By overcapacity it is generally meant: the capacity above that
which is needed to make today's catch(6). Capacity is not a simple
question of the number of vessels, nor of the number of people
who are employed on board. As an example, a large factory trawler
can fish far more than a small fishing vessel is able to. Nor
can it be equated to the number of fishermen; it is a well known
fact that the factory trawler fleet employees very few people
per unit of fish caught compared to smaller vessels. Overcapacity
relates to the amount of fish the sum of vessels is able to catch.
The global overcapacity is estimated by FAO to be more than 100%.
This overcapacity, combined with either deficient or entirely
lacking management plans and/or surveillance and control mechanisms,
increase the pressure on fish stocks resulting in many being seriously
depleted. The less a particular country has developed management
regimes for their fisheries, including effective systems of control,
the more serious will the consequences be of an export of capacity
to their waters.
Overcapacity can easily be exported to other regions, particularly
if the vessels in question belong to an international fleet with
no roots in the local area. Factory ships are seldom attached
to any particular community or geographical area and are usually
not dependent on factories onshore to process their catch. Consequently
they are well equipped to relocate to new areas on a short notice,
especially if they are modern, large, fast ocean-going vessels.
In spite of the global overcapacity, the building of new and more
efficient ships continues unabated. In this particular case, this
is made possible by Norway, but other OECD countries provide extensive
subsidies for building of new ships as well. In the period from
1970 to 1990 FAO registered a doubling of the global fishing fleet,
from 585.000 to 1.2 million medium and large-sized fishing vessels,
something which would have been impossible without large government
subsidies.
Apart from the subsidies for building of new ships, the fishing
industry is financially supported in a number of other ways in
most countries in the world. According to FAO, the fishing industry
receives approximately 54 billion USD in subsidies a year. Knowing
that the collective value of the global fish catch is 70 billion
USD, it is easy to conclude that subsidies have largely ciontributed
to overfishing of the world's fish resources.
Obviously, the capacity of local fishing fleets must also be counted
into the total global overcapacity. However, due to both their
impact on the resource, the lack of loyalty or connections of
the factory trawlers to the local communities and the sheer proportion
of world catches they get, factory trawlers must take a major
share of the responsibility for the global overcapacity and, therefore,
the burden required to reduce it.
The development of the factory trawler fleet has been made possible
by a policy of subsidies combined with a belief in the economic
advantages of the factory trawler fleet over the small scale coastal
fishermen. This a contradicition in terms: if the factory trawler
fleet was so economically efficient subsidies would have been
unnecessary. Obvious as this may seem, recently studies have confirmed
it.
For a number of years, Fiskeriforskning (Fisheries Research Department)
in Tromsoe has carried out operational studies for the Norwegian
fishery industry. A main conclusion is that conventional, locally-owned
companies have been the most profitable. Other investigations
show that typical big companies with large-scale streamlined assembly
line production, have been unprofitable. The small companies have
survived on their own, while the large ones have survived because
of the subsidies(7).
Another important aspect of the overcapacity in the factory trawler
versus local fishery debate is the social problems the factory
trawler fleet often leads to. Too many examples exist where the
introduction of factory trawlers has led to smaller catches by
the local fishermen as well as lower prices for their catch. Conflicts
- some of them armed - often follow in the wake.
A report by Greenpeace showed that in the last years, in no less
than 26 areas, large conflicts over the right of access to marine
resources have occurred. Of these, 19 have involved military vessels
and 10 have involved exchange of fire(8).
With RGI's new supertrawler American Monarch, the global
overcapacity is increased another notch. American Monarch
is proudly advertised by RGI as the world's most efficient trawler
and has a capacity which indicates that it could fish the entire
annual catch by the Icelandic fleet in the Smutthullet - in less
than two months.
RGI justifies the American Monarch with the fact that the company has bought and decommisionned 3 trawlers with the equivalent capacity as that ship. RGI uses engine power as a measure of capacity. In Chile, this is an accepted way of comparing capacity. It is argued that the engine power of a vessel decides the size of the trawl the fishing vessel can be equipped with.
However, capacity can not be calculated this way. American
Monarch is a vessel with all imaginable technology both on
the catching as well as the processing side. The three ships,
in spite of having the same overall engine power, did not have
the same fishing capacity. Consequently the American Monarch
can not be directly compared with the three vessels it replaces,
and will only lead to an increase in fishing capacity in a country
and region where it is already far too high and the regulation
and control of the fishing activities is virtually non-existent(9).
In Norway, the government has worked actively to reduce overcapacity
in the Norwegian fishing fleet. Fishermen have received economic
support to scrap their vessels thus reducing the total capacity,
in theory without relocating it to other parts of the world. This
has been a limited success: “success” because the Norwegian
overcapacity has been reduced from 100 to 50-60%; “limited”
because part of this capacity reduction has moved out of Norway
to less regulated regions in other parts of the world.
Transfer of capacity is a considerable problem in international
fisheries. It is known in our local waters, the Barents Sea: Icelandic
fishermen and fishing vessels, operating under flags of convenience,
often in vessels built with the help of Norwegian subsidies, conduct
an extensive fishery in the international (and non-regulated)
area of Smutthullet. Many of these vessels previously fished in
the Icelandic Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Other vessels found
in this area have previously operated on the Grand Banks outside
Canada - these ships were sold cheaply to Iceland and are now
fishing in international waters.