Social Impact

THE CONCENTRATION of control of ocean resources in fewer hands inflicts considerable economic and social impact on coastal communities. For many of these populations in poor countries, there are few income earning alternatives to fish. The result is stagnation in coastal towns and villages, and increased rural-urban drift of population.

The UN and its agencies encourages the award of property rights to indigenous communities who have fished local waters for centuries. The concept of �TURFS� - territorial user rights in fisheries - prevents (in principle, if not always in practice) encroachment by commercial fleets on inshore fishing grounds. The realization of TURFS type regimes in inshore waters also introduces a measure of conservation into local fishing practices.

In Europe and North America, coastal fishing communities are not afforded such protection, and scores of former thriving ports no longer have fishing fleets. One exception is regions where indigenous fishermen are of an ethnic group which has suffered from historical deprivation. So the Indian and Eskimo groups of Alaska and Canada, and the Maoris of New Zealand, have been given fish quotas in perpetuity or some similar guarantee of fishing rights. One might contrast treatment of these racial groups with that meted to the descendents of Celts in Ireland, the West of Scotland, and the Hebrides. Their land and income source was taken from them in brutal fashion after the failed Jacobite rebellions, and today the legal right to harvest fish in their local waters is being taken over by powerful groups in Europe as quotas and licenses are traded as commodities on an open market. This is a trade in peoples� jobs and in the economic base of scores of small communities.

Social Benefits

THE SOCIAL BENEFIT of a fishery can be determined by the jobs it creates and the service industries it supports. In a poor country the local food it produces and the food security it affords are also critical. Looked at from this point of view it is obvious that the small-scale fisheries of the world are far more socially beneficial than the capital-intensive industries of much of the industrialized world.

0 FAO estimates that the small-scale fisheries employ 12 million fishermen, 12 million fish sellers (mainly women) and six million fish curers or processors. O The world�s large-scale fisheries employ only from 0.5 to 1.0 million fishermen, depending on where you draw the line between them and the small boat fleets. 0 The small-scale fishermen (marine and fresh water) produce around 33 million tons of fish a year, practically all of it for human consumption. Large-scale fisheries produce around 35 million tons of food fish plus another 29 million tons of fish for reduction to meal and oil.

Environmental Costs

THERE IS AN environmental cost to the type of technology used in fishing. The world�s large-scale fleets consume over 18 million tons of fuel a year while the small-scale fleets use only 3 million tons. For every ton of fuel it consumes, the large-scale sector produces just over 3 tons of fish, compared with the small-scale sector�s 10 tons.

Other environmental costs include the destruction of coral reefs by inappropriate fishing methods and the killing of thousands of tons of fish by �ghost nets� - lengths of drift net or gill net in the ocean, which have broken off from the huge fleets of nets operated by ocean going vessels.

Yet governments continue to bias legislation and fishing regulations to benefit the large-scale scale operator, whom they view as more efficient. �More efficient� can only mean that they concentrate profits and jobs in fewer hands.

Some economy of scale is needed in distant deep-water fisheries, but for most fishing grounds within 200 miles of the home state a modest size of boat is feasible. In the few coastal fisheries where local fishermen have been given a management role (as in Japan), they regulate the type of gear that may be used and when boats may fish. This prevents a short-term �quick-buck� attitude, and it ensures, instead, a sustainable fishery and community for generations to come.

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