An estimated 950,000 metric tons of fish were harvested in Arctic waters between 1950 and 2006, nearly 75 times the amount reported to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) reconstructed fisheries catch data from various sources, including limited governmental reports and anthropological records of indigenous population activities, for FAO’s Area 18, which covers the waters surrounding northern Siberia, Alaska and Canada.
Published in the 4 February issue of Polar Biology, the report shows that FAO figures on the area were based solely on statistics supplied by Russia and amounted to 12,700 metric tons. In addition, while the National Marine Fisheries Service Alaska office currently reports zero catches for the area, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game puts Alaska’s catch at 89,000 metric tons.
While Canada also reported no catch to the FAO, the study shows that commercial and small-scale fisheries actually amounted to 94,000 metric tons. Meanwhile, Russia’s total catch was actually 770,000 metric tons.
“Ineffective reporting, due to governance issues and a lack of credible data on small-scale fisheries, has given us a false sense of comfort that the Arctic is still a pristine frontier when it comes to fisheries,” said Dirk Zeller, the study’s lead author and a senior research fellow at UBC’s Fisheries Centre. “We now offer a more accurate baseline against which we can monitor changes in fish catches and to inform policy and conservation efforts.”
