PRESS RELEASE

Expert says Ottawa must count better to avoid repeat of cod collapse

January 17, 2002, JEDDORE OYSTER POND, NOVA SCOTIA– One of Canada’s leading fisheries experts says Ottawa must adopt new ways to measure the health of ocean fisheries if it wants to avoid future catastrophes like the cod collapse and the devastation it caused fishermen and their communities.

“It’s no longer enough merely to count fish landings and plant production,” said Saint Mary’s University professor Tony Charles, author of several books on sustainable fisheries. “Policy planners must also consider the health of the ocean environment and the wellbeing of coastal communities.”

Charles is principal author of a major study on the Atlantic fisheries released today in this Eastern Shore fishing village. Produced by the non-profit research group GPI Atlantic, the 76-page report uses 37 distinct indicators – ranging from traditional catch statistics to measures of toxic residues and bankruptcies – to assess the health of Canada’s fisheries and marine environment.

It represents the first attempt anywhere in the world to assemble comprehensive biological, social, and economic measures for gauging the wellbeing of fish stocks, the ocean environment, and coastal communities that depend on them.

The report is one of a series produced by GPI Atlantic, a leader in research to establish a Genuine Progress Index or GPI. Its goal is to produce a measure of economic progress that reflects social and environmental wellbeing more accurately than traditional economic growth statistics like the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

GPI researchers believe such measures could provide early warning signals that would help policy planners avoid future disasters like the cod collapse.

“Monitoring the health of fish stocks, the ocean environment, and fishing communities more accurately will help us know how they are doing so we can protect their wellbeing,” said GPI Executive Director Ronald Colman.

For example, the GPI-Atlantic fisheries accounts show that cod stocks began a precipitous decline five years before they finally collapsed. At the same time, spending on fisheries science, surveillance, and enforcement decreased significantly, just when greater vigilance was required.

“Misleading measures of progress helped fool us into believing the fishery was healthy,” said Colman. “The old-style measures kept sending the wrong message to citizens and policy makers alike.”

“Those DFO scientists who did pick up on danger signs could be ignored because their findings ran counter to the conventional wisdom that record fish landings must mean a healthy fishery,” said Charles.

“We have a lot of experience at counting fish and dollars,” Charles said. “We need to develop new data sets to help us measure such things as the effectiveness of regulatory institutions, and the fairness of income distribution in the fishery.”

The report also found that access to groundfish has become more concentrated over time, with fewer people and corporations able to go fishing than in the past.

“This is a concern in itself, since it negatively affects the health of coastal communities,” said Dr. Charles, “But it’s also a concern that no one in government regularly monitors this disturbing trend."

“There is a growing sense that the limiting of access that has already occurred in the groundfish fishery could be happening now in the lobster fishery, with disastrous impact on communities across Atlantic Canada,” he said. “Just as government tracks such measures as catch levels and fish exports, it should also track, and report on, the distribution of access to Canadian resources.”

The official release of the GPI Fisheries Account comes as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is conducting a major review of fisheries policy on the east coast. The Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review produced a policy paper and conducted 19 public consultation hearings last year. The review is expected to lead to a new policy framework, one that needs to take into account the messages contained in this report.

Figure 1. The value of Nova Scotia’s haddock stocks generally rose between 1972 and 1988 but fell in 1989 and has not yet reached levels as high as those in the 1980’s. Unfortunately, data are not available previous to 1972.