High seas fishing.

In the decade following the adoption of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, fishing on the high seas became a major international problem. The Convention gave all States the freedom to fish without regulations on the high seas, but coastal States, to which the Law of the Sea conferred exclusive economic rights, including the right to fish within 200 miles off their shores, began to complain that fleets fishing on the high seas were reducing catches in their domestic waters.

The problem centred on fish populations that "straddle" the boundaries of countries' 200-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs), such as cod off Canada's eastern coast and pollack in the Bering Sea, and highly migratory species like tuna and swordfish, which move between EEZs and the high seas.

By the early 1990s, most stocks of commercially valued fish were running low, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). As catches became smaller, coastal States complained that the industrial-scale fishing operations of the so-called "distant-water" States on the high seas were undermining their efforts to conserve and revitalize fish stocks within the EEZs.

Reports of violence between fishing vessels from coastal and distant-water States became increasingly frequent, especially during the "cod wars" of the 1970s. Several countries, including Britain and Norway, sent naval ships to protect fishing fleets on the high seas. Spanish fishers clashed with British and French driftnetters in what came to be known as the "tuna wars". Before the United Nations Agreement on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks was finalized in October 1995, several coastal States had fired shots at foreign fleets. In the northern Atlantic, Canada seized and confiscated a Spanish boat and crew fishing in international waters just beyond the Canadian 200-mile limit.

The coastal States most concerned during the negotiations about the impact of high seas fishing on their domestic harvest include Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Iceland and New Zealand. Six countries are responsible for 90 per cent of "distant-water" fishing: Russia, Japan, Spain, Poland, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan province of China. The United States also does a significant amount of high-seas fishing, especially for tuna, and in recent years China has become a major fishing nation.

At the Earth Summit, Governments called on the United Nations to find ways to conserve fish stocks and prevent international conflicts over fishing on the high seas. The Conference on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks held its first full meeting in July 1993. After six negotiating sessions, a legally binding Agreement was opened for signing on 4 December 1995.

"This Agreement gives us a tool for winning the battle to save the world's fish", Ambassador Satya N. Nandan of Fiji, the Conference Chairman, said at the close of the talks. "It confers on States both the right to fish and the obligation to manage fish stocks sustainably."

Two major factors threaten the sustainability of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks: overfishing and the impact of human activities. Efforts to conserve and manage the long-term sustainability of fish stocks are undermined by overfishing, which is driven in part by the need for higher economic returns to compensate for over-investment in the industry and excess fleet capacity, which has been encouraged by generous government subsidies.

Human activities that imperil fish include: oil spills; destruction of mangrove swamps and estuaries; industrial air pollution; and production of nutrients, pesticides and other materials that run off the land and pollute the oceans. Some fishing practices, such as using dynamite on coral reefs to kill fish, also destroy critical habitats. Introducing exotic species either accidentally or deliberately into a marine environment can also harm other species in the ecosystem.

Sound fisheries conservation and management practices are needed if the demand for food from the sea is to be met over the next two decades. Better knowledge of marine resources and environments, more select fishing practices, less wasteful processing facilities and improved training for personnel responsible for managing and conserving marine living resources are needed.

The United Nations "fish talks" focused on finding ways to reverse the decline in stocks of commercially valuable species of fish to ensure sustainable yields in the future. Central to the negotiations was how to ensure the "continuity" of fisheries management regimes between the EEZs and the high seas. Straddling and highly migratory fish stocks - which also include billfish, marlins, swordfish, oceanic sharks, horse mackerel and squid - inhabit both coastal areas and the high seas at various times during their life cycles.

At the Earth Summit, Governments also called on the United Nations to negotiate an agreement to reduce land-based sources of marine pollution. Under a programme of action adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1995, States agreed to reduce ocean pollution caused by sewage, heavy metals, oil, pesticides, nutrients and litter, and to stop activities that physically alter and destroy marine habitats.

The economic problem

"Too many vessels chasing too few fish" is how Ambassador Nandan characterizes the problem. According to FAO, the size of the world's fishing fleet increased at twice the rate of the increase in the global marine catch between 1970 and 1990. This explosion in the number of fishing vessels is what has helped undermine the sustainability of fisheries and the viability of the fishing industry itself.

Simply put, the fishing industry is overcapitalized. Some 46 per cent of revenue from the "landed catch" is now absorbed as return on investment. Over-investment in previous years produced too many boats, many of which are now aging and economically inefficient to operate. To break even, they must bring in ever-larger catches. Many fleets continue to operate only with the support of State subsidies. Worldwide, government subsidies to the fishing industry total some US$54 billion annually.

The Law of the Sea was expected to lead to a reduction in the number of distant-water fishing fleets. Instead, companies began to use refrigerated factory trawlers or "mother ships" that allow fleets to travel vast distances from the home country and to stay at sea for longer periods without having to return to shore. The fleets undermine the livelihoods of local fishers and deprive poor people in coastal areas of a primary source of sustenance. As global fish stocks decline, seafood becomes an increasingly expensive item for the rich and a rarity for the poor.

Typically, fleets on the high seas use non-selective fishing equipment, which indiscriminately sweeps up everything in its path - undersize target species, non-target species and other marine life such as mollusks, jellyfish, turtles and porpoises. This "by-catch", currently estimated at 27 million tonnes annually, is thrown back into the ocean and the creatures are usually too damaged to survive.

The political issue

The negotiations focused on the conflict between coastal and distant-water fishing States. By mid-1993, Canada had declared a moratorium on cod fishing off its Atlantic coast until stocks were able to regenerate, putting between 20,000 and 30,000 fishers out of work. In the United States, fisheries for Atlantic haddock, cod, flounder and Pacific salmon virtually collapsed. Iceland cut back its domestic fishing by 50 per cent because of depleted stocks. Meanwhile, unregulated foreign fleets continued to fish just off these countries' boundaries.

Coastal States argued that the high social and economic cost at home of fishermen out of work in order to preserve fish stocks could not be supported if foreign fleets continued to fish without restrictions on the high seas. Russia mounted military surveillance to keep Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Polish boats from overfishing pollack in the hotly contested Peanut-Hole, a small area of international water surrounded by Russian seas. In the South Pacific, island States tried to stop Taiwanese and Korean fishers poaching tuna. At the same time, distant-water States pointed to research that suggested coastal States were not sustainably managing stocks within their zones.

At first, many countries were reluctant to accept the need for a legally binding agreement. But as talks progressed, "most coastal States realized the time had come for a meaningful international agreement and the distant-water fishing States understood very well that it was time to either play by a set of internationally agreed upon regulations or face anarchy on the high seas", according to Brian Tobin, who spoke in his capacity as Canada's Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Commercial fishing operations are exceeding the ocean's ecological limits, unravelling an intricate web of marine life that makes the sea a vital part of the earth's life support system. Almost 70 per cent of all fish stocks are either fully to heavily exploited (44 per cent), over-exploited (16 per cent), depleted (6 per cent) or very slowly recovering from overfishing (3 per cent), according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO).

In a third of the world's major fishing regions, the annual catch is down 20 per cent or more from peak years. Without sweeping changes in current fishing practices and remedial action to allow endangered fish stocks to regenerate, the world's fisheries face possible collapse.