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Most baleen whales (except the Minke whale) and
sperm whales are heavily overfished or depleted
with some rare exceptions and some species may be
beyond recovery. Attention should be given to
smaller cetaceans (toothed whales and dolphins)
which represent a potentially serious management
problem, but also a potential for developing
countries (especially, but not only, for island
countries). The availability of cheap but highly
efficient nylon gillnets may facilitate the
intensification of fishing. Experience shows,
however, that small cetaceans have been
traditionally exploited in many areas of the world
with little concern or effective effort to ensure
sustainability. Rational exploitation of still
abundant species will be hard to sell to a world
opinion alerted by the poor performance of industry
and international management but urgent need for
food by poor populations will be hard to
ignore.
Most tuna stocks in temperate or tropical
waters are under heavy pressure and are
intensively- to fully-fished. Some stocks
are already overfished. Biological overfishing has
been avoided in most stocks because of economic
constraints and by transferring excess effort to
other areas and oceans (South Pacific, Indian
Ocean) and farther offshore on domes and fronts
(thereby increasing the exploitable biomass and
catchability). Extension in the Southern Ocean (on
Allothunnus fallai) may be the next and last move.
Competition between traditional tuna fishing and
emerging tuna fishing in some developing countries
is increasing while other countries have expressed
willingness to enter the tuna fishing business. The
control of international effort levels is becoming
a major problem. In the absence of explicit
considerations of resource allocation for many of
these highly migratory resources, conflicts are
bound to increase progressively leading to
overfishing. This leads to a re-opening, by
developing coastal countries, of the question of
the "highly migratory" status of tunas and on their
rights and responsibility in managing these species
while they reside in their EEZs.
The question of salmon management has many
different facets. Offshore, the agreements on high
seas fishing must be improved in order to ensure
that the agreed rights of the countries of origin
are respected. Inland there is a major problem of
pollution and degradation of spawning grounds,
especially in the Atlantic. Overall, however, with
the progress of environmental concerns and in
stocking techniques, the future looks bright
provided the production through culture does not
offset the demand. An interesting question is
related to the competition between national
ranching programmes for the productivity of the
central ocean. That productivity is limited. There
may be an upper limit to its salmon rearing
capacity and states can try to appropriate an
otherwise open access resource (the open ocean
productivity) by intensifying their ranching
industry. When will the system be saturated at the
present rate of expansion? What would be the effect
on other competing resources (squids, pomfrets
etc.) and predators (seals, sharks etc.)? What will
be the effect of offshore competition between wild
and cultured strains? Will there be a need for an
agreement between the states concerned on numbers
of fingerlings to be released to avoid economic
waste?
Oceanic squids offer obvious potential for
development on new species and areas while the main
species already targeted at are fully fished. With
the present conflicts about driftnetting,
possibilities to develop commercial fisheries are
limited but exist. The oceanic sharks may offer
more potential for concern than for sustainable
development and research on these species is badly
needed. The oceanic horse mackerel appear heavily
fished locally. Its future is obscured by the lack
of an international mechanism for its management
and co-operation in research and coastal countries
are presently expressing their concerns.
In the Antarctic, depletion of commercial
species has been serious and the situation is
improving slowly. Krill is the exception, saved
probably by the difficulty to use it profitably.
Demersal resources extending on high seas shelves
are fully fished if not overfished. Since the
beginning of the 1990s, the pressure on Orange
Roughy has increased dramatically, in all oceans,
including on sea mounts and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
but little information has been made available (if
any).
Progress in net-making technology should
facilitate the intensification of the exploitation
by island countries of non-conventional large
pelagic species, such as dolphin fish, flying fish,
as well as large tuna-like species presently
assumed underexploited with unknown potential.
However, problems of accidental capture of
low-resilience and ecologically sensitive species
could emerge as in the large-scale driftnet
fisheries. The relative failure of international
management to establish sustainable fisheries in
many areas, despite the high quality of the
research sometimes provided, is clearly
demonstrated by the dwindling resource base,
excessive catching capacity, uncontrolled transfers
of fishing effort between resources and oceans,
depletion of many highly valuable resources,
including those in the Antarctic, and possibly
beyond recovery for some whales.
The fact that uncontrolled development of
fishing effort leads to serious ecological, social
and economic problems has now been widely
acknowledged in the scientific literature and by
high-level fisheries management and development
authorities. In day-to-day practice, however, this
verbal recognition does not always seem to
translate into facts and the future of high seas
resources must therefore be considered carefully. A
strengthened framework for better management of
high seas resources is provided by the 1995 UN
Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions
of the 1982 Convention of the Law of the Sea
Relating to the Conservation and Management of
Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish
Stocks (the UN Fish Stock Agreement) and by the
1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries
and its 1993 Agreement to Promote Compliance with
International Conservation and Management Measures
by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas (the Compliance
Agreement). In addition, the adoption in 1999 by
the FAO Committee on Fisheries of an international
plan of action to curb Illegal, Unreported and
Unregulated Fishing (IUU fishing) is a positive
move towards improving management in both EEZs and
the high seas.
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