Transcript Review of the implementation of the UN GA agreement to protect

Review of the implementation of
the UN GA agreement to protect
deep-sea ecosystems on the high
seas
Matthew Gianni
Political and Policy Advisor
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition
UN GA negotiations 2006
ISSUES: Biodiversity, equity, sustainability,
international law
Various proposals, e.g.
• Moratorium on bottom trawl fishing on the high
seas
• No bottom fishing in high seas areas not covered
by RFMOs
• Reverse burden of proof
• Deadlines for implementation:
mid 2007; end 2007
UN GA resolution 61/105
• Conduct impact assessments of individual
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bottom fishing activities to determine whether
significant adverse impacts would occur
Establish conservation measures to prevent
significant adverse impacts (SAIs) or not
authorize bottom fishing to proceed
Close areas where vulnerable marine
ecosystems (VMEs) are known or likely occur
unless SAIs can be prevented
UN GA resolution 61/105
• Ensure the long-term sustainability of
deep-sea fish stocks
• Require vessels to move out of an area
where VMEs are encountered during
bottom fishing operations
• Adopt and Implement measures by 31
December 2008 or else don’t authorize
(prohibit) bottom fishing
Q&A
• What is a VME?
• How do we identify VMEs?
• What is a SAI?
• How do we conduct impact assessments
to determine whether SAIs would occur?
• How do we prevent SAIs?
UN FAO Guidelines: VMEs
• i. Uniqueness or rarity – e.g :
• habitats that contain endemic species;
• habitats of rare, threatened or endangered species that
occur only in discrete areas; or
• nurseries or discrete feeding, breeding, or spawning
areas.
• ii. Functional significance of the habitat – discrete areas
or habitats that are necessary for the survival, function,
spawning/reproduction or recovery of fish stocks,
particular life-history stages (e.g. nursery grounds or
rearing areas), or of rare, threatened or endangered
marine species.
UN FAO Guidelines: VMEs
• iii. Fragility – an ecosystem that is highly susceptible to
degradation by anthropogenic activities.
• iv. Life-history traits of component species that make
recovery difficult – ecosystems that are characterized by
populations or assemblages of species with one or more
of the following characteristics:
• slow growth rates;
• late age of maturity;
• low or unpredictable recruitment; or
• long-lived.
v. Structural complexity – an ecosystem that is
characterized by complex physical structures created by
significant concentrations of biotic and abiotic features.
FAO Guidelines: SAIs
• 17. Significant adverse impacts are those that
compromise ecosystem integrity (i.e. ecosystem
structure or function) in a manner that: (i)
impairs the ability of affected populations to
replace themselves; (ii) degrades the long-term
natural productivity of habitats; or (iii) causes,
on more than a temporary basis, significant loss
of species richness, habitat or community types.
Impacts should be evaluated individually, in
combination and cumulatively.
UN FAO Guidelines: SAIs
• 18. When determining the scale and significance of an
impact, the following six factors should be considered:
i. the intensity or severity of the impact at the specific
site being affected;
ii. the spatial extent of the impact relative to the
availability of the habitat type affected;
iii. the sensitivity/vulnerability of the ecosystem to the
impact;
iv. the ability of an ecosystem to recover from harm, and
the rate of such recovery;
v. the extent to which ecosystem functions may be
altered by the impact; and
vi. the timing and duration of the impact relative to the
period in which a species needs the habitat during one
or more life-history stages.
UN FAO Guidelines: SAIs
• 19. Temporary impacts are those that are limited in
duration and that allow the particular ecosystem to
recover over an acceptable time frame. Such time frames
should be decided on a case-by-case basis and should be
in the order of 5-20 years, taking into account the
specific features of the populations and ecosystems.
