The importance of generating new knowledge for the management of living marine resources

Secretary General Jørn Krog's speech at Arctic Frontiers, Tromsø, 24 January 2011
 

Introduction

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a pleasure for me to address the fifth annual conference hosted by Arctic Frontiers.  I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Arctic Frontiers for their success in establishing an important and relevant forum, which succeeds in drawing attention to the challenges and opportunities in this region.

As a representative from the Ministry responsible for the management of all living marine resources and aquaculture, for ports, maritime infrastructure and oil-pollution response, the High North is of great importance to me and my Ministry.

Further, my Ministry participates and contributes in a wide range of international forums, which both normatively and operatively shape the future development of all aspects of the management of the ocean and its resources, including the Arctic.

Knowledge is a key factor in all this work.

Point of departure
Although so well expressed by Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Gahr Støre, allow me to repeat a little bit about the significance of the High North to Norway.  As a major marine and maritime nation, our Northern Identity has always been important to our social, cultural and economic lifestyle.

Fish and marine mammals have traditionally provided a unique basis for settlement along the shores of Norway, not least in Northern Norway. With the increasing interest for the sea and the seabed in pursuit of other opportunities, it is of core importance to us that our marine resources are not jeopardized.

On a global basis Norway is one of the top ten producers of seafood. In 2010 our exports of seafood reached 2,7 million tons to a total of 144 countries, with an export value estimated at 54 billion Norwegian Kroner. This makes us the world’s second largest exporter of seafood. 37 million plates of Norwegian seafood are consumed around the globe every day. Seafood is among the top three products exported from Norway. A considerable portion is harvested or produced in the High North.

So what can these perhaps slightly abstract numbers tell us? Some of answers can be found in the long-term development of the most important commercial fish stocks.
• Cod
• Haddock
• Norwegian spring-spawning herring

After a century of commercial and industrialized fishing, the productivity of the ecosystems is seemingly as strong as ever. This fact points to resilient ecosystems with great potential for high yields if managed responsibly.

What can explain why the Barents Sea and the major fish stocks are doing so well?

We cannot disregard that nature it self has been rewarding in the last decade, with continuous good recruitment to the fish stocks and ample availability of food for both fish and other marine organisms.

But favorable natural conditions alone are not enough to ensure rich fisheries. Other important factors are the constant improvement of the scientific efforts and the close cooperation between Norwegian and Russian scientist in the field of marine research. This scientific collaboration has been critical for the 36 years of cooperation in the Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission, and the basis for the development of harvest control rules and other measures to ensure sustainable harvest in the Barents Sea.

Together with our Russian colleagues we have chosen a precautionary management approach to harvest sustainably. It is my opinion that we in the Barents Sea have developed a resource management system based on the virtue of moderation, on natures’ own terms.

We have gradually turned our politics towards lower fish mortality. We have been moderate when adjusting the quotas upwards, instead of fishing at or even beyond the edge of sustainability from year to year. This approach has created stability, and we expect to be better suited to handle reduced stocks due to natural fluctuations as well as possible consequences of climate change.

Still, fisheries management is about managing risk and uncertainty. There are interactions in the ecosystem we only now are starting to understand. And probably others we will never fully understand or be able to integrate in the management. 

Obviously; fisheries, as every human activity, has an impact on the ecosystem. Centuries of fishing has left footprints. However, this is an intended consequence of food production and harvesting. Our challenge is to ensure that the consequences are kept at an acceptable level. This means maintaining, and possibly improving, the productivity of the ecosystem, and safeguarding valuable marine biodiversity. At the same time we have a moral and legal obligation to utilize the marine resources for the benefit of present and future generations.  

Fisheries management in the Barents Sea has been successful, so is the case for other parts of the North Atlantic and northern pacific waters. But still I sense a looming distrust of fisheries management from some corners. It is concerning for me to see on the rise a broad international and well-funded intellectual movement targeting fishing as an unwanted activity. In their view fisheries management has failed.

