Saving Seafood

Skepticism About Marine Protected Areas

October 24th, 2016 — When looking at proposals for marine protected areas (MPAs) – such as the Biscayne National Park marine reserve and Our Florida Reefs proposals – it’s important to analyze all of the threats to our fisheries. MPAs can be an important tool in fisheries management, but they do nothing to address temperature rise, ocean acidification, pollution or invasive species. In a recent video by University of Washington Professor Ray Hilborn, he discusses why he is an MPA skeptic:

“The only threat that marine protected areas protect the ocean from is legal, regulated fishing, and we have a whole range of ways of regulating fisheries that are much more effective than marine protected areas.”

Unfortunately, the plans for the Biscayne marine reserve and Our Florida Reefs are based on an over-generalized assumption that MPAs will work in every situation – but that’s simply not the case. That’s why we must continue to stand up for sound, science-based fisheries management and voice our opposition to fishing closures that lack scientific evidence.

Read the full story at The Fishing Wire 

Fight Over Papahanaumokuakea Expansion Isn’t Over

October 20, 2016 — Hawaii’s commercial fishing industry leaders are not finished fighting the fourfold expansion of a U.S. marine monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

President Barack Obama signed a proclamation in August to make Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument the world’s largest protected natural area after several months of intense lobbying for and against the proposal.

Now the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which actively opposed the expansion, wants the government to study the potential effects and find ways to alleviate them.

Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council Chair Edwin Ebisui, left, and Executive Director Kitty Simonds, at Wespac’s meeting last week.

“The impacts to the Hawaii fishing and seafood industries and indigenous communities as a result of monument expansion are considerable,” Council Chair Edwin Ebisui Jr. said in a statement Friday. “The Council will write to the President about these and request the Department of Commerce to mitigate them.”

Wespac sets fisheries management policies for a 1.5-million-square-mile area and advises the National Marine Fisheries Service on how to minimize bycatch, protect habitat and prevent overfishing.

The latest wave of opposition to the monument rolled in earlier this month at the council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee meeting in Honolulu. 

New committee member Ray Hilborn, a prominent marine biologist from the University of Washington, railed against large marine protected areas.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

RAY HILBORN: Obama’s new ocean preserves are bad for the environment and for people

October 6th, 2016 — Who wants to save the oceans? Short answer: everyone, especially politicians. A less frequently asked question is whether their high-profile efforts always work.

Right now, world leaders seem to want to see who can declare the biggest marine protected areas, or MPAs, in their territory. MPAs are kinds of national parks for sea life that extends from ocean surface to ocean floor. Commercial fishing and other undersea ventures are banned in them.

They are popping up everywhere. In August, President Obama announced one in the western Pacific Ocean that is 50 per cent bigger than Texas. In September he created another, more modest one off the coast of New England.

Britain announced yet another MPA in September around St. Helena Island in the south Pacific. It is half the size of the Lone Star State.

In fact, the MPA movement has become a religion with accepted articles of faith that more and bigger are better.  This current obsession is bad for the oceans, bad for the global environment, and bad for people.

Consider what the imposition of an MPA can do to the economy and livelihood of local fishers, who are unable to easily pick up and move elsewhere. Some fishermen in New England are warning that they could go out of business as a result of the new Atlantic marine preserve.

Large MPAs are also bad for people because reducing ocean fish production by itself will mean less high quality, nutritious food available for the poorest people in the world and less employment for fishing-dependent communities

Political leaders argue they are protecting the oceans with MPAs, but mostly they aren’t. The major threats to ocean health and biodiversity, including global warming, ocean acidification, oil spills, floating masses of plastics, pollutant run-off from land, and illegal fishing–all are not addressed by this conservation measure.

Read the full opinion piece at Fox News 

Quit crabbing: Obama creates major no-go zone for fishermen in the Atlantic

September 16, 2016 — President Barack Obama has created a 4,900 square mile no-go zone for commercial fishing and other activity off the coast of New England as the first-ever Atlantic marine monument, a move loudly hailed by many environmentalists, but drawing strong protests from the fishing industry as well as causing discomfort among some prominent Democratic politicians whose constituents  are affected.

