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China's Immense Fisheries A December 2002 report from Embassy
Beijing. Programs to reduce overfishing are gradually taking effect
in China's huge fishing industry.
Fish farming is booming.
A "zero growth" policy for wild fish catch has actually led
to zero reported growth since 1999, and there are programs to cut fleet size
and numbers of fishermen. But
meager pay and hard work on the briny deep remain attractive to many Chinese
workers, both registered and unregistered. This complicates the government’s efforts to contain
overfishing. China Has World's Largest
Fisheries China is very much a
global player in the world of fish. Far and away the world's largest producer of fish, with
roughly 1/3 of global production, China's total haul is five times that of
Peru, the second-largest.
Fisheries represent a $30 billion component of China's economy, equal
to 3% of GDP. China exports $3
billion of fish each year, and fish is an increasingly important food source
for the nation’s large and still-growing population. Officials Worry About
Overfishing Chinese fisheries
officials state frankly that their biggest problem is overfishing. China's Bureau of Fisheries (BOF) in
the Ministry of Agriculture has a multi-pronged strategy for reducing fish
catch to sustainable levels: 1) Adhering
to international fisheries treaties; 2) Beefing
up enforcement of domestic fisheries law; 3) Using
administrative tools such as moratoria and catch limits; 4) Developing
the fisheries processing industry as an alternate employment source; 5) Cutting
the number of fishing boats; 6) Cutting
the number of fishermen; and 7) Promoting
aquaculture as a substitute for wild catch. Many of China's
fishing boats are day sailers with small crews. Environmentally, this is a double-edged sword. The good news is that these boats
don't have the range to fish far offshore and decimate stocks there. The bad news, of course, is that
overfishing along the coast is intense.
The small mesh of some fishing nets graphically demonstrates the
situation. In the absence of
sufficient sizable fish for an economical catch, fishermen are try to grab
everything they can. Looking at
the net of the anglers in the photos below, one expert wittily asked if they
were fishing for zooplankton, since the mesh of the nets is so small.
China’s
authorities have taken a number of steps to address the problem of
overfishing: ·
Counter-measure
#1: Limit the Take: The
Bureau of Fisheries set a "zero increase" policy for China’s fish
catch starting in 1999. Data in
this area should be viewed with skepticism. (A study published in Nature magazine and reported in the
Embassy's biweekly newsletter on November 30 (www.usembassy-China.org.cn/english/sandt/estnews113001.htm)
concluded that China’s fish catch has been systematically over-reported for
years.) Still, official results
show a decrease of 1% to 3% annually in China’s reported wild catch (both
freshwater and marine), as shown below: MARINE
CATCH INLAND
CATCH (Metric
tons) (Metric
tons) 1999 14,976,100 2,285,200 2000 14,774,500 2,233,200 2001 14,406,100 2,149,900 Note: these figures
below do not include farmed fish. ·
Counter-measure
#2: Promote Fish Farming: Aquaculture
(marine and freshwater "fish farming") continues to boom. Moving labor from the fishing
industry and into fish farming is a cornerstone of China's fisheries
policy. Production of farmed
fish has grown annually in the high single digits, and now constitutes more
than 60% of China's total fish production. Fish farming by itself, however, cannot solve all the
problems of China's fishing industry.
