How can Norway succeed with marine protection?
Reconstruction of coastal ecosystems requires protected areas without fishing. This is how we succeed.
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Kjell Magnus Norderhaug, Alf Ring Kleiven, Even Moland, Jan Atle Knutsen
Institute of Marine Research
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“It simply came to our notice then almost fashionable among experts to worry about fish stocks due to increased fishing and modernization of gear … »
The quote is not taken from the ongoing debate about the sad state of the Oslo Fjord, but from Arthur Feddersen’s book “The Sea – Its discovery and conquest”, written in 1903.
The quote continues as follows: “Others, on the other hand, are convinced that nature’s self-preservation abilities preclude the possibility of human influence.”
The optimism was great, and most professionals at the time were convinced that man would never be able to affect the seemingly infinitely large ocean. The professional debate was thus not unlike the popular and political debate we are witnessing today.
The difference is that in our time we have more knowledge – and it commits.
Today we do not know just more about the causes of collapse in fish stocks and ecosystems, we also have more knowledge about solutions.
Visionary teachers were early to study the results of protection – for example in New Zealand. I start, these areas were motivated by ideas about nature conservation to have without clear expectations about the effect of conservation. The goal was that students, researchers and other nature lovers could experience untouched nature.
But then something happened.
Fish species that had been rare became numerous. Large, old individuals appeared for the first time in a long time. Crabs (clawless lobsters) also became large and numerous, and they ate sea urchins with the result that the kelp forest returned to where it had been grazed.
Since then, many studies around the world have been added.
Compilations of these studies show that coastal ecosystems are affected by human activity both at sea and on land, climate change is becoming more and more prevalent, but points to a clear connection – effective marine protection requires the absence of fishing.
The UN nature panel draws attention fisheries as the biggest influencer of marine life over the last 50 years.
Marine protected areas have gradually become a key tool in the international work for the conservation and reconstruction of marine stocks, ecosystems, with all the functions, services and values that we humans also benefit from.
Despite that Norway has had success with the management of economically important stocks in open sea areas, has been a decline in fish stocks along the coast.
Overfishing of, among other things, coastal cod and catfish in the 1950s and 1960s was in all probability cause to an explosion in the sea urchin population with grazing of the kelp forest in northern Norway as a result.
The cod along the entire Norwegian coast is still struggling, which has received particular attention in the Skagerrak and the Oslo Fjord and has threatened the environmental certification of the entire cod fishery in the north.
A recently published study on genetics for cod suggests that the cod stock in the Skagerrak is just tiny remnants compared to the Middle Ages after 1000 years of fishing. The lobster file has become reduced by 90 percent in 90 years. Older fishermen can tell about adventurous lobster catches after World War II after little fishing during the war years.
In 2006, small conservation areas for lobster were established. Fifteen years later, the amount of lobster has increased over 500 percent compared to the surrounding areas.
Halibut in southern Norway has been at a low level in recent decades.
This winter it came for a day at Danish trawlers caught halibut in the Norwegian Channel in the middle of the protection period. One of the Danish fishing boats trawled back and forth through Raet National Park, a marine protected area Norway reports internationally as strictly protected. There are many more examples.
Norway supports it international goal of protect 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030. This goal was also recommended by the Marine Panel’s expert group, which Norway leads together with the island state of Palau.
The sea panel points to the importance of protection both in area and content. Full protection is areas that are protected from important human effects. Norway is among a number of countries that have established protected areas and have more under planning. But as in many other countries, it is most protection in words and less in content.
Although the protection regulations limited human influence, important exceptions are common. For example, it is usually no restrictions on commercial and recreational fishing in marine protected areas.
Despite this Norwegian protected areas are reported (thus erroneously) entered as strictly protected to relevant bodies.
The last decade has international research increased the knowledge base about what it takes to succeed with accurate management in marine coastal areas. There is a lot to learn: Clear, long-term goals and regulation with zero catches that should be enforced should be traditional fisheries management.
These are good documents on effective protection provides great long-term benefits in the conservation of biological diversity, habitats, marine forests and more and larger fish.
There are also many studies that indicate that effective protection increases marine ecosystems resistance to climate change and can strengthen the fisheries of the future.
Robust and productive ecosystems are a prerequisite for sustainable fisheries. Weak protection, on the other hand, can be a blind spot creates an illusion of protection while contributing little or nothing to what they were meant for.
It’s a danger for that is where Norway’s protected areas are today.
To succeed with marine protection in Norway, we must use the comprehensive knowledge base that has been developed globally in recent decades. This means that, as a starting point, fishing in marine protected areas cannot be permitted.