Daniel Pauly Project Claims New Zealand's Quota Management System is Flawed
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [NEWS ANALYSIS] by John Sackton.
When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. That saying sums up one reaction to Daniel Pauly's Sea Around Us project, which has attempted to estimate the health of global fish stocks based solely on historical catch data as reported to the FAO.
The latest working paper in the series, Reconstruction of marine fisheries catches for New Zealand (1950-2010) by Glenn Simmons et al, says that based on their analysis of catch records, historical catches in New Zealand from 1950 to 2010 were 2.7 times higher than reported.
Few people would quarrel with the idea that from 1950 to 1980 catch reports were unreliable. But one of the authors' key points is to extrapolate this to say that current day accounting for discards, undersized fish, and non-target species is not sufficient. Unfortunately, the bulk of their analysis covers the period prior to New Zealand's quota management system
To Read Full Story Login Below.