During the past ten years I’ve seen lots of the world’s coastline and everywhere we’ve traveled people who live and depend on the sea talk about the incredible decline of fish stocks … everywhere. From the Adriatic to Tasman seas fishermen – and increasingly governments – are taking heed of the reality that the fish that we know are disappearing. Fast.
Scientists around the globe say that one-third of all fishing stocks have ‘collapsed,’ which means they are ten percent of their maximum and that if our current rate of taking continues, all the fish species that we know will disappear within the next forty years. We witnessed this up-close most specifically when we kayaked the length of the Adriatic, hoping to buy or catch our meals everyday, and it happened just once or twice. The fish are simply gone.
Forward-looking government action is one of the only hopes to reverse our incredibly consumptive habits. A few days ago The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which administers Alaskan waters, voted unaminously to close nearly 200,000 square miles of ocean to any fishing.
“This will close the Arctic to all commercial fishing,” says Jim Ayers, vice president for Pacific and Arctic affairs at ocean conservation organization Oceana, based in Juneau, who testified before the vote. “This is the beginning of a concept of large protected marine areas.”
These seas—U.S. territorial waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas—are not currently fished, but sea ice melt and the northward migration of certain fish species, such as salmon, raises the possibility that they would be in the not too distant future. This vote precludes that possibility unless scientific studies showed that such fishing would not harm Arctic ecosystems or the traditional lifestyle of indigenous populations.
“There is at present too little known about how marine ecosystems function in the Arctic, let alone how they will respond to the dramatic changes in progress, to prescribe safe harvest levels for living marine resources in the U.S. Arctic,” 43 marine scientists said in a letter to the Council chair. “Until the rate and likely duration of sea ice losses as well as the ensuing ecosystem responses are better understood, closing the U.S. Arctic to commercial fishing is a prudent measure.”
The vote requires the National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to issue a report and the Secretary of Commerce is expected to officially seal the deal as early as this fall. The U.S. Department of State noted at the meeting that this kind of decision provided the needed guidance to formulate a national policy for the Arctic. “This gives [the State Department] what they need to engage in conversations with Russia and Canada,” Ayers says. And the Marine Conservation Alliance, a Juneau-based fishing industry group, agrees that the area should be closed.
Although this is good news for fish, it does not mean that the Arctic is free from industrial threats. The Bush administration sold leases for oil and gas exploration in the Chukchi Sea to Shell, and global warming is wreaking havoc by melting sea ice, softening permafrost and even eroding villages and towns. That prompted towns in Alaska like Shishmaref to file a lawsuit requiring a reduction in greenhouse gases to preserve their traditional way of life. Other nations, such as Norway, have already begun fishing in newly opened Arctic waters—meaning the U.S.-controlled zone could be a very small refuge unless the government can persuade the seven other nations with Arctic Ocean claims to follow suit.
But it does represent the first time that a fishery has been protected before it has nearly disappeared. “[Fishing] laws in the U.S. are set up to just go and fish and then deal with the collapse, like what happened in New England,” Ayers says. “This is a chance for the U.S. and other nations to actually stop and think about the Arctic Ocean as different than the Mediterranean, Atlantic or Pacific, where we’ve decimated fisheries and only afterwards worried about saving them.”
Quark Expeditions reported at 18:00 yesterday that its “Ocean Nova” had floated free of the rocks. Today it is heading up the Antarctic Peninsula, back to Ushuaia, Argentina though minus its passengers and crew, which were offloaded to the “Clipper Adventurer” earlier in the day yesterday … just to be safe.
Quark reports no tear in the ship’s hull, thus no leakage, which is a good thing. And lucky. According to Quark president Patrick Shaw: “We are grateful that no environmental damage occurred and that all travelers who were aboard Ocean Nova are safe.”
