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Assessment of the World's Fishing Fleet
Submitted to Greenpeace International by John Fitzpatrick and Chris NewtonCONTENTS
Executive Summary
Backdrop of the Assessment
Too Many Mega-Boats Plundering the Seas
Findings of the Assessment
Vessel Efficiency
Reducing OvercapacityThe assessment finds that the expansion in the size and capacity of the world's fishing fleets continued to increase over the period 1991 - 1996. A slow down in new additions occurred in 1995 and 1996. In 1997, the orders for new vessels show a return to construction of vessels with large tonnage. The authors recommend a fifty percent (50%) reduction in the present size of the world's industrialized fishing fleet.
The political 'starting-point' for the Assessment of the World's Fishing Fleet 1991-1997 is the 21st Session of the Committee on Fisheries, Rome, 1995, when the FAO Ministerial Conference on Fisheries adopted the Rome Consensus on World Fisheries, noting that the problem of overfishing in general, and overcapacity of industrial fishing fleets in particular, threatened the sustainability of the world's fisheries resources for present and future generations. The Ministerial Conference urged governments and international organizations to urgently review the capacity of fishing fleets and where necessary reduce them.
The call to eliminate overfishing and excessive fishing capacity is echoed in two other important international fisheries agreements - the 1995 Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks), and the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (FAO Code). The 1995 UN Fisheries Agreement relates primarily to high seas fisheries, while the FAO Code widens application to areas within zones of national jurisdictions.
Too Many Mega-Boats Plundering the Seas
The Rome Consensus, the 1995 UN Fisheries Agreement, and the FAO Code are set against the backdrop of a widely acknowledged crisis in world marine fisheries characterized by the FAO's estimation that 69% of the world's major fisheries are fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted while on average some 27 million tons of unwanted fish 'bycatch' is caught, killed and dumped back into the sea each year, because of unselective fishing practices and gear, and the fact that there are simply too many industrial-scale boats plying the world's oceans. In this regard, Greenpeace believes special attention must be urgently directed at reducing capacity in the "large-scale industrialized fishing" sector, as called for at last year's Earth Summit Special Session of the UN General Assembly (para. 36(c)).
Unfortunately, nations responsible for reducing their fishing fleets' capacity are generally failing to act. In response, in late 1996 Greenpeace commissioned research to assess the capacity of the world's fishing fleet. The research was undertaken by two former chiefs (recently retired) from the Fisheries Department of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). They are Chris Newton, former Chief of Fishery Information, Data and Statistics Service (FIDI) and John Fitzpatrick , former Chief of the Fishing Technology Service (FIIT) of FAO's Fishery Industries Division.
They used Lloyd's Maritime Information Services, European Community Register of Fishing Vessels, FAO fisheries department statistics and data from other sources to analyze the sector of the global fishing fleet comprised of "large-scale", "industrialized vessels - those exceeding 24 meters in length and more than 100 gross tonnes (GT); it covers about 70% of the value of the world's fishing fleet (estimated by FAO in 1992 at roughly $319,000 million). By number, of the approximately three-and-a-half million fishing vessels estimated worldwide, only about 38,000, or roughly one percent of the total, are classified as large-scale, industrialized vessels. Yet, these relatively few vessels constitute 50-60% of the world's total fishing vessel capacity.
Newton and Fitzpatrick begin their report by recalling FAO's cautionary prescription for the vast majority of stocks that are in decline or over-exploited -- to apply effective management action to halt the increase in fishing capacity and to rehabilitate damaged fisheries resources.
The most critical of the range of effective fishery conservation and management measures needed is the application of the precautionary approach. The use of the precautionary approach is also specified in the 1995 UN Fisheries Agreement and in the FAO Code. It is widely agreed that, if applied generally, the precautionary approach should result in lower levels of catches from most of the world's major fisheries, thus facilitating the urgently needed recovery of populations of fish considered to be declining due to overfishing. Using FAO's own forecast requirements for reduction of fishing capacity, Newton and Fitzpatrick point out that decreased marine catches in coming years should be expected to be well below 70 million tonnes (using the 1990-94 average level of catches and not including production from mariculture - i.e., "fish farming"). So far, however, marine catches are still rising to the extent that in both 1994 and 1995 they increased to 85.3 and 84.7 million tonnes respectively (with preliminary figures for 1996 also showing another increase). The authors suggest that this is a strong indication that fishing nations generally are not reducing their excess fishing capacity to ameliorate the imbalanc e between fishing effort and the productive capacity of fish populations.
