|
WORD THAT THE FEDERAL
government would partially re-open the cod fishery in Newfoundland
and Labrador in May reached Dr. Kim Bell the same way it reached
other Canadians -- through newspaper reports.
But Bell, a specialist in fish ecology, has more than a passing
interest in the subject. For more than three years he studied
the state of Atlantic cod for the Committee on the Status of
Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), the body that develops
Canada's national list of species at risk. Cod is the first commercial
marine fish species to be studied by COSEWIC. Bell says that
when he started, he could not imagine that cod, such an essential
part of Newfoundland life, could be in trouble. He has since
changed his mind.
"On a by-management-area basis, the advised designations
range from Lower Risk to Critically Endangered," concludes
the confidential status report submitted to COSEWIC at its April
general meeting and obtained by Canadian Geographic. "As
a single unit, the advised designation ... is ENDANGERED."
That opinion was reached after reviewing hundreds of documents
from independent scientists and government sources, including
the Department of Fisheries
and Oceans (DFO), the federal department responsible for
managing the cod fishery.
Weighing that information against Environment Canada criteria
and COSEWIC's general guidelines, Bell determined that the Atlantic
cod population as a whole was endangered. He then provided a
stock-by-stock analysis -- ranging from low risk/vulnerable to
endangered -- of cod in 10 geographic areas managed by DFO. Half
were in the more serious category.
On April 17, 10 days before the federal election call, DFO
minister Fred Mifflin announced that 6,000 tonnes of cod could
be taken from the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the west
coast of Newfoundland, and 10,000 tonnes from the southern Newfoundland
coast.
Bell cited DFO's own information to show that re-opening was
"at odds with recent DFO reports," including a 1996
DFO paper which labelled the stock in the northern Gulf of St.
Lawrence and western Newfoundland as "very low" and
southern Newfoundland stock "to be at a low level of abundance."
"I can only hope that they know something I don't know,"
says Bell of the federal government's decision to re-open the
fishery. "If they don't, it is a big mistake."
COSEWIC has been developing its national species at risk list
since 1979, based, according to its published mandate, on the
best scientific evidence available. Politics is not supposed
to play a part in decisions, despite the fact that COSEWIC's
20-odd members include representatives from the wildlife departments
of the 12 provincial and territorial governments, federal departments
and agencies involved with wildlife -- including the Canadian
Wildlife Service (which serves as secretariat), Parks Canada
and DFO. Three national non-governmental organizations are also
members: the Canadian Wildlife Federation, Canadian Nature Federation,
and World Wildlife Fund Canada. Its findings are advisory and
carry no legal weight.
What Bell and other scientists have discovered, however, is
that politics play a central role when a species such as cod
is under review.
While Bell's final report (after extensive input on earlier
drafts from DFO and others) was submitted by COSEWIC's December
1996 deadline, it was delayed internally and failed to reach
the broader membership until about six weeks before the committee's
annual meeting in April. Several COSEWIC members believe the
delay was the result of resistance from DFO officials.
"I think there was a plan to make it late," says
a government COSEWIC member who was one of several who asked
not to be identified. "And I hope it doesn't happen next
year."
COSEWIC chair Dr. Erich Haber says the late arrival of such
a complex report would force members to defer official discussion
until 1998. Still, he believed the text was ready for review
and, against DFO's written objections that it had come in too
late, Haber submitted it.
"I have seen a lot of status reports," says Haber,
who has been with COSEWIC since 1981. "It is as good as
I have ever seen in regards to content."
In a move that some view as a breach of the non-partisan posture
of COSEWIC, DFO took the unusual step of writing to provincial
counterparts before the annual meeting asking that DFO's concerns
about the cod report be passed on to representatives.
"I think that it pushed it a little bit," says former
COSEWIC chair, Chris Shank, who saw the letter. "It is veiled
interference."
While debate is an integral part of COSEWIC's process, one
would be hard pressed to find views as divergent as those between
DFO officials and independent scientists when it comes to cod
and Bell's report. "To declare a species endangered when
there are hundreds of millions of them ... is ludicrous,"
says DFO director-general fisheries and ocean science, Dr. Bill
Doubleday.
The many criticisms of Bell's report by DFO are familiar to
the scientific community -- environmental factors are largely
to blame for the decline, huge fluctuations in populations are
normal for cod, and faulty criteria, similar to those used by
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources (which placed cod on its Red List last year) were used
by Bell.
Doubleday also argues that the quota allowed for the partial
re-opening is a fraction of what was fished in the 1980s and
that the fishery is needed to gather more information "which
is hard to get if you don't have enough people fishing."
Jeffrey Hutchings, a biologist with Dalhousie University in
Halifax, has faced similar arguments for more than a decade.
He obtained a DFO report released after the re-opening that supports
Bell's conclusions. "If we are not overfishing, we are not
far away," he says. The role of politics in the cod debate
has led him and other biologists in the May issue of the Canadian
Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science for a "complete
separation of science and government."
"The minister can make decisions that appear to be based
on science when in fact they are not," he says.
Bell remains frustrated by the protracted and acrimonious
debate that seems more political than scientific. This summer,
he will leave for a year's fellowship in South Africa and worries
that he will be unable to defend his work at COSEWIC's 1998 annual
meeting.
His worry may be unnecessary. At their last meeting, COSEWIC
struck a criteria committee to develop more formal guidelines
on which to determine risk designations. Headed by Kathryn Bruce,
DFO director-general, policy and strategy science, the committee
is to present recommendations by October. "The criteria
committee was formed at DFO's insistence," said one long-time
COSEWIC member who asked not to be identified.
The deferred cod report will, says Bill Doubleday, have to
be "revisited in light of the criteria." This is news
to Erich Haber and others. Haber still expects the cod report
to be debated next year as does Bob Campbell, chair of the fish
and marine mammals sub-committee. "This may be the argument
DFO will use to have the cod report deferred for another year,"
says Campbell.
"Irrespective of whether or not cod should be fished,
this process stinks," says Hutchings. Said another COSEWIC
member, "The whole thing has the potential to destroy COSEWIC."
Pauline Comeau is associate editor of Canadian Geographic.
|
