by
Bjørn S. Brochmann
Ministry of Fisheries, Oslo, Norway
1. IS THERE MUCH FISH OFF THE COAST OF KENYA?
So far during this seminar, this has been one of the main questions. According to the findings by R/V “Dr. Fridtjof Nansen”, there is not much, but the resources may still yield more than today. Annual marine catch is about 5000 tons, compared to an estimated maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of 10–15000 tons of demersal and pelagic species off the Kenyan coast.
In order to give you a picture of relative abundance of reported fish in your waters, I would like to compare it with corresponding findings on good fishing grounds off Norway for instance in the North Sea or the Barents Sea. Cruise leader Mr. Iversen told me yesterday that if he had carried out a corresponding cruise in the North Sea, and got the same results as he did off the Kenyan coast, he surely would have reported “no fish today”. On good fishing grounds the density of fish, he says, very often is 30–100 times higher than the best acoustic recordings made from research cruises in Kenyan waters.
This is to say, even if the findings had given an estimated MSY of 10–15000 tons, instead of 5–7500, the abundance of fish outside the reefs would still have been very low compared to fishing areas in other parts of the world.
Another fact which supports this view, is that the director of fisheries, Mr. Odero, told us that the average daily catch per canoe in marine waters is only 40 per cent of that in Lake Victoria.
2. SHOULD IT BE A TARGET TO DOUBLE THE MARINE CATCH LANDED?
I am convinced that quite a few of the people attending this seminar are now thinking along the following lines:
“Even if the findings of R/V “Dr. Fridtjof Nansen”are disappointing, there is still room for expansion, as yearly catch volume - on a sustainable basis - can be increased from 5000 to 15000 tons.”
The flight from Norway to Mombasa costs a lot of money and therefore I owe you all an honest piece of advice. I regret that I have to say that this way of thinking may be completely unsound.
From an economic point of view an estimated MSY is of little interest as an indication of future catch volume if
Here, both conditions would come to apply:
Except for the annual spawning periods when the fish most possible schools, (so far schooling fish have very scarcely been detected by the research vessel) the fish is very scattered and hence costly to catch. The operations would hardly turn out to be economically viable even if the species were commercial ones.
Secondly;
Of a calculated MSY of 10–15000 tons, only a few thousand tons refer to commercially interesting species. About half of the catch taken be “Dr. Fridtjof Nansen” was silver bellies of 10–15 cm lenght. If, however, the catch landed should be indreased to 15000 tons, the species brought to land need to be others than silver bellies; larger fish and commercial more interesting species. This would mean that the commercial species might then be subject to heavy over-exploitation. Conclusion: a calculated overall MSY should not be made a target for planning purposes.
3. WHAT WOULD MOST PROBABLY HAPPEN IF YOU, IRRESPECTIVE OF THAT CONCLUSION, PURSUE A TARGET OF A YEARLY MARINE CATCH OF 15 000 TONS
Generelly speaking, there are three ways to achieve a doubling of the catch volume:
A) Indreased participation in the traditional fisheries: i.e. through a doubling of the number of canoes or alternatively through a more intensive use of the canoes already existing.
The last method may - for the sake of argument - be practicable because, as Mr. Odero told us, participation and catch are limited by several constraints: After a good catch, the fisherman would normally take a day off. Fishing is also limited for reasons of local consumption: There is a slow market in the city, and the fishmongers do not appear in the villages. Standstill in fishing also occurs in the rain seasons, due to disrupted roads to the cities.
What would most likely be the short and long run impact of a substantial increase in participation:
The canoes will not be evenly spread over the shelf. They will assemble on wellknown fishing grounds. The immediate effect may be over-crowding, with a drop in average catch per canoe as a result.
However, total catch will increase, at least in the short run. This may lead to a fall in the local price for fish. Thus, we may expect lower catch per man and lower fish prices and resulting difficulties to sustain increased participation. It may thus seem unrealistic to achieve a long term catch increase through increasing the number of canoes taking part in the fishing.
However, if you nevertheless experience a sustained higher participation, you may - in the long run - observe a decrease in the catch rate due to over-exploitation, as no one so far knows whether the commercial species can sustain a yield much higher than today. It might therefore just as well be an advantage for the coastal marine fisheries that the fishermen, for reasons of local consumption, do not go out fishing every day throughout the year; “obstacles” would give the stocks an opportunity to recover.
B) Increased effiency in the traditional fishery is another method to double the catch volume.
Increased efficiency may be achieved through technical improvements in fishing gear and boats.
