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.