In its 1995 state of world fisheries report FAO estimated the total fishing vessel capacity (as of 1992) to be 26 million gross tonnes. In distribution by continent, Asia held 42% of the world's total fishing fleet, the former USSR 3 0%, Europe 12%, North America 10%, Africa 3%, South America 3%, and Oceania 0.5%.
The major conclusion of the Assessment of the World's Fishing Fleet 1991-1997 done by Newton and Fitzpatrick for Greenpeace, is that since 1992 vessels on the register of flag states continued to increase by 720,000 tons in th e following 5 years (to 1997), a nominal increase of approximately three percent. Although they show a sharp decrease in the numbers of new fishing vessels in 1995 and 1996, as well as a reduction in the tonnage of these vessels compared with earlier y ears, the analysis of orders for new vessels during 1997 shows an increase in numbers and a return to the construction of large-tonnage fishing vessels.
More than eighty-two percent (82.2%)of new additions to the world's fleet between 1991 - 1995 was by only 14 states, of which a mere four states accounted for 53% (Table 1). Fifteen per cent of total new additions belonged to four sta tes with open registers, commonly referred to as flags of convenience (FOCs), whose combined total reported marine catches were less than 200,000 mt in 1994. This should be compared with the new additions to the European Union's (EU) fleet at 16%, for a marine catch of over 7 million mt. In terms of tonnage, 80% of new additions were by 19 states, with 5 states responsible for 51%. Of the states responsible for new additions, twelve were in the world's top fish producing countries.
Table 1: Fishing Vessel Additions to the World's Fleets, 1991 - 1995 Country
No of Additions
Cumulative % of New Vessels to Worlds Fleet
1.Japan
297
19.2
2. Eur. Union
248
35.2
3. Honduras
153
45.1
4. Russia
125
53.1
5. Peru
109
60.2
6. Former USSR
81
65.4
7. Chile
46
68.4
8. Liberia
42
71.1
9. Morocco
37
73.5
10. China
32
75.5
11. Argentina
31
77.5
12. Iran
26
79.2
13. S. Korea
24
80.8
14. USA
23
82.2
Throughout the period 1991-94, additions to the world's fleet continue to exceed deletions. In this connection, there is evidence that the fishing fleets are not being restructured, that capacity is not being effectively reduced, an d that states with open registers (commonly referred to as "flags of convenience" are increasing their capacity. The Newton-Fitzpatrick report also highlights that a large proportion of the industrial fishing fleet is old and inefficient and in need of scrapping with the percentage of vessels older than twenty years standing at 48%.
With respect to the deletions and scrapping of vessels from older fleets, while it might have been expected that much of the former USSR fishing fleet (previously one of the world's largest industrial-scale fleet) would have been s crapped, it still represents capacity potential since a number of these vessels either continue to operate outside of their jurisdictional waters (e.g. reflagged) or have been sold to developing countries. In 1991 the former USSR had 3,042, but by 199 4 the combined fleet of the new Russian Federation and eight other independent states had risen to 3,058 vessels.
The change in the size of the Russian Federation's fleet in particular reflects sales/scrapping of some ships with the addition of 125 new vessels. Interestingly, the financing for some of these vessels required conditions for a repl acement ratio of one new vessel to five existing vessels. This could be an important initiative by financial institutions imposing replacement ratios for new construction to keep the overall fishing power in balance, or indeed to reduce it significantly.
The Soviet vessels that were sold, together with the sale of older vessels from Japan and the European Union in recent years represent "technology dumping" and has led to many of them being referred to as "sub-standard sh ips". As a consequence, developing countries' fleets are comprised of considerably older vessels.
New additions to the European Union fleet show that replacement vessels have increased gross tonnage (GT) and horsepower. EU data shows that the average gross tonnage for Spanish vessels (Europe's biggest fishing fleet) in 1993 was 338 GT while Lloyds shows the average GT of new Spanish vessels in 1995 at 405 GT. The profile of the EU fleet in 1995 reveals that of 99,783 fishing vessels, only 3,871 are in the industrialized category (24 meters and over), or less than four percent. Yet, this small percentage of the EU fleet accounts for about 57 percent of the EU's total fishing capacity of 2,081,626 GT.