According to the White House, the newly protected zone, which focuses on a section of the lip of the continental shelf near the fishing grounds of Georges Bank, “includes three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon and four underwater mountains known as ‘seamounts’ that are biodiversity hotspots and home to many rare and endangered species.”

But the area now known as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is also the site of  rich lobster and crab fisheries and other commercial fishing activities that are overseen by regional fisheries management councils and are considered to be well-managed, sustainable activities. Some of the fisheries have self-imposed  restrictions that are tougher than those laid out by the regulators—and also fish at sea levels far above the ocean bottoms that the marine preserve claims to protect.

Under the monument designation, commercial fishermen have 60 days to depart from the area. Lobster and crab fishermen have been given a seven-year phase-out  provision. Recreational fishing will continue to be allowed.

As he did last month in creating a new Pacific marine preserve that is now the largest marine set-aside in the world, Obama used the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows creation of the protected area by decree  rather than the normal legislative process—a procedure that has drawn as much criticism from fishing communities as the creation of the preserve itself.

In a press release, the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association declared that “We find it deplorable that the government is kicking the domestic fishing fleet out of an area where they sustainably harvest healthy fish stocks.  Declaring a monument via Presidential fiat under unilateral authority of the Antiquities Act stands contrary to the principles of open government and transparency espoused by this President.”

Ray Hilborn, a fisheries scientist who is an expert on global fishing stocks, concurs. He told Fox News, “There is simply no need for arbitrary declaration of Marine Monuments.  We have a legal framework that can protect habitats, and rebuild fish stocks that relies on scientific analysis and consultation.  If there is a real threat these areas can be closed by the fisheries management councils.  Bypassing science and consultation is a very dangerous trend.”

Read the full story at Fox News

Closing parts of the ocean to fishing not enough to protect marine ecosystems

July 18, 2016 — A University of Washington fisheries professor argues that saving biodiversity in the world’s oceans requires more than banning fishing with marine protected areas, or oceanic wilderness areas. In a three-page editorial published in the journal Nature, he argues that this increasingly popular conservation strategy is not as effective as properly managing recreational and commercial fisheries. “There’s this idea that the only way you can protect the ocean is by permanently closing parts of the ocean to fishing, with no-take areas,” said Ray Hilborn, a professor in the UW’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “You protect biodiversity better by regulating fisheries over the country’s entire economic zone.”

Marine protected areas have grown in popularity since the early 2000s. Recent examples include an area twice the size of Texas in the central Pacific established in 2014 by President Barack Obama, and a proposal to close 25 percent of the Seychelles’ exclusive economic zone, an island nation off Africa’s east coast.

Several environmental organizations have set a longer-term goal of making 30 percent of the world’s oceans into no-take marine protected areas by the year 2030. But Hilborn believes this is not the best way to protect global marine ecosystems.

“If the problem is overfishing or bycatch, then fisheries management is much more effective than establishing MPAs because you regulate the catch over the entire economic zone,” Hilborn said. “I don’t see how anyone can defend MPAs as a better method than fisheries management, except in places where you just can’t do management.”

In countries with functioning fisheries management systems, Hilborn believes, conservationists and the fishing industry should work together on large-scale protection of marine biodiversity and sensitive marine habitats.

Read the full story at Science Daily

Exclusive: Q&A with Ray Hilborn regarding conflict of interest accusations

July 16, 2016 — In response to accusations of conflicts of interest made against him by Greenpeace, renowned global fisheries expert Ray Hilborn compiled documents defending his work from leading academic journals in which he published his research, as well as from an official at the University of Washington who helped lead an official review of his work at the university (The documents can be found at the bottom of this story). Hilborn also answered questions posed by SeafoodSource regarding Greenpeace’s claims via email.

SeafoodSource: Do you feel like you’ve adequately disclosed your funding sources and any potential conflicts of interest in your publications and public statements?

Hilborn: As UW, PNAS and Science concluded, I complied with the regulations required by the University and journals. I will now be much more explicit in the future since this has been raised and Science has changed its policies since 2009.

SeafoodSource: Can you explain how industry co-funding of research contributes to better fisheries management?

