Fisheries, Biodiversity Conservation and Food Security

1. J. Rice and S.M. Garcia IUCN/CEM/FEG Fisheries, Biodiversity Conservation and Food Security J. Sunde-ICSF R.Tarr Unknown Presentation at COFI (FAO) 9-13 July 2012

2. Objectives and constraints For responsible fisheries: • Objective: Maintain/increase contribution to livelihoods and food security • Constraint: limit collateral impact on productivity and biodiversity For sustainable use of biodiversity: • Objective: maintain ecosystem biomass, diversity, structure and functioning • Constraint: limit collateral impact on dependent human populations The objective of fisheries is the constraint for biodiversity and vice versa

3. RelevantAichi targets 01 : Raise awareness on biodiversity value and sustainable use 02 : Integrate these values in development & poverty reduction strategies 03 : Eliminate subsidies, minimize impacts and provide incentives 04 : Plan for sustainable production withinsafe limits 06 : Sustainability; No IUU; No overfishing; Recovery; Impact reduction 11: 10% coverage by MPA networks and other area-based measures 12 : Prevent extinction 18 : Integratetraditional knowledge. Full participation All this is part of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and related IPOAs. No real conflict on principles The Evil hides in practical implementation

4. Pro-biodiversity fishery measures • Fishing: capacity reduction (systemic measure) and regulation of gears and practices; fishery reserves (for habitats and life stages); fishing rights; lost gear recovery • Trade: related to species/populations. Connect resources to markets and Flag States to Port States: traceability, Port State control of landings, national control and enforcement, capacity.building • Consumption: to use educated consumer preference: Ecolabelling. Need to deal with contamination

5. Strategic fishery challenge • Catches: around 90 million tonnes • Livelihoods: 42 million direct fishery jobs & 500 million livelihoods2 • Food: 20% protein intake provided for over 2 billion people3 • BUT: 75% underperforming resources: Cost to society: 50 billion/year4 • Population: From 6.8 billion people to about 9 billion by 2050. • Of which: 6 billion in coastal areas1 by 2020 • Needs: 350 million tonnes more of dietary protein by 2050 • Needs from fisheries: 75 million tonnes more (+50%) by 2050 … In a context of growing poverty, indebtedness, pollution and contamination, coastal degradation, freshwater withdrawal… and climate change!!! 1-UNEP 2007; 2-Worldfish 2009; 3-FAO 2009; 4-World Bank 2009

6. Food security challenge Is it possible to increase production while decreasing impacts ??? 1400 1200 1000 800 Millionmetric tonnes Proteins required 600 Impacts 400 ? 200 Fishery proteins 1963 2005 1950 1975 2000 2025 2050 From Rice and Garcia 2010-Sendai symposium

7. Some hard realities Need to add 50% to the protein harvested from the sea, BUT: • Catches on high trophic levels cannot be expanded: overfishing! • Catches on deep ocean will not yield much more: high risks! • Stocks rebuilding is likely to be slow and transition costs are high • Stocks rebuilding may or not generate higher total yields1 • Total yield depends on how harvesting is distributed among trophic levels, sizes and species3 • Higher yields could come from lower trophic levels2 : forage food! • EA requires maintaining ecosystem diversity, structure and function • But past fishing regimes have changed the ecosystems • Balanced Harvest3 complies better with EA but is not easy to implement 1-Pitcher and Cochrane 2002; Okey and Wright 2004. 2- Pope et al. 2006; Genner et al. 2010) 3-Garcia et al. 2012

8. Pro-biodiversity measures • To protect ecosystem processes, reduce stress from fisheries • To increase resilience to climate change, reduce stress from fisheries • To protect vulnerable ecosystems, reduce fisheries even more on reefs, mangroves, seamounts, etc. • To improve coastal habitats, reduce LB pollution and fisheries • To protect “original” biodiversity, reduce use of alien strains and species in aquaculture • For all of these objectives: increase the coverage of MPA networks Pro-biodiversity measures call for reducing fisheries How will fisheries share the cost of improving biodiversity with other ocean impacters and climate change culprits is far from explicit.

9. Hard choices • The relatively low ecological footprint of fisheries can be further reduced • But actions to meet fisheries contribution to food security have a cost • They may counter biodiversity conservation objectives • BUT, Food security & biodiversity conservation are both highly ethical: Can we reduce/avoid conflict? Develop synergy? • Spatial planning may help reduce conflicts But technical adjustments are unlikely to resolve fundamental issues • Win-win solutions are very scarce • Hard choices will be needed requiring efficiency and equity • Joint exploration of plausible future scenarios and robust strategic policies and tactical measures is needed to sustain fisheries AND conserve biodiversity in a changing world. Rice and Garcia, 2010-Sendai)

10. The problem • Improving fisheries management will reduce economic and environmental costs and perhaps make right-holders wealthier However • Most fishery-related measures to improve biodiversity conservation are likely to reduce the contribution of fisheries to food security and vice versa. Therefore: • What part of society decides on the compromise needed? • Who will bear the costs? The poor? Nature? Those who will benefit? • Who will assess and balance the risks? Who will explicitly allocate costs and benefits? This needs to be discussed seriously looking for coherent responses This is not yet the case and the result is…

11. Contradictions

12. Example of dilemmas Purse seine tuna fishing on FADs and floating objects produces a certain level of by-catch. However, a total ban of this fishing practice (envisioned by some) would: • Lead the purse seine fishery top leave the Indian Ocean, with • Disastrous consequences for coastal economies providing services to the industry and processing fish • Massive loss of employment and revenues • Substituting purse seine fishing with pole-and-line would increase (x6) the catch of non-target species and double fuel consumption, crippling the Co2 Budget.

13. Fragmented governance Biodiversity conservation Food security Livelihoods Fisheries sustainability Climate change Because there are no fully integrated discussions, solutions to some problems in one setting are considered problems in others

14. Conclusions … • We do not have yet an agreement on the “right” society choices • We are concerned: • Policy dialogues about climate change and food security and climate change and biodiversity as well as biodiversity and fisheries are proceeding in parallel with few formal feed-back loops • The outcomes of fragmented dialogues are not coherent • There are tensions between fortress conservation and sustainable use • This creates sectors suspicion, not the needed adhesion

15. … Conclusions • There is an urgent need to have a fora and institutions in which fisheries, food security, biodiversity conservation and environmental degradation (including climate change) are discussed together to find joint responses to questions such as: • How to meet (or change?) present and future food security needs? • How to maintain a dynamic/productive ecosystem to that end? • What objectives and strategies will best address these two questions? • What does “conservation” means if past states are uncertain and “irrelevant” for the future and the baselines move from past to future? Without a merger of these policy discussions, the likely outcome is failure on both governance pathways

16. Serge M. Garcia Chair IUCN/CEM/FEG Thanks you for your attention Unknown R.Tarr Sustainable Ocean Initiative 2, Yeosu, June 2012