Jack mackerel slumps after fishing free-for-all, study warns
By Lewis Smith
January 25 2012 Lewis Smith
Jack mackerel fishing
Mort Rosenblum
Jack mackerel stocks in the South Pacific have slumped by 63 per cent in just five years as trawlers empty the waters in an international ‘free-for-all’, a study has shown.
Industrial and smaller-scale fishing means that in the last 20 years stocks of jack mackerel, which are used as feed in fish farms, have slumped in the South Pacific more than 90 per cent from 30 million tonnes to less than 3 million tonnes.
The decline, charted in an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), is described as catastrophic and is likely to continue unless the industry and governments can agree legally binding restrictions.
Fishing boats from Asia, Europe and Latin America travel to the region west South America, between New Zealand and the South American coast to catch jack mackerel in huge numbers. The fish, rich in oily protein, is a staple of the diet in parts of Africa and is prized by the fishmeal industry.
Professor Daniel Pauly, a fisheries specialist at the University of British Columbia, said the slump seen among jack mackerel should act as a warning that other fish in the southern Pacific may follow as fishermen are turning to them, despite the distance from ports, because stocks closer to home have already declines dramatically because of overfishing.
“This is the last of the buffalos. When they’re gone, everything will be gone. This is the closing of the frontier,” he told ICIJ.
The region is overseen by the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Committee (SPRFMO) but the 14 member states have yet to agree binding regulations to limit catches. The organisation was set up in 2006 but rules have only been ratified by six countries – two short of the 8 member majority required to make them binding.
One of the decisions made by SPRFMO was to introduce quotas but this prompted a rush among fishing nations to haul out large quantities of jack mackerel as a mechanism to stake a claim to a share.
Among the vessels to head for the region was the Netherlands-registered Annelies Ilena, which at 14,000 tonnes is the biggest fishing vessel in the world. Gerard van Balsfoort, president of the Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association (PFA) in the Netherlands, said the Dutch fishing industry, like others, had wanted to stake a claim in the fisheries.
He said: “It was one of the few areas where still you could get free entry. It looked as though too many vessels would head south, but there was no choice … if you were too late in your decision to go there, they could have closed the gate.”
Another vessel to operate in the region, according to the ICIJ’s report, Last Fish: Plunder in the South Pacific, was the Lafayette, a factory ship converted from a 50,000 tonne oil tanker. The Russian-flagged vessel is longer than two football pitches and stores and freezes the catches made by other vessels.
Members of SPRFMO meet next week to try to reach agreement on how much jack mackerel can be caught over the following year. Their scientists have recommended a maximum of 520,000 tonnes but it is feared that higher takes will be agreed.
Some fisheries specialists believe the total catch should be even lower. Cristian Canales of the Instituto de Fomento Pesquero, a fisheries research base in Chile, wants a maximum take of 250,000 tonnes while others fear only a ban for perhaps five years will protect the fish sufficiently to recover.
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