UN FAO Guidelines: Impact
Assessments
• Para 47: Impact assessment should
address, inter alia:
• i. type(s) of fishing conducted or
contemplated, including vessels and geartypes, fishing areas, target and potential
bycatch species, fishing effort levels and
duration of fishing (harvesting plan);
• ii. best available scientific and technical
information on the current state of fishery
resources and baseline information on the
ecosystems, habitats and communities in
the fishing area, against which future
changes are to be compared;
UN FAO Guidelines: Impact
Assessments
• iii. identification, description and mapping of VMEs
known or likely to occur in the fishing area;
• iv. data and methods used to identify, describe
and assess the impacts of the activity, the
identification of gaps in knowledge, and an
evaluation of uncertainties in the information
presented in the assessment;
• v. identification, description and evaluation of the
occurrence, scale and duration of likely impacts,
including cumulative impacts of activities covered
by the assessment on VMEs and low-productivity
fishery resources in the fishing area;
UN FAO Guidelines: Impact
Assessments
• vi. risk assessment of likely impacts by the
fishing operations to determine which
impacts are likely to be significant adverse
impacts, particularly impacts on VMEs and
low productivity fishery resources; and
• vii. the proposed mitigation and
management measures to be used to
prevent significant adverse impacts on
VMEs and ensure long-term conservation
and sustainable utilization of lowproductivity fishery resources, and the
measures to be used to monitor effects of
the fishing operations.
FAO: Worldwide review of bottom
fisheries in the high seas (2009)
 Bensch, A., Gianni M.,
Greboval D., Sanders
J.S., Hjort A. World
Wide Review of
Bottom Fisheries in
the High Seas. Food
and Agriculture
Organization of the
United Nations. Rome,
2009.
FAO: Worldwide review of bottom
fisheries in the high seas
• 250,000 tonnes in
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2006, representing
0.3% of the marine
catch worldwide
approximate value $450 million US
dollars
Estimated 285 vessels
high seas bottom
fisheries in 2006,
many only part-time
• 80% flagged to ten
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States: Spain,
Republic of Korea,
New Zealand, Russian
Federation, Australia,
Japan, France,
Portugal, Belize and
Estonia
one-third flagged to
EU countries
EU fleet took half or
more of the high seas
bottom catch
High Seas Bottom Trawl
Fisheries and their
Impacts on the
Biodiversity of
Vulnerable Deep Sea
Ecosystems: Options
for International
Action
Matthew Gianni
IUCN
Conservation International
NRDC
WWF International
2004
North Atlantic: NEAFC
• there is a high
likelihood that
most upper slope
areas and the
associated range of
species have to
some extent been
affected by past
fisheries, and that
fragile invertebrate
communities occur
on many hills.
North Atlantic: NAFO
SE Atlantic and Northwest Pacific
South Pacific: New Zealand
Summary of actions to date
Impact Assessments:
• Southern ocean/CCAMLR (five countries)
South Pacific (New Zealand)
North Pacific (Japan, Korea, Russia)
• No impact assessments yet done in other
areas
Summary
Impact Assessments have not been able to clearly
determine whether SAIs would occur
• insufficient baseline information on the presence,
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likely occurrence and ecology of VMEs in the
areas to be fished;
insufficient information on the precise locations
in which bottom fishing will or is likely to take
place;
insufficient information on the interaction of the
bottom fishing gear with VME related species;
insufficient information on the extent, severity,
duration, and likely scale of the impact of bottom
fishing on VMEs known or likely to occur in areas
subject to bottom fishing.
