystem approach is also precautionary in nature, meaning that a lack of knowledge should not excuse decision-makers from taking action, but rather lead them to err on the side of caution. The burden of proof must be placed on those who want to undertake activities, such as fishing or coastal development, to show that these activities will not harm the marine environment. In other words, current presumptions that favor freedom to fish and freedom of the seas will need to be replaced with the new concept of freedom for the seas.”

Reference:

1.Canessa, R., Conley, K., and Smiley, B. 2003. Bowie Seamount Marine Protected Area: an ecosystem overview report. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci., 2461. …
http://www.seaaroundus.org/…/ASynthesisResearchActivitiesFCEcosystemBaseFish.pdf –

2. http://archive.nafo.int/open/sc/2008/scs08-10.pdf.

Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization Serial No. N5511 NAFO SCS Doc. 08/10 SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL MEETING – JUNE 2008 Report of the NAFO Scientific Council Working Group on Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (WGEAFM) NAFO Headquarters, Dartmouth, Canada 26-30 May 2008.

In recognition of an amended NAFO Convention (currently awaiting ratification) which has principles of an Ecosystem
Approach to Fisheries Management, Scientific Council established a Working Group on the Ecosystem Approach to
Fisheries Management in September 2007. Terms of Reference (ToR1) for this WG relate to the identification of eco-
regions within the NAFO Convention Area (NCA) and the development of ecosystem health indicators.

3. A synthesis of Research Activities at the Fisheries Centre on Ecosystem-based Fisheries Modelling and Assessment with emphasis on the Northern and Central Coast of BC..2007,
S.Guenete,V.Christiansen,C. Hover,M.Lam D.Preikshot, D. Pauly

5.3 Fishing Down Food webs

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4.3 Ocean Pollutants

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4.3 Ocean Pollutants:

A major problem with maintaining sustainable oceans is the global contaminations from atmospheric and direct point source pollution.

Probably the greatest single issue that needs to be dealt with here is that of the possibility of opening up the Coastal areas for offshore drilling. Our ability to debate this is a good test of how serious we are about thinking about marine resource sustainability for the future.

As theSierra Club puts it:
http://www.sierraclub.ca/bc/programs/marine/issue.shtml?x=550&als[URL_ITEM]=24ad1fd0ec90a1265449091eeba17b55

  • “The ecological risks are too great.
    One oil spill like the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska would spell disaster for B.C.’s marine life. Exploration techniques like seismic testing have serious ecological consequences.
  •  Current environmental regulations are inadequate.
    Our provincial environmental regulations have been gutted. Federal legislation such as the Species at Risk Act is toothless. We lack a regime that can protect the natural environment.
  • B.C. needs to look beyond fossil fuel energy sources.
    Developing B.C.’s offshore oil and gas will mean committing to an energy source that has proven to be unsustainable. Canada has to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to meet Kyoto targets. We need to invest in alternative energy sources now.”

OTHER CHEMICAL CONTAMINANTS harmful in the Marine Environment

Below are portrayed the records of some countries with good news stories. Find as many of these as possible to show that it is possible to do things right. Also see the section on types of demos and take aways for related ideas.
Reference: From:” WATER” http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/report/04_Water.pdf

“Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are synthetic organic chemicals that have wide-ranging human and environmental impacts (see Chapters 2, 3 and 6). In the late 1970s, studies of the North American Great Lakes highlighted the existence of older, obsolete chlorinated pesticides (so-called legacy chemicals) in sediments and fish (PLUARG 1978). As regulations curtailing their use were implemented, chemical levels have declined in some water systems since the early 1980s (see Chapter 6) (see Box 6.28). Similar declines have since been observed in China and the Russian Federation (see Figure 4.10). The estimated production of hazardous organic chemical-based pollutants in the United States by industry alone is more than 36 billion kilogrammes/ year, with about 90 per cent of these chemicals not being disposed of in an environmentally responsible manner (WWDR 2006). The chemicals in pesticides can also contaminate drinking water through agricultural run-off. There is growing concern about the potential impacts on aquatic ecosystems of personal-care products and pharmaceuticals such as birth-control residues, painkillers and antibiotics. Little is known about their long-term impacts on human or ecosystem health, although some may be endocrine disruptors. Some heavy metals in water and sediments accumulate in the tissues of humans and other organisms. Arsenic, mercury and lead in drinking water, fish and some crops consumed by humans have caused increased rates of chronic diseases. Marine monitoring conducted since the early 1990s in Europe indicates decreasing cadmium, mercury and lead concentrations in mussels and fish from both the northeast Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Most North Sea states achieved the 70 per cent reduction target for these metals, except for copper, and tributyltin (EEA 2003). Although occurring in some inland locations, such as the Upper Amazon, oil pollution remains primarily a marine problem, with major impacts on seabirds and other marine life, and on aesthetic quality. With reduced oil inputs from marine transportation, and with vessel operation and design improvements, estimated oil inputs into the marine environment are declining (UNEP-GPA 2006a) (see Figure 4.11), although in the ROPME Sea Area about 270 000 tonnes of oil are still spilled annually in ballast water. The total oil load to the ocean includes 3 per cent from accidental spills from oil platforms, and 13 per cent from oil transportation spills (National Academy of Sciences 2003). Despite international efforts, solid waste and litter problems continue to worsen in both freshwater and marine systems, as a result of inappropriate disposal of non- or slowly degradable materials from land-based and marine sources (UNEP 2005a).”

