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Saturday, July 8, 2000
Photo Illustration By David Swann Star-Bulletin
THE sole purpose of U.S. District Judge David Ezra's decision to close 6.5 million square miles of ocean to Hawaii longline fishermen was to create a "sanctuary" where endangered leatherback turtles can roam unmolested.
But a more accurate description of his ruling's effect is "turtle sanctuary shibai."
The fishing ban, which resulted from a lawsuit brought by the environmental group Earthjustice, won't reduce the danger to sea turtles, but will add Hawaii's $50 million longline fishing industry to the endangered list.
The sanctuary plan was designed with the help of the plaintiffs to reduce the incidental killing of turtles while an environmental impact statement (EIS) to measure the effect of longline fishing on the turtle population is being developed by the National Marine Fisheries Services. The lack of an EIS was the legal point used by Earthjustice to secure the federal injunction against continued fishing.
The controversial ban has prompted many arguments and news stories about how many tuna and swordfish are caught in this sanctuary area and whether they are shipped to Japan or the mainland, the injunction's potentially devastating consequences for local restaurants and fish markets, and, of course, the loss of jobs and income for fishermen and their families. But these arguments divert attention away from the main issue -- protecting sea turtles.
When the focus shifts back to the ruling's effect on that goal, three conclusions can be drawn:
The sanctuary plan is flawed and will not provide the turtle protection envisioned.
A flawed sanctuary plan
According to the best information available from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the Hawaii longline fleet constitutes only 20 percent of the total number of boats fishing the turtle sanctuary.Because this area is located in international waters, it is open to the fishing fleets of all countries of the world -- boats from Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China fish there, as well as from Alaska and the West Coast of the United States. These non-Hawaii boats make up 80 percent of the fishing effort in the sanctuary. They can and will continue to fish there because the federal court injunction in Hawaii does not affect them.
Their fishing effort is understood to result in an incidental turtle catch rate similar to that of the Hawaii boats. Thus, it is estimated that a 1-to-4 ratio exists between the Hawaii fleet and the non-Hawaii fleet with respect to turtle "takes" (incidental turtle kills) in the area.
It is safe to say that, when Hawaii abandons its small 20 percent share in this sanctuary area, it will be rapidly gobbled up by the fishing fleets of the remaining 80 percent. The total fishing effort will then remain at the pre-injunction level, causing the rate of turtle incidental catches to also remain the same.
Therefore, the very purpose of the injunction is defeated. Since the federal court injunction does not effectively meet its own purpose of providing protection for the turtles, it should be reconsidered.
Need for international accord
When fishing activities are conducted in international waters, they become very complex. Whose rules apply, for instance, in the turtle sanctuary/fishing grounds discussed previously? Japan's, Taiwan's, Korea's or that of the United States?How are these resources managed to prevent collapse of the fisheries? Because the fish in these areas are largely pelagics and travel throughout the oceans of the world, are they "owned" by any country or area? If not, how are these resources divided up?
These are just a few obvious examples of the questions popping up when fishing in international waters. And with the numerous fishing nations throughout the world fighting to get their share, the problems are plentiful.
Fortunately, almost every fishing nation in the world has come to realize that this is a global industry and that uniform trade rules and resources management are necessary if they are to prosper and fisheries are to survive.
This recognition of the need to manage fisheries resources on a global basis has generated initiatives at the United Nations level to establish international agreements that adopt rules to fairly and equitably share and preserve the world's fishery resources.
More and more, we're seeing countries fishing in a common area or targeting the same resources join together to work out international agreements that they all can live with.
This is always a difficult task, but not something new. The U.N. has spawned numerous international groups dedicated to developing mutually acceptable rules to enable orderly trade and management of the global fishery resources. Some of these groups are the Law of the Sea Convention, U.N. Implementing Agreement on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, the High Seas Compliance Agreement, and the FAO Code of Conduct.
Conservationists benefit most
Who benefits from Judge Ezra's ruling? If the turtles don't benefit from the injunction, and certainly the Hawaii fishermen, consumers and economy don't either, who profits from this federal ruling?That would be the people who brought on the lawsuit that caused this injunction -- the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and its clients such as the Center for Marine Conservation, the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, the Audubon Society and other similar organizations.
How do they benefit if their suit did not, in fact, improve the protection of the turtles?
Simple. They will claim a victory and boast that their efforts created a million-square-mile sanctuary and banned Hawaii's longline fleet from fishing there, despite the fact that the victory does not improve the protection of the turtles but only injures U.S. fishermen and the state of Hawaii.
They will use this false trophy to gain national media attention and feature it in their membership magazines and Web pages to attract more volunteers and donations.
The most disturbing part of this misguided effort is that U.S. fishermen are being singled out by their own government to sacrifice their livelihoods in the hopes that such gallant leadership would show the world the way to achieve better resources management. Then, hypothetically, other nations would join in.
However, more often than not, this type of strategy ends up with the U.S. fishermen (and consumers) finding themselves hung out to dry.
They are getting tired of being sacrificed on the U.S. altar of conservation in full view of the multitude of fishermen from other countries freely plying the same waters, using the same fishing gear, and getting the same catch results as they did, and for which they are being punished.
Since a stunning federal court ruling, the local longlining industry is facing its stormiest time ever. DROWNING IN CONTROVERSY
Bill Mossman is chairman of the
Pelagics Advisory Panel of the Western Pacific
Fisheries Management Council, and a member of
several Hawaii maritime organizations.
