Climate change a challenge for fisheries - analysts
Date: 27-Sep-01
Country: NORWAY
Author: Jeff Coelho
"One of the big challenges is the relationship between fish stocks and global warming," David Griffith, general secretary of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), told Reuters at an annual four-day ICES conference in Oslo.
"There has been global warming in some areas and a decrease in temperatures in other areas. And (fish) stocks in general have been declining because of the changes in some of these regions," he said.
ICES, which promotes research in the North Atlantic and elsewhere, is backed by 19 member countries and collaborates with more than 40 international organisations.
Griffith said the greatest scientific challenge was to measure and quantify the changes in the sea and air in order to improve overall forecasting capabilities, particularly as the fishing industry has seen its stocks depleted by rising demand.
WARMER WATERS
ICES analyst Keith Brander said changes in North Atlantic currents could be big enough to threaten the survival of fish.
"We know that in the 1880s the atmospheric circulation changed in a way which drove the ocean currents differently," he said. Ship captains at the time reported sailing through miles and miles of dead fish in warm water.
And in the 1920s, for instance, warm currents brought a substantial amount of cod to the coast of Greenland, where few were seen before. Sea bass around the British Isles have drifted north towards Norwegian waters over the past 20 years.
Brander said such changes in currents could prompt fish farmers to alter their stocks. Among the world's leading farmers of salmon are Dutch Nutreco and Norway's Pan Fish and Fjord Seafood . Also, governments could change the basis on which they form new policies, shifting away from using data based on historic catches.
In the last year, the European Commission has had to introduce emergency measures to curb cod fishing in the North Sea amid fears that cod may die out there.
The Commission plans to present a formal proposal at the end of the year for a new fishing regime to start in 2003 to ensure the long-term survival of the industry.
"In general we are at or near record highs in exploitation rate and at or near record lows in biomass for a large number of fish stocks," said Dr Jake Rice, Coordinator Canadian Stock Assessment Secretariat Fisheries Research Branch.