There are without doubt examples suggesting that fisheries management in some cases have failed. But past failures cannot justify a notion that discredits fisheries management as such. The developments both in the North-Atlantic and other parts of the world over the last decades tells me that we are moving in the right direction, with increased knowledge and understanding.

Nevertheless, several scientists and NGO’s claim fishing is potentially a threat to species, stocks and biodiversity. A ban on fisheries is seen as the inevitable consequence.

From a media point of view, some of these claims seem to fly with the wind in their back. The newsworthiness of articles and reports predicting the downfall of fish stocks and failure of managers is significant. Scientific journals such as Science and Nature have published several articles on the decline and collapse of fisheries that have attracted considerable public attention.

Science is not always science in the way we need science to be.

Fish stocks are frequently listed as threatened with extinction. Recently the United Nations Environment Program published a study on Large Marine Ecosystems claiming that 80% of the world’s fish stocks had collapsed and the rest were over-exploited. One of the ecosystems this report claimed to be on the brink of disaster was the Barents Sea. It is fair to say that we were surprised - and even more surprised by the amount of energy and time it took to correct obvious errors and flaws. I guess the reason for this hesitancy was caused by the fact that the report was based on scientific work and methods, but it was obviously flawed on a regional level.

Upon closer examination, it becomes evident that some of these assertions come with a hidden agenda. In particular the lack of sufficient peer review seems notable in many of these publications.

I cannot help but wonder if this lack of established procedures to ensure sufficient peer review is a symptom of what Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington has dubbed “faith-based fisheries science”. In short it can be summed up as; “we know what is right, we don’t need to ask your opinion”.

An advocate knows the answer and looks for evidence to support it; a scientist asks nature how much support there is for competing hypotheses.

The significance of science in the management of living marine resources in our parts of the world is firmly anchored in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), which coordinates and promotes marine research on oceanography, the marine environment, the marine ecosystem, and on living marine resources in the North Atlantic.

Members of the ICES community now include all coastal states bordering the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. Besides filling gaps in existing knowledge, this information is developed into unbiased, non-political advice. These are filtered through ICES’ structures of transparency and firm peer-review. The work of ICES is based on scientific input, data, cooperation and effort from a range of national institutes.

One of the main contributors is represented here in Tromsø: The Institute of Marine Research

The IMR has been the most central institution on marine science and research in Norway since 1902. With a staff of almost 700, and research vessels at sea for a total of 1600 days a year, the institute provides my Ministry with unified and institutional management advice based on high-quality scientific research on the ecosystems of our territories at sea. This model of collaboration can be a “beacon on the hill” for research based marine management worldwide.

Today, we have better understanding than ever before of natural fluctuations, ecosystem interactions and external threats such as climate change and acidification. The new knowledge of ecosystem interaction and global threats has led to fisheries management which more and more takes into account impacts from all sectors and the whole of the ecosystem.

Still, there are always new challenges ahead.

And just like the great polar explorers before us, we can be certain of one thing that will face us, especially in the Arctic: Uncertainty.

And like the polar explorers, we have to decide whether the uncertainty poses an unacceptable risk, or whether we can plan for it and work our way forward step by step.

So just like the polar explorers, we will hear voices crying: Any uncertainty is unacceptable uncertainty. You should stay at home.

As I mentioned, there have been calls from the environmentalist side that fisheries management has failed. The call has gone out for new management principles such as marine protected areas based on the precautionary principle and the ecosystem approach. We need fish stock resilience against climate change. Fish should be conserved for future generations.

In fisheries, these thoughts, at first, were not alien to us. We agreed on the precautionary approach. The precautionary approach tells us that scientific uncertainty should not prevent us from taking management measures. We used aspects of this in fisheries management several decades ago.

Today, some argue that the precautionary approach means that any scientific uncertainty means fishermen should stay home until that uncertainty is eliminated.

However, Scientific uncertainty is easy to establish, and costly to eliminate. In terms of the Arctic, the scientific uncertainties involved are huge. Does this mean that fishermen can move in only when the scientists move out?

