September 11, 2018 — As the planet warms, species are moving further north to climate zones which are closer in temperature to what they originally evolved in. The oceans have absorbed most of this temperature increase, and so many marine species, including commercially fished scallops, are under particular stress to migrate northwards to cooler waters.
In the face of this disruption, legal boundaries for fishing fleets could become increasingly irrelevant. As the fish stocks they once contained move out, conflict is likely to arise between countries exploiting neighbouring fishing grounds.
As a result, the ongoing “scallop war“, which has seen tense physical confrontations between French and British scallop fishers over access to these prized molluscs, may be a taste of worse to come.
The habitat ranges and migration patterns of commercial species in the ocean have been carefully studied throughout history, so that fishing fleets can exploit them more efficiently. This understanding has informed the division of fishing grounds according to who has the right to harvest them.
French scallop fishers were incensed over their British counterparts’ alleged pillaging of scallop stocks, as smaller British boats aren’t bound by a French law that prohibits dredging in the Baie de Seine from October 1 through May 15, to allow scallop populations to recover.
While on the surface it might seem that these skirmishes are anchored to specific circumstances – potentially inflamed by existing tensions around Brexit – they highlight the enormous difficulties in clearly mapping and enforcing legal boundaries around natural habitats that are changing rapidly.