Team NAFO 2013: Northwest Atlantic fisheries progress towards sustainability?

From 23—27 September 2013, the 12 NAFO (Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization) member states from North America, Europe, the Caribbean and Asia will make important decisions on the management of fisheries in the sector of the Northwest Atlantic that stretches beyond the 200 nautical miles zone under Canada’s control.

NAFO was formed in 1979 by countries with fishing interests in the Northwest Atlantic, an area roughly the same size as Argentina.
Why is NAFO important? The decisions made this September matter because they affect the health of important ocean ecosystems, including the Grand Banks, a group of underwater plateaus southeast of Newfoundland – magnificent ocean environments that are home to myriad species, from phytoplankton to commercially important fish, to whales and seabirds.
While the past 34-years have seen the collapse of over half the stocks under its management, the group has recently taken steps forward on issues that are central to WWF’s work in the region: responsible fishing and the protection of marine biodiversity and habitats.
Notably, NAFO closed 18 sensitive areas to bottom fishing, including coral and sponge concentrations and underwater mountain chains known as seamounts. The group also continues to develop rebuilding plans for commercially important stocks, such as cod on the Grand Banks.
When all objectives are met and the stocks are deemed healthy and resilient, they can again be fished by the international community, such as the yellowtail flounder or cod on the Flemish Cap.

Each year, WWF-Canada consults broadly with experts and key delegations before crafting recommendations that are delivered to NAFO’s decision-making bodies and the roughly 100 NAFO delegates. This year, WWF will be calling out NAFO on four key issues that stand in the way of long-term sustainability of Northwest Atlantic fisheries:

1. As a matter of highest priority, take actions to resolve the long-standing problem of catch data discrepancies and unravel the mystery of what the true catch data is.
2. Reduce the environmental impact of bottom trawling, the most common type of fishing in the NAFO area, in sensitive areas (corals, sponges, seamounts).
3. Minimize the existing fisheries’ footprints and ensure future fishing opportunities by putting the right rules in place for stepwise recovery.
4. Broaden the management scope to encompass the wider ecosystem by implementing an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, which has been called for by a number of international policy and legal instruments.

Due to the complex structure of a group decision-making process that seeks the consent of 12 member states, NAFO is only capable of incremental change. There is still much work to do to restore the Grand Banks but it would seem that the tide is slowly turning towards an approach that places a healthy ecosystem at the centre of the complex fisheries management decisions.