Abstract
The oceanic ecosystem is very crucial to human beings’ survival. About fifty percent of humans’ protein requirements come from the blue economy. The rapid growth of people’s population implies the need to ensure a sustainable aquatic ecosystem. Several measures already exist to promote sustainability in the area. However, a majority of the currently existing marine conservation guidelines do not have adequate provisions for research activities to inform best practices in the area. Marine conservation methods like the universal documentation of fishing vessels with a distinct global system number, creation of marine protected zones, and the worldwide catch share measures all lack effective research provisions as of now. Providing exempted fishing permits is one of the possible policy-based solutions that can help marine research to be steered around existing fishing policies.
Introduction
Fishing protocols on undertaking marine studies pose a significant problem in developing effective research-based best practices to promote real sustainability in the marine ecosystem. America and several other states around the world lead the endeavors to make the oceanic ecosystem safe and viable. The various agencies and states use a wide range of policies that directly and indirectly lead to the intended results. A major breakthrough in the war against marine ecosystem’s destruction concerns the establishment of protected zones, such as fisheries and marine parks, both international and state-based. Such formations offer protection to marine species considered endangered, together with the other marine ecosystem for sustainability purposes. The success of the setups, however, remains myopic to date due to several issues, among them the absence of informed scientific advice concerning things like best practices. The excessive fishing regulations on conducting marine research, particularly, bear significant blame for this problem. That is why the world today needs to enact effective policies within the fishing regulations to promote better results.
The desire to protect the environment and promote sustainability cuts across several aspects, including the once neglected marine ecosystem. The realization that the current trends in oceanic bionetwork threaten a shortage in the fundamental water-related protein source for the future population is a major reason for the changes (Hornfeldt, 2018). Today, the world has about seven billion people, with the numbers expected to grow with time. The amount of people on Earth already exerts excessive pressure on the available natural resources, particularly those acquired from water. Overconsumption and several other human-related facets, like pollution, directly affect the supply of marine resources. Such explains the need for sustainability in the area, lest the future generations lack some critical sources of basic nutrients. Sustainability involves the supervision of the globe’s fish stocks through effective control of ecosystems and habitats’ well-being (Hornfeldt, 2018). Policies offer one of the best ways to promote sustainability. However, such (policies) require substantial science-supported knowledge to offer a real impact. Governments around the globe already exhibit the commitments to impose marine sustainability compliance. The gap in knowledge acquisition on the matter, therefore, challenges the degree to which sustainability can be realized.
Background
The struggle to end or manage overfishing, combat illegal fishing, safeguard marine habitats and ecosystems, and protect sharks present in the global water bodies lacks significant knowledge on several things. For example, the establishment of fisheries and marine parks seem to deliver results at reduced rates relative to the anticipated margins (Nielsen et al., 2018). The world stands to suffer significantly if the present situation facing the marine ecosystem is left unattended. That is because the issue of sustainability will only remain but a dream. Oceans and seas are in danger due to the excessive loss of habitats and ecology. Pollution, climate change, and natural deaths also pose a great danger to the bionetwork. Nielsen et al. (2018) say that establishing parks to protect sharks, dolphins, and other endangered water-based species is pointless if the world lacks the necessary knowledge to manage them. Based on the scholars’ findings, lots of fish and marine species continue to die and get extinct, even in the protected areas, because of the lack of adequate knowledge to manage them.
The existence of strict regulations safeguarding the already available marine conservation sites make it hard for scholars and researchers to gather several key pieces of information and knowledge about the oceanic ecosystem. Many fisheries around the world, for example, only allow measured fishing activities, while controlling almost all the other activities, including the conductance of beneficial research works on the conservations (Stouten, Polet, Aimé & Gellynck, 2017). The issue exists as a big mistake, as science-supported knowledge is required almost on a daily basis to advance the matter. That is why there is a dire need to engage scientists on the issue of oceanic bionetworks’ management. Granting the scholars the opportunity to collect samples on the marine ecosystem provides the first step in bridging the current conservation information gap.
