The topic of this case study is the collapse of cod in the Atlantic ocean in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The main. Cod was a very abundant resource from the XVth century until the XXth century whe the development of new technologies engendered a huge increase of catches and led to the collapse because of this overexploitation. The federal government is one of the main decision making, and has worked to protect the population of cod and introduced policies with the goal of undoing damage incurred by a lack of policy enforcement that lead to the destruction of this population. In 1992 the Federal Government was forced to close the Newfoundland Fishery. But other stakeholders take part into the decision making : First, the scentists and experts who make estimations about the amount of stock and have an influence in the process, then, the industrial lobbys that want to maximize their production and their interest also have an inflence on the government that can pass laws that help those interests. The United Nations (U.N.) also has a presence in this issue, through the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO).  The U.N. examines where the main producers of cod are located along with the processes currently used in the collection of this.

In 1992 the Federal Government was forced to close the Newfoundland Fishery; demonstrating the dire position of cod in the Atlantic as a total ban on fishing affect every possible stakeholder, including the Federal Government themselves. In the past, the federal government had set a Exclusive Economic Zone in 1977 of 200 nautic miles from the coasts. This decision excluded every foreign ship to fish in those zones and to reduce the amount of fishing. However, the new technologies increased even more the fishing and the decision was made in 1992 to completely forbid cod fishing.

To avoid having to take any further extreme measures both Canada and the United States have put more effort and resources into its protection.  In Canada there is work done by both the federal and provincial government.  In 2003, three federal-provincial Cod Action Teams were created, with Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI).  Strategically, the creation of these teams is a very effective move, allowing for each province or group of provinces to have their own team, but the overarching involvement of the federal government allows for a greater number of resources available to the provinces but also allows for a cohesion among each provinces action plans to protect this population.

North Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) Convention is an international/global agreement on protecting the waters of North Atlantic and everything within it, including the Atlantic cod species. The convention under Article I states that the coastal states of North Atlantic (Canada and United States) have jurisdiction on the living resources that are in the 200 nautical miles boundary from where territorial sea is measured. (NAFO,2004) The jurisdiction includes rights for exploiting, exploring, managing and conserving resources that lie within the area. Article II of the convention states that only contracting parties of NAFO can have their vessel in these waters. The importance of this convention allows protection on Atlantic cod stocks because it creates a border preventing people from countries not on the contracting parties to come into these waters and fishing in it. This inhibits illegal fishing which will further deplete the stock and allows legal legislations to finally be in place because now the law has a concrete area to control.

The World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) is also a stakeholder in the process . It argues strongly that the cod population is struggling to grow in its population and that this is an indicator and a warning as to what can happen with overfishing and lack of regulations.  As a non-governmental organization, they are unable to impose new policy, however this does not prevent the lobbying of government as well as the WWF taking on their own initiatives.

Transparency is a big issue for Cod fishing. Those different stakeholders have a different weight inside of the decision making system especially when it is about decisions taken by political stakeholders.

During many years, the great companies who were doing industrial fishing had a powerful lobby and all the main decisions were taken accordingly with their interest. On the same time the issue about the amount of fish and the remaining stocks was really uncertain and this lack of knowledge could not prompt any transparency for decision making : if therre is no serious or accurate knowledge with the data, it is even harder to have the citizens informed about the issues and and the main decisions. The main problem is that cod in the Atlantic has been considered as an unllimited resource and thererfore it has been very difficult to make the politicians understand that they had to manage this resource and change their policy. There is a big struggle between the different stakeholders, between the environment protection agencies, the industrial lobby and the local fishers who are hugely affected by the ban on fishing cod since 1992 and who regulary ask for stoping the ban. Because of the invesments they had made previously, they fought against the restricted access of the resource. The fishers regulary ask that their opinion is taken into account into the decision process.

The core question will be “How did the lack of scientific knowledge enabled the collapse of Cod fishing and what does it reveal on the importance of measuring data”.

http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/10/08/icesjms.fsv172.full.pdf+html

This is an article of the ICES journal of marine Science. The main argument is to develop some indicators in orer to have a better knowledge of the resource and the way to manage it well, taking in account the whole ecosustem and its evolution and not only the ammount of fish. It reveals what are the new indices and the comparisons needed that weren’t done in the 1970’s and led to the collapse of the cod fishing.

It is noteworthy because it has been written by specialists of oceanography using important datasource in order to make their conclusions. The way that the statistics are elaborated is important to understand why the lack of knowledge in the 1970’s led to an overfishing situation. It is also important to understand scientit’s approach to then see how they make recommandations to the governments

The method for gathering and mesuring the data is based on a  swept-area method with mathematical et statistics models. This article is trustworthy because it comes from a revue specialized into this domain and uses many sources. The models elaborate many graphs and use rigourous mathematical models. The weakness of this reference is that it might be too complicated for non specialists that might don’t understanf all the models.

http://www.gov.nl.ca/publicat/royalcomm/research/Rose.pdf

This is an independant and personal essay from G.A. Rose, an editor in chief specialized in fisheries research, in Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s . Hence it is a personal production and does not imply an official research team. The main point is about the level of knowledge about fisheries. It says the fisheries science at both federal and provincial has an inapropriate level for diagnosing the ecosystem state. The research needs more money from the state to support sustainable fisheries. There won’t be any sustainable plan if there is no increase of the funding.

