April 22, 2012 – The leaders of the five Arctic coastal states — including Prime Minister Stephen Harper — are being urged by more than 2,000 scientists from around the world to impose a moratorium on industrial fishing in the increasingly accessible waters of the central Arctic Ocean until experts can determine the size and sustainability of the resource.
In an open letter signed by 551 Canadian scientists — along with about 1,500 others from 67 countries — the researchers issued an appeal to the governments of Canada, the U.S., Russia, Norway and Denmark to develop an international fisheries accord that would avoid decimating potentially lucrative species such as Arctic cod before enough is known about their populations.
“Scientists recognize the crucial need for an international agreement that will prohibit the start of commercial fishing until research-based management measures can be put in place,” said Henry Huntington, Arctic science director of the U.S.-based Pew Environment Group, which organized the global scientific appeal. “There’s no margin for error in a region where the melting sea ice is rapidly changing the marine ecosystem.”
The area in question lies beyond the 370-kilometre, nearshore “exclusive economic zone” within which each Arctic coastal country has acknowledged fishing rights.
Even within the close-to-the-coast, Beaufort Sea exclusive economic zones of the U.S. and Canada, a lack of scientific knowledge about the size of fish stocks has already prompted bans on commercial fisheries until more research is completed.
But out toward the middle of the Arctic Ocean, where thick, multi-year sea ice seemed a permanent fixture on the water until recent years, even less is known about resident fish populations.
Read the full story from the Ottawa Citizen.