The efficiency of fishing vessels changes over time, so that a vessel built in the 1990's is not comparable in terms of efficiency with a vessel of the same tonnage built in the 1970's. New construction is specialized toward large vessels using mid-water trawls, highly specialized auto long-lines of up to 50,000 hooks and deep water fishing with trawls/long-lines on sea mounts and in deep ridges. Technological change has therefore increased the rate of the increase in gross ton nage over time. The change had been relatively slow between 1965 - 1980 as the fleets adopted electronic and hydraulic equipment. Between 1980 - 1995 technology increased rapidly, not only from more advanced electronics and hydraulic equipment, but in r efrigeration, fuel efficiency, remote sensing equipment and improved vessel design configurations.
A good example of this "technology coefficient" can be seen for a class of freezer trawler. In this case, using 1980 as the reference point year at a value of one (1), a vessel built in 1965 would have a coefficient of .5 in relation to a vessel in 1980. Its efficiency would be half of the 1980 vessel. A vessel built in 1995, however, would have the equivalency of over 2.
The concepts of "technology coefficients" and "efficiency cross curves" presented in the Newton-Fitzpatrick report to Greenpeace highlight the need to develop new mechanisms for the removal of vessels older than 20 y ears (unless they have been modernized through refitting). It is also necessary to develop these coefficients for application in fleet restructuring programs. The coefficients indicate the replacement ratios required for new fishing vessels. As such, a new freezer trawler in 1995 would be required to remove nearly 4 trawlers built in 1980. This replacement ratio is only for the equivalent technology and efficiency cross coefficients, and does not address the excess capacity and overfishing issues; the ratio would have to be higher. Without the application of technology coefficients in vessel replacement programs, attempts to curb excess fishing capacity through length and tonnage requirements will not be effective.
Additions to the world's fleet from 1991-97, therefore, not only increased fleet size by three percent (3%) in terms of tonnage but by an efficiency factor depending on the type of vessel. New additions and refits therefore increase potential fishing capacity beyond estimates of capacity based on tonnage.
In order to estimate the extent of increased potential fishing capacity resulting from new additions to the world's fleet, an average of the replacement ratios for various types of new vessels by vessel type is presented resulting in o verall ratio of 3:1. Thus for every new vessel being built three vessels built before 1980 would be required to be scrapped or removed from the fishing fleet in order to prevent an increase in potential fishing capacity. Since such ratios have not been applied to new additions to the world's fleet, the fleet has increased its potential by 14%. That is to say, the world's fleet increased by 3% in terms of tonnage and 14% in terms of potential capacity. In addition, vessels built after 1980 and refi tted 10 to 15 years later, as has been the practice in the last five years, have also contributed to potential fishing capacity. Inclusion of these refitted vessels would increase capacity by another 8%. The overall increase is therefore estimated at 22 %.
The above calculations based on technology coefficients indicates that the world's fleet would need to have been reduced by 22% in order for its potential fishing capacity to have remained constant as a result of new additions to th e fleet and refits. In order to reduce capacity, a greater reduction would be required.
On the basis of adjustments required to offset overall fishing capacity from new vessel construction and refits (22%), together with the minimum estimated provided by earlier global modeling calculated FAO researchers (Newton and Garcia ) (23%) for the reduction in the size of the fleet, Newton and Fitzpatrick recommend in their report to Greenpeace that the international community should be requiring almost a 50% reduction in the present size of the fleet. In order to achieve such red uctions within a meaningful time frame, states will need to introduce scrapping and decommissioning programs as well as imposing replacement ratios on new vessel constructions so as to prevent the potential fishing capacity of the world's fleet from requi ring even greater reductions in fleet size from state intervention through scrapping programs. They suggest that responsible states may wish to consider switching funds available for subsidies for ship construction toward a scrapping and decommissioning p rogram, for instance.
The authors also note that their analysis shows that the adoption of "flags of convenience" continues to increase. More countries are also offering their flags. They suggest that, in the case of existing vessels registered un der a national flag, states concerned may be able to prevent their vessels from reflagging by providing legislation that registered national fishing vessels cannot leave their jurisdiction so that any requests for deletion from the registry can be denied.
Two key issues demand urgent international attention if the capacity of the world's fishing fleets are to be made transparent and measurable:
- a full and authoritative source of information, and
- a standardized vessel classification and measurement system; neither currently exist in the world.
Newton and Fitzpatrick add, in conclusion, that whereas a 50% reduction in capacity may appear a too severe objective, if states are to effectively introduce the precautionary approach to their national and international fisheries and r educe harvest levels to ecologically sound levels, fleets will face reductions in fishing effort that will cause economic strain. To offset this strain, a reduction in fleet size will be necessary.
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