The failure to investigate the size of sharks’ population and their specific varieties, for example, challenges the realization of balance between the various species of fish in many fisheries. Helmond et al.’s (2020) report confirm this argument by showing the extended consumption of sharks in various parts of the world, including in some areas where policies protecting marine creatures exist. Besides identifying the current trends in the marine ecosystems, science-based investigations on the bionetwork promise to provide critical information concerning the possible future events touching on the marine environment. As such, it is obvious that scientific investigations play a major part in the effective management of global fisheries to realize sustainability. That is why creating a policy-based room for scientific studies on water conservatism is a must-make move if the endeavor to protect the ecosystem is to realize real fruition.
Current Policy Landscape
Almost all the methods adopted by different nations and regions touch on the issues of marine protection purpose to mainly regulate the amount of marine creatures caught. Many fisheries around the world, for example, have laws that control the time and period when fishing activities take place and when such should stop within a given time, say a year. Other measures utilized by the various global establishments focusing on protecting the marine ecosystem endeavor to establish marine parks, where almost zero research operations occur. A deeper look into the various marine conservation guidelines, thus, shows the difficulty of conducting marine research around the present-day fishing policies. Such should, however, not be the case in case the world purposes to develop transformational marine conservation practices.
The present discussion looks at some of the existing marine conservation guidelines and their potential benefits and weaknesses. The work aims to suggest a possible policy change to help marine research being conducted around the existing fishing policies. The discussion proceeds by describing the various marine conservation practices, their weaknesses, and strengths before providing an alternative strategy to save the situation. Some of the covered conservation tactics include the universal documentation of all fishing vessels with a distinct global system, the creation of marine protected zones, and the worldwide catch share measures. The discussion shows the application of the three methods in different parts of the world and how they fail to promote research activities in the marine conservation domain before elucidating the potential solution.
Identification and Registration of All Fishing Vessels with a Unique Number
Global oceans and seas provide a vast space for all the parties interested in the fishing practices to participate. Starting from the sixteenth century, governments around the world utilized technologies to develop powerful water bodies for fishing and sea voyages as a show of power. The competitive era allowed the powerful nations with mighty vessels to conduct fishing activities almost all over the world, as long as their ships would bear. The time saw the like of Portuguese and Japanese reap big due to the freedom exhibited in the deep water. Nonetheless, the realization that competition led to an unhealthy marine ecosystem made the world initiate a system of controlling fishing activities by developing a unique number for each vessel operating in the seas (Nielsen et al., 2018). The unique numbers help in tracking the activities of each fishing vessel to notice its operations and potential adverse effects it causes to the highly valuable but draining marine resources.
Domestic Solutions
America’s Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is the leading national agency on matters of marine ecosystem management and protection. The organization undertakes research on the best practice possible to promote sustainability in the water economy. The Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U.S. are crucial players in the UN’s FAO, which investigates global trends in food supply for humans. The Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration already operate a system that identifies all the U.S. fishing vessels uniquely (Nielsen et al., 2018). The agency informs the establishment of America-based regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) that ensure that water bodies involved in fishing have a unique operations number. The process involves issuing the specific water vessels involved in fishing activities within the U.S. water with a definite registration number. The numbers provide a unique ability for the agency to track and audit each vessel’s operations, as well as involvement illegal fishing endeavors for management actions.
Case study: The International Maritime Organization (IMO) Number
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN plays a major role in regulating and conserving global marine settings around the world. FAO’s Committee of Fisheries (COFI) is one of the principal forces ensuring the protection of global fisheries through the application of effective laws and procedures. COFI is, for instance, the body behind the establishment of the unique numbering system for all the vessels, mainly the large ones, involved in fishing activities around the globe. The documentation requirement by COFI leads to the creation of the international maritime organization (IMO) number that recognizes each of the fishing vessels operating in the global waters uniquely. The IMO number remains permanent to the specific vessel even when such (the vessel) is out of operation. Establishing the IMO number makes it easy for COFI and other fishing regulatory agencies around the world to track and report the activities of individual vessels to notice any violations of the set fishing laws.
The IMO number is a regulatory measure that mainly focuses on the control of fishing vessels but does nothing to promote research in the marine conservation domain. As such, what the regulation does best is to make research in the global oceanic ecosystem harder. That is because the method makes the operation of vessels meant for research substantially hard. Acquiring the IMO number often involves several processes and money. Such elements are often not available for many young researchers around the world. The measure’s net effects on the research facet in the field are, therefore, negative. Therefore, there exists the need to adopt considerate registration requirements that consider researching institutions as special entities worth favorable considerations to advance the acquisition of new knowledge in the area to inform best practices.