The new and higher level of efficiency will entail larger catches and better income for the fishermen. Most probably increased income will make fishing more attractive for the younger people in the fishing villages; young people who otherwise might consider moving to the large towns in order to find jobs there. Participation in the traditional fisheries therefore will tend to increase. Together with improved efficiency, fishing effort may increase substantially and eventually lead to over-exploitation of commercially interesting species. Consequently: The increased effort will lead to lower density of fish, reduced catch rate and thereby cancel out the initial advantage gained through increased efficiency.
Conclusion: Increased efficiency in fishing provides no guarantee for obtaining increased long run net benefits.
However, if the development in the fishery sector is part of an overall social and economic development, the possibility of gaining net benefits of increased efficiency in fishing is much greater. In this case better net income in the fisheries would not nescessarily lead to over-crowding on the good fishing grounds, because the alternative job-opportunities in the villages or the towns would also yield higher incomes than before. Fisheries development therefore is closely connected to overall social and economic development.
C) The third way of obtaining a doubled catch volum is through establishing a capitalized, modern fishery sector.
Certain basic conditions must be observed, namely that
the low density of fish outside the reefs involve high costs per ton caught;
the fish caught would often be uncommercial species;
the shelf is quite rough and the area suitable for trawling is limited, and
strong currents outside the reefs complicate the handling of passive, immobile gear.
Together these environment conditions would make us conclude that the possibility of operating a large scale fishery sector on an economically viable basis is rather limited. Another serious counter-argument is that a modern fisheries sector may work to the detriment to the traditional sector, without creating much alternative employment itself. The modern sector may be a disadvantage for the traditional sector by way of
increasing the supply of fish to the local markets and thereby probably lower the prices of fish;
reducing the density of fish, and thereby reducing the prospects for the traditional sector.
It seems to me that a main conclusion that can be drawn is that it should not be a target for the fisheries policy to double the marine catch volume. I am not saying, however, that you should avoid a substantial increase in catch. My point is rather that you should let time and experience determine pace and direction for development. This view was also expressed by Mr. Otiero. If you carry out a comprehensive development programme for the marine fisheries you will probably experience externalities of the kind I have indicated, and which may contradict your intentions.
4. THEN, DO I RECOMMEND A NON-INTERVENTION POLICY?
Yes and no.
In my view, 5-year plans, where targets for catch volume, number of vessels and investments are stated, need not be the most appropriate instrument to promote a positive development. Instead, development should be encouraged through a broad set of policies including general education, constructing of suitable harbours, cold-storages, better transportation, experimental and exploratory fishing and not least by ensuring that the fishermen are not in the pockets of the fish traders.
Do not expand the fisheries through income subsidies, for instance by way of lowering the costs or increasing the fish prices. The long run effects of subsidies are increased fishing effort, increased total costs, over-crowding on the fishing grounds and reduced density of fish. These will together in turn lead to increased need for subsidies to counter reduced catch rates. You may end up with a large and unhealthy sub-sector instead of a small, but relatively healthy one.
What could be done, and what was carried out in Norway in the 30's with considerable success, is to encourage a limited number of the “best” fishermen in several villages to provide themselves with good and suitable equipment and boats, by way of reasonable, cheap loans from the government. If they succeed, the use of this equipment may have a demonstration effect on other fishermen.
On the other hand, one cannot exclude the possibility that the traditional inexpensive canoe, with no running cost, is an optimal adaptation to the scattered fish resources off Kenya.
Marine and freshwater fisheries account for about 1 percent of employment in Kenya. Marine fisheries account, however, for only about 10 per cent of the total fisheries, which means that marine fisheries account for about 0.1 percent of total employment.
Even if the marine catch volume was doubled, employment in marine fisheries would still be of minor importance in the context of the society as a whole.
It may be that a further promotion of mariculture is more promising than to invest labour and capital in order to sqeeze more out of the limited marine fish resources.
5. POLITICIANS VERSUS EXPERTS
Politicians are made of almost the same stuff all over the world: They love to be expansive and they have to be optimistic. It you tell them that the prospects are not really promising, they are given to ignoring you. (At least you are not promoted).
I predict that it will be a difficult task for you to make the politicians understand that the surveys of R/V “Fridtjof Nansen” are rather disappointing.
In Norway we have over the past decades made several management mistakes in the fisheries policy. The fishing grounds are over-crowded, stocks are over-exploited, and catch-capacity exceeds present and future catch possibilities. Even with a yearly catch volume of 3 million tons, compared to your 5 thousand tons of marine fish, the Norwegian fisheries receive every year a huge amount of state subsidies to sustain the fishermen's income.
I have now given you the good piece of advice I promised to give you. I may not expect, however, that the politicians will allow my assessment to guide future policy.
As a sovereign state Kenya has the right to make its own mistakes.
by
Bjørn S. Brochmann
Ministry of Fisheries, Oslo, Norway
1. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
A great number of laws and regulations are passed in order to regulate the fisheries in Norway. Most of them concern fishing, but some are related to fish processing and the export of fish and fish products.
