Counterplans General Stuff

Overfishing

No Impact

Apocalyptic claims that fisheries are collapsing from overfishing are unsupported by data and counterproductive.

Hilborn, 10 – Professor, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington [Ray, Apocalypse Forestalled: Why All the World’s Fisheries Aren’t Collapsing, The Science Chronicles, Nov 10, http://www.atsea.org/doc/Hilborn%202010%20Science%20Chronicles%202010-11-1.pdf, 6/26/14] CC

If you have paid any attention to the conservation literature or science journalism over the last five years, you likely have gotten the impression that our oceans are so poorly managed that they soon will be empty of fish — unless governments order drastic curtailment of current fishing practices, including the establishment of huge no-take zones across great swaths of the oceans. To be fair, there are some places where such severe declines may be true. A more balanced diagnosis, however, tells a different story — one that still requires changes in some fishing practices, but that is far from alarmist. But this balanced diagnosis is being almost wholly ignored in favor of an apocalyptic rhetoric that obscures the true issues fisheries face as well as the correct cures for those problems. To get the storyline correct, it is important to go back to the sources of the apocalyptic rhetoric. In 2006, a paper was published by Boris Worm in Science (Worm et al. 2006) that received enormous press cover-age. It argued that, if current trends continued, all fish stocks would collapse by 2048. Worm and his coauthors concluded their paper with the following sentence: “Our analyses suggest that business as usual would foreshadow serious threats to global food security, coastal water quality, and ecosystem stability, affecting current and future generations.” Others joined in, chief among them Daniel Pauly, who rang and continues to ring the apocalyptic note. “There are basically two alternatives for fisheries science and management: one is obviously continuing with business as usual…,” wrote Pauly in 2009 (Pauly 2009a). “This would lead, in addition to further depletion of biodiversity, to intensification of ‘fishing down marine food webs,’ which ultimately involves the trans-formation of marine ecosystems into dead zones.” It might surprise you to learn Pauly’s views are not universally held among scientists. Indeed, these papers exposed a deep divide in the marine science community over the state of fish stocks and the success of existing fisheries management approaches. Numerous critiques of the apocalyptic stance were published after the 2006 paper, suggesting that Worm et al. had greatly exaggerated the failings of “business as usual.” For in-stance, Steve Murawski, director of scientific programs and chief science advisor, defended the U.S. fisheries man-agement system and pointed out that the proportion of stocks overfished in the U.S. was declining, not in-creasing (Murawski et al. 2007). No one disagrees on our goals for the world’s fisheries stocks — we need higher fish abundances. The arguments are largely about where we are now and how we will get to higher fish abundance and lower fishing pressure. Are current fisheries management systems working to decimate fish stocks…or rebuild them? Do we need large areas of the oceans closed to fishing to assure sustainable seafood supply? Daniel Pauly says yes to the latter question: “This trans-formation,” he writes, “would also require extensive use of ocean zoning and spatial closures, including no-take marine protected areas (MPAs). Indeed, MPAs must be at the core of any scheme intending to put fisheries on an ecologically sustainable basis” (Pauly 2009a). In an attempt to resolve this dispute, Boris Worm and I several years ago organized a set of four meetings, sponsored by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), in which we assembled a database on abundance as measured by fisheries agencies and research surveys. Participants included several of the authors of the 2006 paper as well as several people from national fisheries management agencies. The results were published in Science in 2009 (Worm et al. 2009), and showed that, while the majority of stocks were still below target levels, fishing pressure had been reduced in most ecosystems (for which we had data) to below the point that would assure long-term maximum sustainable yield of fish from those ecosystems. About 30 percent of the stocks would currently be classified as overfished — but, generally, fishing pressure has been reduced enough that all but 17 per-cent of stocks would be expected to recover to above overfished thresholds if current fishing pressure continues. In the United States, there was clear evidence for the rebuilding of marine ecosystems and stock biomass. The idea that 70 percent of the world’s fish stocks are overfished or collapsed and that the rate of overfishing is accelerating (Pauly 2007) was shown by Worm et al. (2009) and FAO (2009) to be untrue. The Science paper coming out of the NCEAS group also showed that the success in reducing fishing pressure had been achieved by a broad range of traditional fisheries management tools — including catch-and-effort limitation, gear restrictions and temporary closed areas. Marine protected areas were an insignificant factor in the success achieved. The database generated by the NCEAS group and subsequent analysis has shown that many of the assumptions fueling the standard apocalyptic scenarios painted by the gloom-and-doom proponents are un-true: • For instance, the widespread notion that fishermen generally sequentially deplete food webs (Pauly et al. 1998) — starting with the predators and working their way down — is simply not supported by data. • Declining trophic level of fishery landings is just as often a result of new fisheries developing rather than old ones collapsing (Essington et al. 2006). • Catch data also show that fishing patterns are driven by economics, with trophic level a poor predictor of exploitation history (Sethi et al. 2010). • Furthermore, the mean trophic level of marine ecosystems is unrelated to (or even negatively correlated with) the trophic level of fishery landings (Branch et al. 2010). • And the oft-cited assessment that the large fish of the oceans were collapsed by 1980 (Myers and Worm 2003) is totally inconsistent with the database we have assembled — for instance, world tuna stocks in total are at present well above the level that would produce maximum sustained yield, except bluefin tuna and some other billfish that are depleted (Hutchings 2010). Nevertheless, many in the marine conservation community appear unwilling to accept these results, continue to insist that all fish may be gone by 2048, and use declining catches in fisheries where regulations have reduced catches as indications of stock col-lapse. No one argues that all fisheries are well-managed, and so far we do not have abundance estimates for many parts of the world, especially Asia and Africa. Using the catch-based methods of Worm et al. (2006) and Pauly, these areas appear to have fewer stock collapses and overfished stocks than in the areas for which we have abundance data. However, we do not know if these areas have been reducing exploitation rates or if they are still increasing. Finally, in places without strong central government control of fishing, there is broad agreement that community-based co-management can be effective. For these fisheries, management tools are very different than those used for industrial fishery stocks, and MPAs are here often a key ingredient. The lessons from the Worm et al. (2009) paper about what works to rebuild fish stocks are applicable to industrial fisheries, but probably not to the small-scale fisheries that sup-port many fishing communities. There is considerable room for policy debate about where we want to be in the tradeoff between yield and environmental impact of fishing. There is no denying that sustainable fishing changes ecosystems, and that different societies will almost certainly make different choices about how much environmental change they will accept in return for sustainable food production. But science cannot provide the answers for this debate; it can only evaluate the tradeoffs. My perspective is that we need to treat fisheries like medical diagnoses. We must identify which fisheries are in trouble and find the cures for those individual fisheries. The evidence is strong that we can and are rebuilding stocks in many places. Let us accept that progress and identify the problem stocks and how to fix them. Apocalyptic assertions that fisheries management is failing are counter-productive — not only because these assertions are untrue, but because they fail to recognize the long, hard work of fishery managers, scientists and stakeholders in the many places where management is working. While the gloom-and-doom advocates have been attracting public attention and press cover-age, thousands of people — decried by Pauly (2009b) as agents of the commercial fishing interests — have worked through years of meetings and painful catch and effort reductions to lower fishing pressure and success-fully rebuild fisheries.

