Ocean fertilisation experiement fails

The notion of mass iron fertilisaiton of the oceans as a means of mitigating human induced climate change has taken a significant plunge.

New Scientist reports that the controversial Indian-German Lohafex expedition fertilised 300 square kilometres of the Southern Atlantic with six tonnes of dissolved iron. The iron triggered a bloom of phytoplankton, which doubled their biomass within two weeks by taking in carbon dioxide from the seawater. Dead bloom particles were then expected to sink to the ocean bed, dragging carbon along with them.

Instead, the bloom attracted a swarm of hungry copepods. The tiny crustaceans graze on phytoplankton, which keeps the carbon in the food chain and prevents it from being stored in the ocean sink. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research reported that the copepods were in turn eaten by amphipods, which serve as food for squid and fin whales. Keeping carbon in the food chain increases the complexity of the process meaning that it may be difficult to control and obtain successful storage. Also ocean fertilisation could potentially increase incidence of harmful blooms and contribute to acidification.

New Scientist article on ocean fertilisation

From one of the SAMS Marine Resources students, Jill McColl...

Deep-Sea Disposal of Mine Tailings- Is this the best option?

Tailings are large amounts of crushed rock that is left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the worthless fraction during mining. This material contains contaminants including Arsenic and hydrogen sulphide, as well as many radioactive elements. The average mine releases around 100 -150 thousand tonnes per day of tailings over a period of 20 - 40 years, but you can not mine without producing this leftover material, so where should this material go?

Dumping it into a river or into the shallow coastal ocean is an option but it can cause many environmental problems because of the contaminants tailings contain. One of the largest side effects is to the fishing industry because coastal waters are where most of commercial fishing is done and the contaminants will deplete stocks. Another option is to back-fill the mine at the same time as you are mining. This is a great option because the tailings are getting put back where they came from; leading to a minimal environmental impact but this method is very expensive therefore companies are looking for a commercially viable option.

This option could be deep-sea disposal. This is where tailings are pumped through a pipeline into the deep-sea (below 1000m). This has the advantages of only being a small chance of the tailings ever coming in contact with surface waters and the tailings will eventually be subducted into the earths crust at subduction zones. Also the seabed has slightly anoxic conditions and the low temperature can slow down chemical reactions of the tailings with the seabed.

Although there are many advantages, there are also some disadvantages including the smothering effect on the seabed. Another important point is that we have no control over where the tailing end up when they are released and there is a small possibility of the chemicals leeching, which can contaminant the food chain. Is this a chance we wish to take?

In my opinion, deep-sea disposal is the way forward. The advantages of deep-sea mining out weigh the disadvantages, making it the most viable option.

Aliens on the agenda in Oban?

It is interesting to note that the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) met at the Scottish Association for Marine Science yesterday to discuss local aspects of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). The Argyll and Lochaber Draft Area Management Plan is one of eight branches of the Draft River Basin Management Plan for the Scottish River Basin District (RBD). The purpose of these directives is aimed at protecting and improving Scottish water, whether freshwater or marine.

In 2006 SEPA brought together various stakeholders from across Scotland to provide help and advice during the creation of the drafts. Organisations with interest in land, sea, forestry, farming, conservation, industry, tourism and rural business have come together to help shape the strategy and resolve issues through collaboration and discussion.

One particular topic of discussion raise yesterday afternoon was centred on the risks posed by invasive non-native and alien species of flora and fauna that have taken up residence in Argyll and Lochaber.

There have been close to 1000 invasive non-native species indentified in Scotland so far, and approximately 65 of these are from the marine environment. SEPA and the stakeholders involved are particularly interested in some of the risks associated with these plants and organisms. Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) and Wireweed (Sargassum muticum) are amongst the most notorious aliens present in Scotland. However I am keen to explore the issues surrounding a marine alien whose presence may be considered more beneficial than threatening and why this can cause an additional dilemma.

The Pacific Oyster (Crassostrea gigas) has now been named as an invasive, non-native species and a curse to those eager to extol the virtues of the Native Oyster (Ostrea edulis). This is causing friction between conservationists and shellfish farmers. The Pacific Oyster is a vital element of oyster production in Scotland and the growth rate of the native species cannot compete with that of the pacific variety. Evidence from the Fisheries research services suggests that the Pacific Oyster will in fact not be able to acclimatise and establish itself in Scottish water. This is due to a temperature deficit between the species warmer native Asian waters and the cooler Scottish seas. This species is also of economic and social importance as is maintains populations in remote regions of the country and provided employment and wealth.

Why isn’t fishery management working?

The Darwinist Thomas Huxley was wrong. His assertion during the Royal Commission’s enquiry into trawling in 1883 that the great sea fisheries were inexhaustible seems a facile statement in the twenty-first century. The European Commission have declared that some important fish stocks are on the verge of collapse; this has already happened in other parts of the globe, with the devastation of the anchoveta fishery off Peru in the 1970s and the collapse of cod stocks in eastern Canada in the early 1990s, the latter resulting in 40,000 fishermen losing their livelihoods. Fishery management faces a crisis. Models by Villy Christenson from the University of British Columbia suggest that today’s stocks are just one-tenth of what they were in 1900 and two-thirds of this decline has happened since the 1950s. The magazine Science has termed it “fishing down the marine food web” by Pauly et al 1998; depletion of sea life through the trophic levels, or as the Daily Telegraph (16 December 2008) describes it “putting jellyfish on the menu”.

What is the real truth and what can be done? The answers are complex and need to be teased out from the knot of bureaucracy, politics and misleading scientific data.