In fisheries, we agreed that it made sense to study ecosystem interactions.

But today, we sense a growing interpretation of the ecosystem approach which have far-reaching consequences. This interpretation calls for a duty on scientists and managers to identify how much food is needed for each single species component of the ecosystem. If, and only if there is any surplus, which will not be eaten by other fish or birds or sharks or mammals that year, then humans can harvest that surplus.

We agreed that it is useful to look at the effects of external factors potentially affecting fish stocks, such as climate change and ocean acidification.

Today there are projections that some stocks may not be able to adapt to such changes. Stocks may decline or disappear altogether. It is said we should stop fishing now, to build their resilience against external threats and future challenges. It is said that stocks should no longer be “harvested”, but “conserved”.

Now we have to ask ourselves whether our goal in fisheries management of sustainable harvesting is shared by the environmentalists. If not, we could be caught up in a network of steadily developing environment rhetoric designed to end fisheries.

There may be some kind of logic to this. But it doesn’t make sense.

It is a general trend of our times to consider any uncertainty unacceptable, when it comes to our own future. It is largely backed up by the media and it is bad for two reasons: It ignores the cost of eliminating that uncertainty. And it distracts us from our work against the really big risk factors. Illegal fishing is not deterred by establishing Marine Protected Areas!

Being occupied with fisheries for large parts of my working life, I have at my heart the welfare of the future generations, and I would like my opinion to be heard here today. While we fish, we sustain society. If we don’t fish today we don’t generate income to benefit future generations tomorrow. I believe that the best way forward is responsible management, and Norway has a track record to support this approach.

I have a vision of possibilities. I believe that marine living resources, the oceans and the Arctic will contribute further to us humans in the future. It is not certain. But you can be certain that we will plan for uncertainties step by step. We will continue to gather the best available scientific evidence. We will continue to define why and how we justify allowing fisheries in spite of the uncertainty involved. And we will continue to explain and communicate our reasons to the public.

And let me also remind you that the Arctic Ocean is not an area full of "legal gaps". There is a comprehensive legal framework, including the UN Law of the Sea, which also applies in these waters.

All five Arctic Coastal States are parties to the 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement. Under the United Nation Fish Stocks Agreement, the coastal states are obliged to secure compatibility between management measures in areas within their national jurisdiction and beyond. This is why the coastal states have agreed to cooperate in the field of science to strengthen our understanding of the arctic marine ecosystems.

Bioprospecting
One of the cornerstones in my vision of possibilities is marine bio-prospecting. Marine bio-prospecting combines Norway’s long tradition of harvesting the sea with marine science and bio-technology.

Our search for valuable, biologically active compounds extends to all organisms in the sea. The unique Arctic environment with its combination of extreme temperatures and special light conditions, has led to the evolution of organisms with quite unique properties. And these properties may be utilized in products and processes within a multitude of different industries.

We anticipate that bioactive compounds from marine organisms will have a wide range of applications, and bring improvements to many areas of society. I think it is fair to say that if we manage to realize the potential of these bio-products, we should be able to establish a very lucrative industry.

Indeed, a national initiative on marine bio-prospecting fits very neatly into our overall desire for an innovative and sustainable national economy.

Conclusions
Over this week, we aim for a more profound understanding of the various challenges to nature and climate and opportunities for human activities in the High North.

To summarize: science and the constant generation of new knowledge is a cornerstone for the management of living marine resources and their environment.
 
Science must play a key role in achieving our ambition to tackle the various challenges we are facing in our fisheries and marine management. We must however take every necessary step to ensure that the science, on which we base our policies and regulations, is built on transparent methods and testable hypotheses.

Because as managers, our role is to strike the right balance – to stand firm when the pressure to optimize year-to-year quotas is growing, while others advocate stricter conservation of the same resources.

This need for continuously new knowledge and for continuously improved science make our ministry very devoted to the financing of these activities. Around 35% of our total budget is used for this purpose. Hopefully the reward is a continuously improved management of the oceans and their resources.

Thank you for your attention!