Climate change opens sensitive Arctic waters to industrial exploitation

Industrial fishing is encroaching on once inaccessible and pristine waters in the Arctic Ocean because of climate change.

In the Barents Sea, north of Alaska and Russia, the fishing industry is pushing further north, placing the existing fragile ecosystem at risk, according to a new report released Wednesday from Greenpeace International.

Greenpeace analyzed ship movements over three years to September 2015 in a portion of the Norwegian Barents Sea and says their research shows large number of fishing vessels from globally significant companies are moving into previously ice-covered areas.

The environmental group is calling on global food brands and retailers to put pressure on the Norwegian government and the fishing companies involved to stay clear of the sensitive Barents Sea areas.

Boris Worm said the same phenomena of fishing fleets moving further north may be seen on Canada’s East Coast as well and for the same reasons — because there’s less ice and the fish themselves are expanding northward.

Commenting on the study, Worm, who leads a marine biology conservation lab named for him at Halifax’s Dalhousie University, said:

“This is indicative of a larger trend we see in the Arctic — not just there, but also in Canada, Russia and elsewhere — that is moving into those waters that have previously not been fished. These are some of the last remaining waters of the planet that have not previously been fished.”

The study says the Barents Sea is home to bowhead whales, walruses, polar bears and a number of rare fish and invertebrates.

Of particular interest to the industrial fishers is the region’s rich cod stocks, which are currently the world’s largest.

The waters also contain such species as the sea pen, a type of feathery invertebrate, and the basket star. A 2015 study into the vulnerability to trawling of seabed fauna in the region found aggregations of sea pens up to 50 years old and over two metres in height.

The sea pens and other seabed fauna, such as sponges and corals, are vulnerable to bottom trawling, a fishing technique used to catch fish such as cod and flatfish.

The biggest bottom trawl nets measure about 70 metres in width and 100 meters in length. According to Greenpeace, the nets are weighted with heavy metal rollers that smash and crush everything in their path.

“Fifty-year-old sea pen aggregations such as those found by the study can be wiped out in seconds by bottom trawling, along with the communities of other organisms that depend on them,” the study notes.

Greenpeace cites research that suggests the winter sea ice edge in the eastern Barents Sea has retreated about 240 kilometres between 1979 and 2010. The rate of warming in the Arctic is twice the global average.

In January 2016, because of unusually high air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean, the Arctic sea ice extent was the lowest in the satellite record, according to the study.

A total of 189 trawlers are licensed to fish for cod and haddock in the Barents Sea in 2016. The three largest operators are Havfisk ASA, Norway’s biggest operator; Ocean Trawlers, based out of Hong Kong, but Russian-owned; and the Fishing Industry Union of the North, a leading Russian fishing association.

These companies feed a network of processors, exporters and distributors that supply seafood to markets in Europe, Asia and North America, including major supermarkets and household-name fish brands as well as the popular UK fish and chip trade.

Worm said a precedent for a moratorium exists. In 2009 the U.S. declared a fishing moratorium in their Arctic waters north of Alaska, citing lack of information as to how fisheries there could be managed and their overall impact assessed.

“If that information is not there, those fisheries are not allowed to go forward,” Worm said. “That’s clearly a precautionary and valid approach and should be applauded.”