I spent much of the past 2 days participating in the 2009 International Arctic Fisheries Symposium which is conveniently being held at the Captain Cook hotel just over the road from our Anchorage office. Its terrific to be able to literally walk across the street and be able to rub shoulders with some of the top scientists, policy makers and indigenous leaders from all Arctic nations.
The conference agenda (http://www.nprb.org/iafs2009/) has been organized to allow systematic discussion of options for future management of the arctic ocean which is facing both unprecedented change and rapidly increasing demands from Arctic coastal states and beyond. As climate scientists have pointed out, the poles are changing faster than anywhere else on earth. This may be good news for some fish species who are expanding their range and productivity, but there are many species that are also threatened by these changes, particularly marine mammals and seabirds. Additionally, with recently observed rapid increases in ocean acidification in the North Pacific, there is a clearly a strong case to be made for precautionary approaches to resource exploitation... but what exactly does that mean?
Options canvassed during the conference so far range from an expansion of the current US Arctic fisheries moratorium (which drew much praise) to a High Seas agreement to cover the areas beyond national EEZs (shown in the photo below - very similar to the Bering Sea donut dilemma that was addressed some years ago) which may be open to fishing in 15+ years when ice cover is lost, to a comprehensive new Artic Treaty (a bit like the Antarctic treaty). Clearly there is a long way to go in the process and there are extraordinary scientific issues to be resolved and diplomatic/policy challenges ahead... but it was great to part of this new approach early on - it has huge implications for how the Alaska SeaLife Center defines our future role in Artic science, education, conservation and strandings response.
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