It is noteworthy beacause it provides a good overview of the current level of science about fisheries and makes some recommandations for a sustainable managment, making a explaination of this collapse and making some conclusions : « a combination of circumstances which included the inability to control foreign and domestic fisheries, inadequate science, inappropriate policies, ineffective management, and the inability to react to local environmental and fisheries conditions and knowledge, has led to a major decline in the status of most fish stocks in the Newfoundland and Labrador marine ecosystem »

The author describes his method for gathering data in the 1st appendix : « Historical data were collected from several sources (Table 1). Discrepancies in the data were resolved using a comparative method. For example, in many cases several independent data records existed for the same time period. A modal range was used to decide which record to use. »

The weakness could be the fact that it is a personal research with personal interpestation.

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas-sccs/Publications/SAR-AS/2013/2013_014-eng.pdf

This is a report from the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat for the Newfoudland region. The main point is to do a summary of the stock assessment in Newfoundland in 2013. The goal is to find what the stock trend is compared to the trend of the 1980’s, highlighting the fact that an accurate catch information is needed. The survey is based on ecosystem information and productivity, physical oceanography. This survey is noteworthy for the data it contains and to see how n the facts the scienctists elaborate the trends in order to make, projections, policies and recommadations : « Current levels of removals have resulted in low exploitation rates and probably have had little impact on recent stock dynamics. However, projections indicate that SSB will not increase during the next four years if total mortality rates (fishing and natural mortality) and recruitment remain at recent levels. »

The method is also described , crossing different index and data : « Indices of abundance, biomass and other biological characteristics are obtained from multi-species RV bottom-trawl surveys conducted by DFO in the whole of Div. 2J3KL during the autumn and in Div. 3L during the spring. Information on recruitment and total mortality is obtained from analysis of catch rate at age in the autumn surveys. ». There are many graphs that give an accurate perspective of the survey.

The weekness of using this source would be that the data is too much focused on the recent period.

http://www.fmap.ca/ramweb/papers-total/what_can_be_learned.pdf

This survey comes from the Canadian journal of fisheries and aquatic sciences. It is a scientific article written by Jeffrey Hutchings and Ransom Myers. Jeffrey Hutchings is a fisheries scientist and a Professor of Biology at the  Faculty of Science Killam Professor of Biology. The main argument is about the responsability of the human action in the collapse of cod in the Atlantic ocean in the 1980’s. It is useful for my research because it uses very accurate data and many graphs, trying to see the impact of temperatures, their variations, and the spatial allocation of the resource. The biomass data and the catch data arrive to the conclusion that only the human activity sparked the collapse. The data is obtained from fisheries and caompiled by the NAFO. However, the complexity of the data and of the graphs with very accurate terms might be difficult to understand for non specialists.

http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/1051-0761%281997%29007%5B0091%3AWDFSCT%5D2.0.CO%3B2

The authors of this essay « Why do fish stocks collapse? The example of cod in atlantic canada » are the same of the previous one, and has been done for the ecological society of America. It is also quite similar with the previous one. However it uses much more accurate data. This essay makes a comparison between the results of research survey and VPA (virtual population analysis), to show the different methods of evaluation and the importance of the statistics.  Their results highlght this importance : « There is a statistical bias in the estimation procedure that causes the abundance in the last years to be overestimated and fishing mortality to be underestimated » They criticize the method of the time and describe their method : « we tested the overall significance of the hypothesis, e.g., of a positive correlation, by using Fisher’s (1954) method to combine the probability levels from onesided significance tests. »

The accuracy of the data and the explanations aout their use is important for the research, hoever it uses many mathematical instruments that are diffcult to understand. The date is 1997, and there has been many evolutions of the population of Cod since then.

http://ram.biology.dal.ca/~myers/papers/papers-total/biological_collapse.pdf

This essay has the same authors : Jeffrey Hutchings and Ransom Myers. It gives a general and global explanation and an overview of the fishing in the long term since the beginnig in the 16th century. This historical reconstruction of the catches is important for the research, with a comparison of the inshore and offshore fishery and their sustainability. There is a more accurate description of the fisheries after 1954 and the evolution of the fishing methods, illustrated by graphs. There is a spatial and a temporal approach to the problem, and an attempt to sho how the collapse has been masked. It is also interesting to see the description of the technology chages. This is a complete an serious essay made by specialists, seems to be trustworthy and is the basis for understanding the whole mecanism of the collapse and figure out the importance of the statistics.

Articles :

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/08/north-sea-cod-stocks-bounce-back-analysis-shows

This is an article by the British newspaper « The Guardian ». It describes the main information saying that stocks of Cod are recovering and that this industry might become sustainable again.  This article is nteresting because it shows the debate and the controversies about the evaluation of stocks nowadays. This leeds to the questions of policies : should this resource be expoloited again ? The problem is that the method of evaluation  is unculear : « While the fish populations in many of the 400 problem fisheries might be healthy, no one knows the true status because of severe lack of scientific data on the stock size and how many are caught by fishermen each year. » Moreover, the survey has been made by «  the government-funded body which represents the seafood industry ». Therefore, their conclusions might go into the sense of the seafood industry which wants to lower the quotas and fish more.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/04/fishing-techniques-decline

This is another article of the Guardian, much older (it was published in 2010), and does not concern Newfoundland but Great Britain, making a comparison between the two regions. This article highlights the fact that the higher productivity of modern techniques have hidden the decrease of the stocks that had begun way before the collapse of the production, on a long period. The scientists say that the datas are analized on a short amount of time and that if we analize it on the long term, we understand than the collapse is bigger than we thought. Hence they advocate new targets that take into account the new way of using the data : « European fish stock assessments, and the management targets based on them, go back only 20 to 40 years »

This article is very useful for the work because it enables to make a comparison between the policies of Canada and of the European Union and the way data are used to make some recommandations for the policies.

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