Marine Protected Areas Creation
Marine protect areas are zones with controlled or zero fishing activities. About two percent of the globe’s oceanic waters are protected, while only one percent of the total global oceans exhibit zero fishing activities (Venturini, Campodonico, Cappanera, Fanciulli, & Vietti, 2017). The ‘no-catch’ zones establish appropriate sites for fish and other water ecosystem elements to develop naturally and undisturbed. Such zones also provide effective replenishment sites for endangered water organisms like white sharks and tuna. Organisms protected under the settings are further meant to multiply rapidly to realize sustainable population sizes. The ‘no-catch’ zones also provide excellent critical habitat for the many under threat water organisms.
The guidelines governing some of the established marine protected zones often challenge even the conductance of research activities on the facilities. The condition makes it hard for the established marine conservation facilities to promote maximum benefits (Venturini et al., 2017). The point that many such protected zones never operate under best practices largely explains the failure to provide the anticipated returns. As such, the worldwide marine conservation agency purposes to have the protected marine zones grow up to about twenty percent by 2020 (Merder et al., 2020). Realizing such a milestone under the current status, however, threatens to expose the world to numerous marine conservation mistakes due to the absence of science-backed best practices on the matter.
Domestic Solutions
America operates several marine protected areas as a way of conserving the marine ecosystem and allowing natural replenishment of water organisms. Cabrillo State Marine Reserve (SMR) is an example of a marine protected area in the country, the U.S. (Venturini et al., 2017). The Cabrillo SMR spreads off Cabrillo National Monument (in Point Loma), San Diego County, on California’s south coast. The SMR shelters about thirty-eight square miles and is home to thousands of endangered marine species. Moreover, the Cabrillo SMR guards marine life by restraining the exclusion of marine wildlife from within its boundaries (Venturini et al., 2017). The limitations cover even principal elements like the acquisition of marine life for research purposes. The aspect, therefore, makes the comprehension of the underlying aspects unknown to the global scholars and operators of the same facilities. The utilization of best practices in the area of protected marine zones is also significantly hard due to the absence of research-based knowledge. As such, the operation of such facilities, together with the anticipated growth in their numbers, hardly promises to make knowledge about their effectiveness in marine life conservation more available.
Case Study: Australian Marine Parks
The Australian marine parks, also known as the Commonwealth marine reserves, are marine protected zones in the Australian waters. The habitat is managed by the Australian government and occupies about two hundred nautical miles (Merder et al., 2020). However, the Australian administration purposes to expand the parks to 1,200,000 square miles by 2020. The move is highly challenged by the nation’s marine scholars and fishers as being overly restrictive (Merder et al., 2020). The Australian marine parks further take care of a wide array of marine creatures, including fish, coral, and coral reefs. The setting, thus, creates a highly appropriate platform for marine-related studies that can transform the conservation plan (Merder et al., 2020). Nonetheless, the Australian government places highly restrictive laws and policies for anyone proposing to undertake in-depth studies on the protected marine ecosystem. Consequently, the marine parks operate with reduced knowledge and information (Merder et al., 2020). Establishing policies that create room for comprehensive marine studies is, therefore, necessary for Australia and the world to learn best practices on matters of marine life conservation.
Case study: Agulhas Front Marine Protected Area
The Agulhas Front Marine Protected Area is located in South Africa’s offshores and protects millions of marine life species. The habitat covers four deep-sea regions of the Southwest Indian Ocean. The Agulhas protected area in South Africa is home to the largest population of critically endangered leatherback turtles and several other fish species exhibiting the same threat. Fishing is never allowed in the area, while very minimal research activities occur there (Rosemary et al., 2018). The fear that allowing fishing and intensive research operations in the South African-based marine protected zone will expose the endangered species to exploitation is the cause of the highly restrictive measures applied on the facility. Consequently, very little research-supported knowledge comes from this crucial bionetwork (Rosemary et al., 2018). As such, South Africa and the entire world stand to benefit highly from the adoption of policies that give room for controlled in-depth research on marine conservation practices based on this superb conservatory zone.