Historically legislation to regulate the fishery was introduced as a result of political pressure from the fishermen's organisations. Fishermen engaged in small scale, coastal fisheries argued for protection against large trawler, both Norwegian and foreign, which operated in increasing numbers off the Norwegian coast in the 1930's. Around that time the fishermen's organisations started to argue for a larger share for themselves of the profit of the fish export. Their claim was directed against the powerful position of the fish traders.
Changing governments have - more or less reluctantly - accepted these claims and given due priority to the coastal fisheries, in some cases at the expense of the industrial, large scale fisheries and the fish processing plants. Through the development of Sales Cooperatives, following the Raw Fish Act of 1937, the fishermen have also come to assume a reasonable share of the profits deceived from the sale of fish products.
Over the past two decades, however, much has changed. In order to preserve the fish resources and to limit the amount of factors of production expended in fishing, changing governments has been eager to impose regulations on the fisheries sector. These regulations have - more or less reluctantly - been accepted by the fishermen.
2. OBJECTIVES AND LEGISLATIVE INSTRUMENTS
The main objectives of to-day's fisheries legislation in Norway are:
A) To regulate competition between
Norwegian and foreign vessels,
small scale coastal fisheries and industrial, large scale fisheries,
passive gear and active mobile fishing gear, such as trawl.
It is prohibited for foreign vessels to fish within 12 n. miles off the Norwegian coast. At the same time Norwegian trawlers of more than 200 GRT are forbidden to operate closer than 4 n. miles off the coast. In addition certain fishing grounds which extend as far as 50 n. miles from the coast, defined as “trawl-free-areas” have been reserved for passive gear for certain periods of the year. In some fjords along the coast fishing rights are reserved for local fishermen.
B) To secure fishermen's control over
the ownership of fishing vessels,
the fish trade.
Present legislation lays down that only fishermen may own an active fishing vessel - i.e.: that external capital from others than the fishermen themselves may not account for more than 49 percent of a vessel. On the other hand, one fisherman may possess more than one vessel. To ensure that only fishermen-owned vessels participate in the fishery, each vessel must be registered and have an identification number clearly painted on it.
The fishermen's organisations have a great influence on the fish trade as each fish plant has to be licenced by the fishermen's sales organisations. This organisations may also fix minimum prices for raw fish. On the other hand, if the minimum price is fixed too high, no trading will take place.
C) to preserve the fish resources
This objective is pursued through a variety of legislative instruments:
International negotiations on total quotas for certain species. The results of these negotiations, which take place each year between the coastal states which share the migrating fish stocks, have to be confirmed officially by the government in each country, and may therefore be considered to be a legislative instrument.
National regulations to limit our catch volume in accordance with the Norwegian quota shares of various stocks.
The pattern of exploitation is regulated through minimum mesh size in trawl, minimum size of landed fish and the introduction of temporary fishing ban in areas with high concentrations of undersized fish. These regulations are imposed to avoid too heavy exploitation of young fish.
D) to limit the economic resources used in fishing
This aim is promoted through the use of several instruments, of which not all are ligislative. If we confine ourselves to legislative instruments, the most worthwile to mention in this context is the limited access schemes, which were introduced in the 1970's. Participation in some important fisheries is made conditional upon a licence issued by the government. There is however no restrictions on access for vessels of less than 50 gpss register tons.
3. COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
It should be noted that it is a vast task to administer the numberous laws and regulations. The staff needed to plan, carry out and enforce these regulations would need to be of a considerable size.
Information to the fishermen about the laws, rules and regulations is of immense importance. Since a variety of the regulations change according to changing circumstances, the task of making the relevant information available is a continious one. Fishermen would, however, need to be literate to be able to respond to such a system.
Experience shows that for different reasons, a legislative system, once etablished, is difficult to repeal even when changing circumstances have taken away the basis for its usefullness.
A limited access scheme is not necessary and in practice impossible to implement for a fleet consisting of numerous small vessels. It may, however, be made to apply for larger fishing ships, both in order to protect traditional fisheries and to preserve the resources.
A registration system, where every fishing vessel is recorded in a register and where identification is due marked on each separate vessel may, however, be to some use.
Times have changed; a decade ago the prevailing attitude in Norway towards regulations in the fisheries was in general favourable. Nowadays the common thinking among the fishermen is that freedom to do what they want is superior to any regulations, irrespective of their purpose.
Generally speaking, regulation or legislation in fisheries should be imposed only when there is a clear and identifiable need. For Norway, with limited quotas, over-capacity in the fishing fleet and foreign fishing vessels off the coast, some kind of legislation will be necessary.