Hilborn: It would take pages to document all the ways that I know of that industry co-funding has contributed to management. I chaired a National Research Council report on this subject – National Research Council. 2003, Cooperative research in the National Marine Fisheries Service. National Research Council Press, Washington D.C.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com

Ray Hilborn fights back against Greenpeace accusations

July 15, 2016 — Global fisheries expert and University of Washington Professor Ray Hilborn is fighting back against accusations made in May by the environmental activist group Greenpeace alleging he did not appropriately disclose funding he received from the seafood industry.

In an email to SeafoodSource, Hilborn denied any conflict of interest in his work and attached copies of emails sent from representatives of the academic journals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and Science backing the integrity of his contributions to both publications. Hilborn also attached a copy of an email from Mary Lidstrom, the vice provost for research at the University of Washington, showing that a university review of Hilborn’s actions did not reveal any violations of the university’s policies or procedures governing conflicts of interest or outside consulting.

“As UW, PNAS and Science concluded, I complied with the regulations required by the University and journals,” Hilborn told SeafoodSource. (See the full interview here).

In her email, which was sent to PNAS Deputy Executive Editor Daniel Salsbury, Lidstrom said the university reviewed Hilborn’s funding types and sources, publication history and disclosures, as well as approvals for outside consulting and checked them against UW policies.

“We have not identified any actions or lack thereof, engaged in by Dr. Hilborn which violate University policies or procedures governing conflicts of interest or outside consulting,” Lidstrom wrote.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Ray Hilborn receives international fisheries science prize

May 26, 2016 — Ray Hilborn, a UW professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, this week will receive the 2016 International Fisheries Science Prize at the World Fisheries Congress in Busan, South Korea.

The award is given to Hilborn by the World Council of Fisheries Societies’ International Fisheries Science Prize Committee in recognition of his 40-year career of “highly diversified research and publication in support of global fisheries science and conservation,” according to a news release.

For Hilborn, who has received numerous awards for his research — including the Volvo Environment Prizeand the Ecological Society of America’s Sustainability Science Award — this recognition is particularly significant because it comes from other experts in fisheries science.

“It’s very gratifying in that it is experts in fisheries that are doing the evaluation and selection for this award,” Hilborn said.

Read the full story at the University of Washington

JES HATHAWAY: Getting Past Greenpeace

May 17, 2016 — I will admit, I was relieved to see a piece from the broader scientific community (not just fisheries science) that defends Ray Hilborn against the attack Greenpeace launched against him last week.

Hilborn defended himself quite well almost immediately, which is no surprise, given his reputation for being even-keeled, plainspoken and precise.

But this bulleted defense from Southern Fried Science, “Six thoughts about Greenpeace’s attack on Ray Hilborn,”doesn’t just defend Hilborn, it’s a defense of the scientific community. As it should be, because the Greenpeace attack was in effect a declaration of war on all scientists who specialize in a field of study. If you get close enough to a subject, you’re bound to work with groups that have a vested interest in the same subject. That’s how research specialists do their work. What Greenpeace is claiming is that if a scientist does not list in full his or her entire CV of funding with every article, op-ed, interview, paper, panel discussion, etc., then they’re hiding something.

Read the full story at the National Fisherman

Hilborn: Greenpeace attacks funding issue because science is sound

May 13, 2016 — University of Washington fishery scientist Ray Hilborn has responded to Greenpeace’s accusation that he often fails to disclose industry funding when writing or speaking about the extent of overfishing.

In a letter sent Wednesday to university president Ana Mari Cauce, Greenpeace filed a complaint against Hilborn’s research practices, and asked for an investigation.

Hilborn, over the years, has been a critic of Greenpeace as well as other environmental groups and researchers he accuses of overstating the impacts of fishing on marine resources.

“Greenpeace is unable to attack the science I and my collaborators do; science that threatens their repeated assertions that overfishing is universal and that the oceans are being emptied,” he said in a response on his blog.

“On the contrary it is clear that where effective fisheries management is applied, stocks are increasing not declining, and this is true in North America and Europe as well as a number of other places. Overfishing certainly continues to be a problem in the Mediterranean, much of Asia and Africa.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News