In the latest hysterical assault on commercial fishing, Robert Ovetz, the turtle campaign’s Über-alarmist, lowers the anti-fishing rhetoric to new – though still unfathomable – depths.

Ovetz writes in War escalating on high seas over vanishing resource: fish with characteristic over-the-top exaggeration that “the fish wars are flaring out of control across our planet.”  Seeking to invoke the predictable knee-jerk small is good, big (particularly big government and big business and big boats) is bad reaction, he suggests that this is due to "small-scale subsistence fishermen battling governments and industrial fishing companies to whom their traditional fishing' rights have been given away.”

He then cites several instances of what he would like us to believe are part of this David and Goliath struggle, but includes as examples lawsuits against the U. S. Secretary of Commerce brought by multi-national environmental organizations funded by multi-million dollar grants from multi-billion dollar corporate foundations (Goliath versus Goliath?) and the U. S. protecting its small scale shrimpers from cheap imports (David versus David?).

In fact, the conflicts he cites are indicative of nothing more than business as usual on the world’s oceans and in international trade. The idea of one country trying to protect an important segment of its economy from assaults from imports has been with us for centuries, and isn’t indicative of anything above and beyond governments doing what they are supposed to.

Regarding fishing wars, they are hardly new and, despite Ovetz’ attempt to convince us otherwise, are hardly a reflection of anything other than one nation’s determination to protect its fish and its fishing industry. Going back three decades, we read of the third Cod War “between November 1975, and June 1976, the cod, a common species of fish, brought two NATO allies to the brink of war. Great Britain and Iceland confronted each other over Iceland proclaiming its authority over the ocean, up to 200 miles from its coastline. The issue was the amount of cod caught by the two countries' fishermen. During this conflict, British trawlers had their nets cut by Icelandic Coast Guard vessels and there were numerous rammings between Icelandic ships and British trawlers and frigates. The conflict caused Iceland to threaten to close the NATO base at Keflavik, which would have imperilled the NATO ability to defend the Atlantic from Soviet incursions.” (From the Riots, Rebellions, Gunboats and Peacekeepers website at http://www.britains-smallwars.com/RRGP/CodWar.htm)

It would seem that Ovetz doesn’t have much of a grasp of what “flaring out of control” really means when it comes to fish wars.

Moving on, he then repeats what has become part of the standard litany of the anti-fishing activists; “about 70 percent of our global fisheries are now being fished close to, already at or beyond their capacity.”

Needless to say, we are supposed to regard this (like the big business/big government/big boats examples up above) as a bad thing, But in a world where malnutrition is far from rare, what’s bad about fishing close to or at the capacity of a large proportion of our fisheries? Should we be catching less fish and starving more people? Apparently, according to Ovetz and his ilk.

This is all part and parcel of Ovetz’ anti-fishing modus operandi. In Fish Wars: How Cheap Oil Drives Industrial Longline Fishing he waxes eloquently and at length on how energy intensive longline fishing specifically and “industrial fishing” in general is. He writes “amongst fisheries targeting high value species, it is now common for direct fossil fuel energy inputs alone to exceed nutritional energy embodied in the catch by at least an order of magnitude.” We can only counter with a somewhat less eloquent “so what?” High value species aren’t targeted to feed the masses, they are targeted to earn a profit for the fishermen. The amount of energy going into the fishery compared to the amount of energy coming out is irrelevant – at least to anyone who accepts the concept of free markets and expects a diet a bit more satisfying than bread and water.

He then writes of fuel use by the commercial fishing industry “the fisheries… consumed a staggering 1 billion liters (about 6 million barrels) of diesel fuel.” We assume that he was giving us the per year estimate (including information like that is a nicety that’s probably not that important to you when you are intent on bandying about the biggest, most impressive numbers you can find, and Ovetz is certainly accomplished in bandying about big numbers), but no matter what the time frame, compared to over 19 million barrels of oil consumed by the United States every day it’s a mere drop in the bucket.

As a matter of fact, it has been estimated that the world's fishing fleets account for only about 1.4% of total global oil consumption. To anyone outside the “Chicken-Little” anti-fishing claque we can’t see how this can be seen as anything other than an energy bargain, considering that, according to the United Nations FAO, in 2002 the world production of fish and seafood (101 million tons) was greater than of beef (60 million tons), of pork (95 million tons) or of poultry (73 million tons).

Dr. Ovetz has tried to make fish wars a unique recent phenomena, has tried to force what are nothing more than ongoing resource allocation conflicts that have been with us for centuries into a "David vs Goliath” mold, has tried to take advantage of everyone’s concern about energy, and has tried to call into question the fact that we are exploiting many of our fisheries at or approaching the maximum level. What’s his point?

Using what appear to be a series of unconnected (unconnected to longlining, unconnected to each other and unconnected to the real world) anti-fishing arguments, he then slides into his standard "stop the longliners to save the oceans” spiel.

Discounting what have been tremendous strides in bycatch reduction by the domestic longline fleet and the U. S. government’s unprecedented efforts to share this technology with the rest of the world, he continues to beat that same old drum - a drum, we might add, that gets emptier and noisier from year to year. And he does this instead of trying to work with the commercial fishermen and the National Marine Fisheries Service to further minimize bycatch and to export the existing – and proven – bycatch reduction technology.

As commercial fishermen are proving in fishery after fishery, they can and they will modify their gear and their techniques when it becomes apparent that they are having more of an impact on the ocean environment than is desirable. The real environmentalists are those who are willing to help them to do this.

Nils E. Stolpe

April 5, 2005