Summary
Area closures:
• Some areas where VMEs are known to occur,
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based on benthic surveys, in NE Atlantic,
Mediterranean
To greater or lesser degrees “representative
areas” where VMEs are known or likely to occur
in NE and NW Atlantic, Southeast Atlantic, South
Pacific
Most areas of the high seas where VMEs are
likely to occur remain open to bottom fishing at
fishable depths
Summary
Move-on rules:
• Thresholds levels adopted by NAFO, NEAFC,
SEAFO and NW Pacific far too high to provide
meaningful protection (50/100 kg corals; 1000 kg
sponges – NAFO Science Council: 0.2-2kg corals)
• Even where threshold levels relatively low,
questions remain as to effectiveness (7-8 areas
closures in CCAMLR triggered by move-on rule)
• Not possible to quantify impacts on VMEs based
on evidence/amount/weight of VME species in
fishing gear
Summary
Ensuring the long-term sustainability of
deep-sea fish stocks:
• Most high seas bottom fisheries target low
productivity species (e.g. orange roughy,
grenadiers, deep-sea sharks) highly vulnerable to
overexploitation and depletion.
• Large number of species taken as bycatch, in
particular in bottom trawl fisheries
• Status of target species and bycatch species
considered overexploited, depleted or unknown some endangered (gulper sharks, grenadiers)
Summary
• Gear restrictons:
• ICES 2008: Any gear that has bottom
contact has the potential to damage
vulnerable deep-water habitats…the
greatest instantaneous physical impact on
sensitive habitats is likely to be caused by
towed otter trawls…” – bottom trawl
fishing.
• CCAMLR: prohibition on bottom trawling and
bottom gillnet fishing
Summary
• Gear restrictions:
• NEAFC: prohibition on deep-sea bottom
gillnet fishing
• GFCM: prohibition on bottom trawling
below 1000 metres
• SEAFO: Scientific Committee
recommended temporary prohibition on
bottom trawling and bottom gillnet fishing –
not (yet) agreed by SEAFO
Scientific developments:
• deep-sea fisheries in the Northeast
Atlantic are depleting populations of deepsea fish well below the depths at which
the fishing takes place,
• IUCN Red List: leafscale gulper shark,
Portuguese dogfish - targeted in high seas
bottom fishing in the Northeast Atlantic
endangered; gulper sharks critically
endangered.
• HERMES: coral dependent deep-sea fish
species declining more rapidly than noncoral dependent species because of
adverse impacts on corals
Other developments:
• Fisheries Centre, University of British
Columbia 2007 - many deep-sea bottom
trawl fisheries on the high seas not
economically viable without state
subsidies.
• European Commission 2007 - many deepsea fish stocks in the Northeast Atlantic
have such low productivity that
“sustainable levels of exploitation are
probably too low to support an
economically viable fishery.”
Conclusion: Summary of actions to date
• Impact Assessments have not yet been conducted
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in most bottom fisheries; where they have been
conducted - partial and inconclusive at best
Some area closures, but many high seas areas
where VMEs likely to occur remain open to
bottom fishing with few/no constraints
Move-on rule often only measure in place in both
existing and new/unfished areas – limited value in
protecting VMEs
General reluctance to close areas where high seas
bottom fishing currently takes place
Insufficient information on status of most target
and bycatch species impacted by bottom fisheries
to ensure long-term sustainability
UN FSA
• 5 (d) assess the impacts of fishing...on
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target stocks and species belonging to the
same ecosystem or associated with or
dependent upon the target stocks;
5 (g) protect biodiversity in the marine
environment;
5 (h) ...ensure that levels of fishing effort
do not exceed those commensurate with
the sustainable use of fishery resources
UN FSA
• 6.1. States shall apply the precautionary
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approach widely...
6.2. The absence of adequate scientific
information shall not be used as a reason
for postponing or failing to take
conservation and management measures.
6.3 (d) States shall...develop data
collection and research programmes to
assess the impact of fishing on non-target
and associated or dependent species and
their environment, and adopt plans which
are necessary to ensure the conservation
of such species and to protect habitats of
special concern.
Conclusion
• UN GA 61/105 paras 83-86 far from fully
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implemented
Current management of most high seas bottom
fisheries inconsistent with international law
Even if VMEs protected, can deep-sea fisheries on
the high seas targeting low productivity species
ever be sustainable and economically viable?
Nations which permit their vessels to bottom fish
on the high seas/global commons have clear
obligations to the international community