Growing fleets, dwindling stocks: UN conference debates high seas fishing.

The high seas-property of everyone and no-one-have traditionally been an area of free-for-all exploitation, with many fish species now either depleted or over-fished.

That problem was the subject of the first UN Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (New York, 12-30 July), which was mandated by the 1992 UN conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

The Conference succeeded in satisfying the first component of its mandate, which is to identify and assess existing problems, Conference Chairman Satya N. Nandan of Fiji said. Its remaining tasks are to consider means of improving fisheries cooperation among States and to formulate appropriate recommendations.

The Conference will meet twice more in 1994 14 March-1 April and 15-26 August) with a view to completing its work before the forty-ninth General Assembly session convenes. Delegations differ as to whether the Conference should ultimately produce a new multilateral fishing convention or a non-binding set of guidelines.

The Conference uses as a basis for its work the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which has provisions on conservation and sustainable use of marine living resources of the high seas.

With the advent of the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) permitted under the Law of the Sea Convention, the pressure on fish stocks in the high seas has grown. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), inadequate management and over-fishing are now major high-seas problems.

Over-fishing on the high seas not only affects such fish as many tuna species which prefer the open ocean, but also in the case of stocks that usually remain in coastal waters and only occasionally swim outside the EEZs. Examples of these so-called "straddling stocks" include Atlantic cod and Alaskan pollack.

Unsustainable use

Chairman Nandan, in outlining the main concern of the Conference, said that the global capacity of fishing fleets had grown over the last two decades to twice that of total marine fish catches, resulting in nonsustainable resource use.

"No region of the world is immune to the impact of uncontrolled fishing and its inevitable results", he said.

Building on discussions and proposals by delegations, he produced a negotiating text (A/CON.F164/13) which contains formulations of actions and measures to be taken by States.

The text states that conservation and management measures should aim at maintaining or restoring stocks at levels capable of producing "maximum sustainable yield", a concept which is to be reviewed in depth by specialists at the next session of the Conference.

Such measures would include total allowable catches and quotas, limits to fishing effort, area and seasonal closures, and gear restrictions such as minimum mesh sizes.

The text calls for coastal and distant water-fishing States to cooperate through regional fisheries management organizations, which should be open to participation on a nondiscriminatory basis to all States with an interest in the fish stocks concerned. It further urges that the coastal States regulating fisheries in their EEZ and regional organizations establishing measures for the same stocks should achieve compatible and coherent measures.

The problems faced by coastal States were cited in debate by Canada, where species such as cod, flounder and redfish straddle the 200-mile limit of Canada's EEZ off Newfoundland. Over-fishing by other nations outside that limit, combined with adverse ecological conditions, have caused a virtual collapse of the major straddling stocks in the northwest Atlantic Ocean over the past five years, resulting in over 30,000 people losing their livelihood, Canada said.

Sierra Leone said that fisheries management of a 200-mile jurisdictional zone was burdensome for least developed countries. In its region, effective monitoring, control and surveillance systems could hardly be maintained in the face of the "rapacious advance" of certain distant water fishing nations.

Over-fishing:

The |doughnut hole'

The problem of over-fishing in the high seas is illustrated by the problems of one area known as the "doughnut hole", a Bering Sea enclave where fisheries of Alaskan pollack have "collapsed", according to a joint statement (A/CONF.164/L.33) issued by the United States and the Russian Federation on 28 July. It is an enclave where all fishing vessels may cast their nets or lines outside of national jurisdictions.

According to the two countries, fishing in the "doughnut hole" began in the mid-1980s, expanding quickly to a peak of 1.4 million tons in 1989. By 1992, when pollack fishing was suspended, harvests were on]y about 10,000 tons.