What I noticed yesterday when news of the grounding raced around the world – it’s incredible how fast news of tragedy moves these days, even from the planet’s most remote corners – was a definite decrease in appetite for another Antarctic accident. When the “Explorer” sank in November 2007, it was a very big deal to the world’s media. When the “Ushuaia” went aground in December 2008, it was again a big deal … I think because most of the media world assumed it would lead to another sinking. With the “Ocean Nova” there was a burst of interest, but now the media understands the difference between a grounded and a sinking vessel and there was a bit of a ho-hum emitted.
Which is concerning. I hope it’s not soon taken for granted that accidents in Antarctica are common place, thus less newsworthy. The reality is that each season there are more and more accidents – tourist ships hitting ice, rocks, etc. – and they need to be reported. My concern now, given the frequency of accidents along the Peninsula, is that in the very near future the only accidents in Antarctica to be deemed newsworthy are if there is a sizable leak, a sinking, a loss of life. All of which would be tragic for this still-pristine place.
One word of self-promotion in regard to the Antarctic Peninsula, “Paddler” has just published a very beautiful story drawn from our expedition last year by sea kayak, sailboat, foot and small plane. On the newsstands now!
The M/V “Ocean Nova,” operated by Connecticut-based Quark Expeditions, has been stuck on the rocks in Marguerite Bay for more than 24 hours. For the time being, the ship is not leaking oil and its captain is hoping it tides will lift it off the rocks. But having been in Marguerite Bay twice this past December, and seeing photographs of how the boat is lodged, it would appear he’s going to have to depend on unusually high tides to float the ship.
The ship apparently ran into trouble due to high winds, not unusual more than one hundred miles south of the Antarctic Circle. According to Quark, the 64 passengers and 41 crew are “following a normal programme of lectures” while the ship is stuck. They are awaiting arrival of the Spanish Naval ship “Hespedrides” and another Quark passenger ship, the “Clipper Adventurer.” If the ship cannot be unlodged, passengers will be transferred to the “Adventurer.” [14:00 EST, ALL PASSENGERS HAVE BEEN PUT ONTO THE "CLIPPER ADVENTURE," WHICH WILL SAIL FOR USHUAIA, ARGENTINA. DIVERS HAVE INSPECTED THE STILL-STUCK "OCEAN NOVA" AND ARE REPORTING NO LEAKING.]
In early December I was fifteen miles from the site of another Antarctic grounding, the M/V “Ushuaia,” which rested on the rocks for a couple days before being dragged off by a Chilean naval ship. It ultimately limped back to dry dock in Punta Arenas, Chile, its season cut in half.
It has been a rough season for Quark-chartered Antarctic ships. Earlier in the season the “Lyubov Orlova” – which the company was chartering for the season – was held at the dock in Ushuaia for several weeks by Argentine port authorities for failing inspection. Its passengers were either sent home or placed on other Antarctic-bound tourist ships.
Though overall tourist visits to the Antarctic Peninsula are down, probably due to sour economic times worlwide, there will still have been 40,000+ during the 2008-2009 season. More demand combined with less ice means more visits and more statistical risk of accident. Tour operators contend that it is still a small number, which is true relative to how many people visit a national park in the U.S. on any given summer day. But the consequences down south are potentially severe. If any of the ships currently plying the Peninsula were to run aground and sink – which the “Ocean Nova” could still do – it would leave behind a very tangible, and very difficult to monitor or clean-up, mess.
As the world raised a small hullabaloo last week in honor of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday it made me think long and hard about how the natural world has changed since his birth. I wonder what Darwin would make of these wild places that are now so linked with his name, his image, his writings? The timing is fortuitous too, because we are just finishing a new film about the Galapagos, specifically focused on man’s impact on the islands, and we’re calling it “What Would Darwin Think?”
Last May we spent several weeks in and around the bigger of the Galapagos islands, talking with locals and expatriate environmentalists about the relationship between its fragile ecosystem and a boom in mankind trodding its shorelines. Our goal was not to show (once again) how wondrous the wildlife is there but to show how man’s footprint is changing the place. And fast. The recently elected president of Ecuador has declared the Galapagos “endangered,” which takes most by surprise since only three percent of the island state is even accessible to man.