Aquaculture is capital-intensive, and China is already starting to
exhaust appropriate sites and freshwater supplies available for fish
farming. In addition, while less
risky than ocean fishing, fish farmers must still worry about storms and
disease. ·
Counter-measure
#3: Cut the Fleet: China
has a five-year, $160 million program to scrap 30,000 fishing boats, or 7% of
its fleet, by 2007. Fishermen
voluntarily participate in this program. Five thousand boats were scrapped under this program in
2002. Officials say that
compensation for retiring a boat can be as much as $12,000. One concern, however, is “scrapped”
boats going back into service. A
reported 110,000 boats either fish illegally or are unlicensed, and 20,000 of
those boats have no name, no license, and no home port, making them almost
impossible to regulate. ·
Counter-measure
#4: Cut the Workforce: The
Bureau of Fisheries is planning to move 200,000 fishermen (4% of the total)
to other jobs by 2007. The
policy tools to accomplish this include subsidizing fish farming gear and
offering training. Officials say
that few people leave fishing permanently; fishermen are much more likely
simply to move to another part of the industry. This makes fish farming an attractive alternative. The best figures
available show that China has about 25 million fishery workers, of whom
roughly half are part-time. Five
million people work in the fish capture industry and 20 million work in fish
farming. These figures include
workers in fish products factories as well as fishermen. Part-time fishermen might work a
season or two on the ocean and return to their village to farm during the
summer, for example, or perform a mix of agriculture and fish farming. The economic pull of fishing is
demonstrated by the fact that, according to Dalian officials, roughly 50% of
the local fishermen are not locals, but rather migrant workers from inland
areas or other provinces. Economics still make
fishing an attractive profession for many people. Fisheries officials in Dalian say that the average
fisherman there can earn $850 per year, 30-50% higher than local farm
incomes. Industrial jobs in
Dalian pay more than farming or fishing, but such jobs are harder to reel in.
Legal System and Enforcement
Are Improving China's basic
fisheries law was passed in 1986, and was amended in 2000. China has also instituted various regulations
on vessel registration and management, fish breeding and catch levels, along
with temporary fishing moratoria in certain regions. Nationwide, China has 30,000
fisheries officials and 1,100 enforcement vessels. China's fisheries enforcement is increasingly
sophisticated with licensing requirements and regulations on nets, equipment,
engine size, and open seasons.
Even so, China's numerous small boats and small harbors make fisheries
law enforcement problematic; there are just too many boats and too
fewofficials to police them. Cooperation with the
U.S. Coast Guard and National Marine Fisheries Service has helped raise
China's capacity for fisheries policy and enforcement. A Chinese fisheries law enforcement
delegation visited the United States in September 2002, and Chinese fisheries
officials regularly participate in the Coast Guard's "shiprider"
program in Alaska for enforcing the United Nations moratorium on large-scale,
high seas driftnet fishing. The United States
and China have regular bilateral meetings to discuss fisheries issues, the
most recent of which took place in Beijing in April 2002. U.S. participants at that meeting
noted that the two nations have a productive relationship on several
international fisheries issues, including driftnets, illegal fishing, and
management of pollack, tuna, salmon, and highly migratory fish stocks. Chinese officials
complain that their fishing grounds are getting smaller, giving Chinese
fishermen fewer places to fish.
They point to recently signed fishing agreements between China and
South Korea, Japan and Vietnam as further restricting fishing grounds for
China's ocean-going fleet. These
agreements are based on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China
ratified in 1996. Policies, Problems Confirmed
Dockside An Embassy officer
visited Dalian in Liaoning Province and met with Dalian fisheries officials
for a dockside look at the local fishing scene. The Dalian district has 339 fisheries enforcement
officials. Of the 30,000 boats
to be scrapped nationwide, 2,000 will come from Dalian. Officials would also like to move
10,000 fishermen away from catching wild fish into aquaculture or seafood
processing. Dalian is home to
about 200 distant-water fishing boats.
Powered by engines ranging from 600 to 1,500 horsepower, they roam to
waters near South East Asia, Australia and Africa. Dalian fisheries
officials’ statements hew closely to the central government's line: cut
numbers of boats and fishermen, step up enforcement, and promote fish farming
in order to reduce overfishing.
This consistency shows that the central government's fishing
authorities are getting the word out.
The Dalian officials can also observe first-hand that they have an
overfishing problem. Average
fish size has been dropping noticeably. Comment: Moving in the Right
Direction China's overfishing
problem and the response to it follows familiar lines: well-intentioned but
outgunned officials scrambling to address a serious environmental problem
that has been decades in the making.
We expect incremental improvement. |