According to Callum Roberts, professor of Marine Conservation at York University, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) itself is to blame; a policy that has been criticised by conservationists and fishermen alike since its hasty inception in 1983, a strategy drawn-up by the six original members of the European Union – none of which were major fishing nations at the time. Today scientists under the International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advise the Directorate of Fisheries in Brussels of sustainable quotas for the following year and the Council of Fishery ministers then haggle over total allowable catches (TACs). Cynics suggest that council ministers meet just before Christmas because there is no other way to reach an agreement without the last flight home looming before the holidays! The wrangling and horse-trading has nothing to do with conserving stocks; more about gaining the best deal possible for one’s own fishing industry. Has there ever been a fisheries minister who has courted unpopularity with their own fishing community, the people they represent? How would this look to the wider electorate? More importantly, what would the poles say? Politicians only see short-term goals; long-term planning is someone else’s problem. The answer may be to take the decision-making responsibility out of the hands of politicians. One parallel is the economic mechanism for setting bank interest rates, whereby decisions are made by a group of financial experts, with the responsibility relieved from those who have a vested interest – the politicians. In a similar manner it could be argued that marine scientists should be ultimately responsible for marine resource management.

Moreover, the scientific data passed to the Council of Fishery ministers is used only as a baseline, with fishing quotas inflated twenty-five to thirty-five percent more than the figures recommended by the fishery scientists. One wonders how the scientists feel about this. The Europa document (EC 2009) detailing the 2002 reform of the CFP suggests that it is important for scientists to share their expertise with other stakeholders. In other words their input to the process is vital, yet this is a process that allows their findings to be indiscriminately undermined. One can sympathise with them; they must feel really exasperated and undervalued.

This leads onto the next question - can the science be trusted? The models which underpin fisheries management fail to understand the importance of a healthy ecosystem but instead concentrate solely on pelagic and demersal fisheries. In other words, the science fails to look at the bigger picture, the interaction between species and communities. In addition, and according to Tim Oliver, editor of Fishing News, a weekly newspaper covering all aspects of commercial fishing, fish stock extrapolation should be “a theoretically precise science, which is in fact anything but precise”.

This is not a criticism of the scientists who often have to work within restrictive practices and with finite resources; more about the complex and rigid regulations which are fundamentally flawed. Nevertheless, the psychology of fishermen also has a role to play. Fishermen go through danger, discomfort and depravation to catch fish and some bend or blatantly ignore regulations which they see as being made by bureaucrats who do not know the difference between a sardine and a sandeel. An analogy might be car drivers on a motorway. Who drives at 60 mph when one can generally get away with doing 75 or 80? It is human nature to push the limits. In essence, fishing quotas create waste by forcing fishermen to dump fish for which they do not have a quota, but this is loathed by most who land fish illegally. Similarly, “high-grading” is the practice of filling the hold with the best fish and discarding the rest when fish are plentiful. Critically, all this data is not available to scientists and it is estimated that over the last forty years, although 130,000 tonnes of North Sea haddock has been landed, a further 87,000 tonnes was discarded. Perhaps the agreement by the Council of Fishery ministers last December to avoid discards may improve things, but this is tinkering at the edges of a systemically flawed system. The answer may be to let the fishermen keep what they catch and scrap quotas. Primary management can then be controlled through reducing the amount of fishing effort. This of course is an anathema to the industry and the “D” word (decommissioning) is rarely aired by fisheries ministers who fear for their majorities.

Enforcement also has a role to play in administering an effective fishery management policy and British fishermen suspect that it is not a level playing field. Some member states are unwilling or unable to enforce the regulations on their own fishermen. Even allowing for parochial prejudices of the British trawler skipper, the enthusiasm to implement statutory EU controls especially by France and Spain is poor. Moreover, prosecutions are minimal and the fines imposed for illegal fishing are paltry (see http://www.mfa.gov.uk/news/prosecutions/prosecutions.htm). This leads back to the science – without accurate, declared catch statistics the scientific forecasting is defective.

It will therefore require a paradigm shift in philosophy and a reinvention of policy if humankind is to prevent wholesale devastation of the marine resource.

Scottish Parliament and the Marine Bill..a taste of things to come...

Debate has intensified in the parliamentary chambers over the incoming Scottish Marine bill. Follow the link to the debate:

Transcript of the debate

A number of issues were raised by MSPs including:

• The formation and status of Marine Scotland (the Marine management organisation) and its relationship with the government. Debate has intensified over the Independence of Marine Scotland and whether it should be a non departmental public body. Also issues of governance such as appeals bodies, engagement with science, and links to other arms of government have been raised.
• Concerns over the legislative process for the Bill and Marine Scotland - particularly Marine Scotland being set up before the Bill has been drafted and a lack of debate over its role and function.
• The balance between economic and environmental principles and application through marine planning - particularly the issue of marine conservation zones, and emphasis on development in the bill.
  
• The size and governance of the proposed regional marine planning zones and access by all interested stakeholders in marine planning and conservation.
  

Obviously a work in progress. The high priority for the development of Marine Scotland relates to its role as a body that will deliver the various parts of the Marine Bill such as UK coordination, National Marine Plan and Regional Marine plans - and therefore its development is being brought forward. However, Marine Scotland and the way it is structured and governed is a critical element of Scottish marine reform - and requires transparency via parliamentary debate, particularly its relation to the government of the day and its ability to make independent science based decisions that ensure the sustainability of Scotland's seas.

Expect a lot more posts on the emerging Marine Bill and what it means for Scotland and the UK in the coming months....