It’s not tourists exactly who are impacting Darwin’s laboratory, but all those who have arrived from mainland Ecuador to cash in on the tourist boom. They come, many of them with pick-up trucks, dogs, cats and kids, hoping to participate in the boom and hopefully get rich. Reality of course is that few get rich; in fact many can’t find jobs. On the big island of Santa Cruz there are today more than 25,000 residents; a decade ago there were 1,500. The pressure on the island is great; we watched a cargo boat arrive and spend three full days offloading all the good’s necessary to support the island for a single week.
The impact on the Galapagos wildlife is far-reaching. Unemployed fishermen often feel they have no option but to fish illegally, or to participate in the illegal sea cucumber and shark finning businesses (which are run by mafia-like organizations on the mainland). Others, tired of the crowds in Santa Cruz, are packing up and moving – with their dogs and cats – to some of the smaller, outer islands, where endemic species of reptile and bird will soon be made extinct thanks to their new neighbors.
In recent months I’ve been to a few wild places that are changing in part due to tourist booms: the Peninsula of Antarctica, the island of South Georgia and the Galapagos. All are suffering in similar fashion; each is wrestling on its own with how to control man’s increased visitations. It will be interesting to watch as they each fashion slightly different rules and regulations. I’ll remind you when our film – “What Would Darwin Think?” – is out; there will certainly be clues in it to the Galapagos’ future and plenty of pondering about Darwin’s 21st century take on the place.
Feeling the pinch of the crashing international economy? The U.K.’s “Telegraph” reports on a job boom … in Antarctica. Apparently the British Antarctic Survey advertised thirty eight job openings at its Antarctic stations – looking for plumbers, carpenters, electricians and chefs – and were overwhelmed by responses. Last year when it sought to fill the same jobs, it received one hundred applications. This year? So many its website crashed.
Audrey Stevens, a BAS spokesman, said: “There’s nothing to spend your money on when you’re out there. You’ll have a fat bank account when you come back.”
In the United States, Colorado-based Raytheon does all the hiring for the three American bases – McMurdo, the Scott-Amundsen South Pole station and Palmer – and currently advertises twenty two job openings, ranging from boiler mechanic to human resources/finances specialist. For working conditions, check out Werner Herzog’s Academy Award-nominated documentary, “Encounters at the End of the World.”
I found myself mingling with kids and their parents, a smattering of friends and one six-foot-tall penguin at the American Museum of Natural History last Saturday. I showed clips from our new, high-def Antarctica film (“Terra Antarctica, Re-Discovering the Seventh Continent”) most of which we shot a year ago, during the course of three months traveling along the Peninsula by sea kayak, sailboat, foot and small plane. It was the first time I’d shown the clips in public and I snuck to the back of the room myself to see them on the big screen. So far … so good. The hour-long film will be finished next month, will start showing at festivals around the world soon after and on television hopefully in the fall.
During the course of AMNH’s “Polar Weekend” I learned a lot myself, particularly about the Polar Palooza project. Supported by the National Science Foundation and NASA’s Science Mission, with money from Apple, ASTC and science and natural history museum’s across the country it’s the hippest way I’ve seen yet to try and educate people, particularly kids, about the cold regions.
Dependent on ice researchers, geologists, oceanographers, climate scientists, biologists and Arctic residents the goal – via pod casts, blogs, vlogs and more – is to provide the simplest info about the poles (“Why do penguins live down South and polar bears only up North?”) for a wide audience. It’s even got it’s own rap song about climate change, which has to be a first.
As for the six-foot-tall penguin, I buddied up to him enough to query whether he was Adelie or Gentoo and all I got was a shoulder shrug, not a squawk out of him … very unusual for a penguin of any species.
Photo, Anne Sparkman
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