Worldwide Catch Shares
Catch shares is a scheme of fishing supervision that permits fish stocks to stock up while protecting the means of support of the fishing societies. Catch shares work by averting the unexpected failure of fish reserves and fishing activities (Nielsen et al., 2018). The method uses factors like the total ‘allowable catch’ to determine the optimum number of beneficial marine organisms that can be drawn from the water within a given duration, as opposed to season-based fishing. The catch shares, thus, purpose to ensure that humans’ life proceeds effectively without hurting the natural balance. The approach depends on the acquisition of scientific data to establish a workable record of fish stocks’ health and the impact of the surroundings in a definite area (Nielsen et al., 2018). Moreover, catch shares provide licenses to various fishing businesses showing them the exact amount of each seafood type permissible to catch (Nielsen et al., 2018). The catch shares paradigm is one of the best-voted ways of promoting marine conservation due to the ability to establish knowledge-based balance in life.
Catch shares further promote the control of seafood’s availability, thus, ensuring that profits remain high while governments and individual fishers reap maximum benefits from marine life. Divergent to regulating the time of a fishing season, catch shares promote communication and stewardship among fishers. The point that one is allowed to catch a given size of fish prevents fishers from the mad rush to make a living in a short period using all nature of fishing tactics, including trawling. As such, the catch shares tactic as it is currently is not adequate in promoting real sustainability in the marine ecosystem. That is because the method still remains mum on the issue of promoting research in the marine conservation practice.
Case study: Louisiana’s New Red Snapper Catch-Share Program
Louisiana’s New Red Snapper Catch-Share Program operates within the state of Louisiana. The program was initiated in 2017 and gives one hundred and fifty anglers the permission to catch twenty-five thousand pounds of red snapper anytime they wish. The method purposes to ensure a balance between the red snapper population in the Louisiana region and the community requiring such species for a protein source. The program reports a reduction in by-catch cases, a rise in revenue of about fifty percent, and a reduction in fishing-related chaos by about ninety percent (LeBreton & Rouge, 2021). A major missing factor in the program, however, is the aspect of research promotion in marine life.
Exempted Fishing Permit Policy as the Answer
All the marine ecosystem conservation strategies discussed earlier have clear weaknesses. A striking problem among the three fishing regulatory measures concerns the lack of support to science-based research practices to advance the best maritime conservation practices. The creation of marine protected areas is good for protecting endangered water-life, but significantly prevents in-depth research activities. Worldwide catch shares also promote sustainability but fall short in promoting research activities due to the strict regulations involved. That is why the exempted fishing permit policy offers the most compelling answer to the challenge posed by the different currently existing marine conservation measures. The first proposal for such an intervention exists in the U.S. and is expected to come operational starting 2023 if the public participation opinion under collection supports the policy.
The proposal suggests the exemption of specific vessels, licensed captains, and authorized crew to conduct limited sport fishing in the waters of the U.S. elite economic region off the Florida east coast. The proposal seeks to allow the parties to collect restricted numbers of snapper-grouper, dolphin and wahoo, and coastal migratory pelagic species to quantify shark depredation impacts in the recreational fisheries. The application lays out a precise procedure on how the investigations will occur, particularly concerning sample collection and marine life management (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2021). Once it succeeds, the relieved fishing permit policy application promises to help marine research practices to become legal activities conductible around fishing policies. The proposal also serves to form the basis of several other similar moves that promise to make the marine conservation process even more sustainable.
Recommendation
Almost all the current marine conservation measures limit marine research due to the absence of specific clauses that support or exempt marine scholars from the strict regulations enacted by the various conservation methods. For example, the creation of marine protected areas is good for protecting endangered water-life but significantly prevents in-depth research activities in the protected water ecosystems. Better still, the worldwide catch shares succeed in promoting sustainability but fall short in promoting research activities due to the strict regulations involved. The present work, thus, endorses the adoption of the exempted fishing permit proposal and any other analogous policies that can help marine research to be conducted around fishing guidelines as a new conservation policy.
Conclusion
Everything in the world is dynamic, making yesterday’s solutions weak as time goes by. Such is what exists in the marine conservation platform today. Many conservation tactics that worked in the past or working, presently lack a very vital facet for future success. A majority of such measures lack appropriate provisions for research activities in the conservation endeavor. The issue makes the utilization of best practices hard, exposing the conservation sites to secondary issues that need constant research to be identified and resolved. The case of shark predation’s impact in fisheries and other conservation zones around the world, for example, indicates the essence of making research a part of the conservation endeavor. One of the best ways to attain this goal is by adopting new policies that link marine research to fishing policies, as shown by the present work.
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