4.5 Beach or Coastal Modification and Implications

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4.3 Oxygen Depletion in the Ocean

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OXYGEN DEPLETION: A harmful algal bloom of the dinoflagellates Noctiluca scintillans, known as a red tide Organic materials, from such sources as algal blooms and discharges from domestic wastewater treatment plants and food-processing operations, are decomposed by oxygen-consuming microbes in waterbodies. This pollution is typically measured as the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). High BOD levels can cause oxygen depletion, jeopardizing fish and other aquatic species. Lake Erie’s oxygen- depleted bottom zone, for example, has expanded since 1998, with negative environmental impacts. Some coastal areas also undergo oxygen depletion, including the eastern and southern coasts of North America, southern coasts of China and Japan, and large areas around Europe (WWAP 2006).

  • From: Research Document – 2012/072

State of physical, biological, and selected fishery resources of Pacific Canadian marine ecosystems in 2011

By J.R. Irvine and W.R. Crawford

Scientists have reported alarmingly low oxygen concentrations in near-shore waters of the Oregon coast in summer, being in 2002 and most severely in 2006. High crab mortalities on the ocean bottom took place in these summers. Low oxygen concentrations (less than 1 ml/L) have also been observed on off southwest Vancouver Island since 2002, with concentrations of 0.7 ml/L at 150 metres depth recorded in 2006 and 2009, the lowest in the 50-year record. Concentration was 1.0 and 1.1 ml/L in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Hypoxia on the Canadian shelf is much less severe than off Oregon and Washington, and mortality of bottom life has not been reported.

  • From swissinfo.ch : Oceans could run out of oxygen

by Isobel Leybold-Johnson, swissinfo.ch
Feb 11, 2012 – 14:03

Global warming could lead to more of the world’s oceans becoming “dead zones” – where a lack of oxygen leads to marine life dying out.

This was the conclusion of recent analysis of marine oxygen conditions over the past 20,000 years, co-authored by the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ).

Oceans are already oxygen-starved in places: every summer some areas of the northeastern Pacific see huge numbers of dead fish, shrimp or molluscs washed up on beaches.

This is caused by marine animals suffocating because the water contains too little of the vital O2 they need to breathe – or none at all. It is not only an ecological problem, the local fishing industry is affected as well.

Currently around 15 per cent of oceans are considered oxygen-depleted or anoxic “dead zones”.

“There’s been a very longstanding debate about the influence of global warming on the concentration of oxygen in the ocean, basically because the ocean oxygen concentration measurements of the past decades have not been very conclusive,” Samuel Jaccard from the ETHZ’s Geological Institute told swissinfo.ch.

This is why Jaccard and Eric Galbraith from McGill University in Canada decided to go back in time and reconstruct how the oxygen content has changed in oceans in the past 20,000 years, with the focus on the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Temperature rise

Their study, published in Nature Geoscience, showed that the average global temperature rise of around at least two degrees Celsius between the peak and the end of the last Ice Age (between about 10,000-20,000 years ago) had a massive effect on the oxygen content of seawater.

“The warmer the global average temperature, the more extended the oxygen minimum zones are, so the volume of these oxygen-poor water bodies is more extended during warm periods than in cold periods,” Jaccard said.

What is worrying is that, currently, global average temperature is predicted to rise by at least two degrees in the coming century due to climate change. This is of a similar magnitude to the warming the planet has undergone since the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago.

“So we would assume that if, indeed, temperatures are increasing in the next 100 years, these oxygen minimum zones would also increase in volume and that the general oxygen concentration of the ocean will decrease,” Jaccard said.

And what is more: “our analysis has shown that not only was absolute temperature important, but also the rate of change, so the faster the warming, the more expanded these zones are”.

Oxygen in seawater mainly comes from gas exchange between the water’s surface and the atmosphere. As temperatures at the surface increase, the dissolved oxygen supply below the surface gets used up more quickly. It’s a little like turning down the oxygen pump in a fish tank, says Jaccard.

Suffering oceans

Dead zones are a topic well known to green campaigners and are not just limited to the biodiversity-rich deep oceans, explains Jochen Lamp, a marine expert at WWF in Germany.
 
They also affect the shallow seas like the Baltic Sea, which are subject to eutrophication: when nutrients from the land and agriculture cause over-enrichment of the water and the growth of algal blooms. These blooms then deplete the water’s oxygen.

But whereas it is easier to tackle shallow seas dead zones by controlling nutrient input, such as by having low nutrient agriculture, climate change adaptation is “a much more long lasting and complicated process”, said Lamp.

Even if countries such as Switzerland can agree on measures – the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development is scheduled for June – the change in the trend may not be seen for 50-70 years, he added.

Overall the world’s oceans are suffering: there is also overfishing and the other effects of climate change like the acidification of the waters.

Oceans are a delicately balanced ecosystem. “We hope that the balance will re-establish, but there is a lot of human impact in this imbalance and we do not yet know what will happen in reality during the next decades,” warned Lamp.

Isobel Leybold-Johnson, swissinfo.ch

Jaccard SL & Galbraith ED. Large climate-driven changes of oceanic oxygen concentrations during the last deglaciation.

The article was published online in Nature Geoscience on December 18, 2011. The research was highlighted in the ETH Life journal in January 2012.

Deep water in the North Pacific Ocean already has the most acidic water in the global ocean and the British Columbia continental shelf might see negative impacts of this feature sooner than most oceanic waters.

Oxygen depletion in the Gulf of Mexico has created a huge ‘dead zone,’ with major negative impacts on biodiversity and fisheries (MA 2005) (see Chapter 6).

4.4 Ocean Pollutants

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