Dot Earth Blog: Arctic Nations Seek Common Management of Fishing as Open Water Spreads

Humanity has long had a two-pronged reaction to environmental change ? girding against risks but also probing for opportunities. The spread of ice-free Arctic Ocean waters in summer is eroding shorelines and may be affecting Northern Hemisphere winter weather (the jury is out). But of course this change has also prompted enterprising shippers to test new trade shortcuts and led to projections of bountiful new fisheries.

Luckily, the nations ringing the Arctic are recognizing the importance of going slowly on any new fishing effort in northern waters. They are meeting later this month with the aim of crafting an agreement to manage the living resources in waters around the North Pole. Here?s the core notion as described by Andrew E. Kramer in a news article today in The New York Times:?

The fishing accord would regulate commercial harvests in an area farther offshore ? in the so-called doughnut hole of the Arctic Ocean. This is a Texas-size area of international water that includes the North Pole and is encircled by the exclusive economic zones of the coastal countries.

That the center of the Arctic Ocean was unregulated was hardly a concern when it was an icebound backwater. That is changing. Last summer, 40 percent of the central Arctic Ocean melted.

In fact, the agreement is unusual for protecting a huge area from human exploitation before people have had much chance to exploit it; before the last decade, scientists estimate, the doughnut hole was icebound for about 100,000 years.

?Five countries are talking about solving a problem before it starts,? Scott Highleyman, the director of Arctic programs at the Pew Charitable Trust, which supports the fishing moratorium, said in a telephone interview. [Read the rest.]

The decision to seek an agreement echoes the wise move in 2009 by the United States?North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which?decided (industry included) to close a vast stretch of American waters to fishing that has never been fished actively. As I wrote in 2009:

[The move] is aimed at avoiding big ecological disruptions as the?expanding summer retreats of sea ice?on the Arctic Ocean expose virgin waters.

Many biologists and fisheries experts say it?s vital to leave the region alone because big, poorly-understood ecosystem shifts are under way. Here?s the news story on?the Arctic fishing closure. Here?s the?draft fisheries management plan?(PDF) for the region.

It seems that, at least sometimes, humans are capable of taking advantage of the gift of foresight. The capacity for proactivity is only the start. Translating a goal into an agreement is no easy task.

Related: Paul Arthur Berkman, a biological oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has focused on such questions in a recent book and elsewhere. To get his central ideas, read this Op-Ed article and review this recent presentation by Berkman. Here?s a relevant talk:

Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/arctic-nations-seekcommon-management-of-fishing-as-open-water-spreads/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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