Alt Causes

Alt cause: fishing precedes all other factors causing ocean death.

Craig and Hughes, 12 – environmental law scholar who has written important works on water and ocean and coastal issues, Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies [Robin Kudis and Terry, Marine Protected Areas, Marine Spatial Planning, and the Resilience of Marine Ecosystems, Resilience and the Law, 8/16/12, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1917696, 6/24/14] CC

Moreover, the study emphasized that both commercial and recreational fishing “can cause cascading trophic effects that alter the structure, function, and productivity of marine ecosystems,” and where recreational fishing actually outstrips commercial fishing, it “can have equally serious ecological and economic consequences on fished populations” (Coleman et al. 11 2004: 1959). Fishers, quite naturally, prefer to catch the largest fish of the species they are targeting, and they often prefer to target large apex predators—tuna, swordfish—to begin with (Coleman et al. 2004). Both preferences have consequences for marine ecosystem function. First, by targeting large predators, fishers can wipe out (or nearly so) an entire trophic level of the relevant ecosystem’s food web, changing the abundances of species, distorting foodwebs, and eroding the resilience of the ecosystem. In the heavily fished main Hawaiian Islands, for example, apex predators account for about three percent of the biomass of the coral reef ecosystems, while in the more isolated Northwest Hawaiian Islands, apex predators account for 54 percent of the biomass—a significant shift in food-web structure and ecosystem function. As apex predatory species become depleted, fishing effort typically expands or switches to large and then small herbivores, planktivores and detritivores, a phenomenon known as “fishing down the food chain.” Second, by targeting the largest individuals of a species, fishers can change the species’ reproduction dynamics. The biggest fish produce disproportionately more offspring—i.e., the relationship between body size and fecundity is strongly non-linear (Roberts & Hawkins 2000). Moreover, in some heavily targeted species such as parrotfishes, individual fish undergo a sex change as they mature (Roberts & Hawkins 2000). Fishing can also exert strong evolutionary pressures on fishes, selecting for individuals that reach reproductive size earlier. Thus, by targeting the largest fish, fishers may alter sex ratios, puberty size, and reproductive capacity as well as overall abundances. Fishers invariably catch non-target species, or bycatch. Very few fishing methods, especially at the commercial scale, can limit the kinds of species caught: long lines attract seabirds, marine mammals, and sharks as well as target fish; nets and traps capture species and juveniles that are too big to slip through the mesh. Improvements to gear, such as turtle exclusion devices on shrimp nets or escape slots on traps, can help to reduce bycatch. Banning netting in habitats where vulnerable species such as dugongs are prevalent can also reduce bycatch rates. Under most fisheries regimes, fishers throw the dead and dying bycatch back into the ocean, making accurate estimates of bycatch very difficult Moreover, “ghost fishing” by discarded or lost fishing nets and traps can continue to catch and kill fish and other marine creatures for years (UNFAO 2005). Finally, certain fishing methods destroy the marine habitat necessary to support healthy ocean ecosystems. Blast fishing and fishing through cyanide poisoning on coral reefs are obvious examples (McClellan 2010). More controversially, perhaps, bottom trawling is recognized as an ecosystem-destroying fishing method. As the United States’ National Research Council recognized in 2002, “[t]rawl gear can crush, bury, or expose marine flora and fauna and reduce structural diversity” (NRC 2002: 20). Bottom trawling and dredging have flattened the three-dimensional habitat formed by sponges, sea fans and deep-water corals in many of the world’s fishing grounds. The cumulative impacts of fishing on marine ecosystem structure and function (and hence overall resilience) are most obvious from an historical perspective. Many of the impacts of fishing are cumulative over long periods, making them easy to miss or ignore. In 1995, Daniel Pauly coined the phrase “shifting baseline syndrome” to describe a pervasive phenomenon in fisheries management: Essentially, this syndrome has arisen because each generation of fisheries scientists accepts as a baseline the stock size and species composition that occurred at the beginning of their careers, and uses this to evaluate changes. When the next generation starts its career, the stocks have further declined, but it is the stocks at that time that serve as a new baseline. The result obviously is a gradual shift of the baseline, a gradual accommodation of the creeping disappearance of resource species, and inappropriate reference points for evaluating economic losses resulting from overfishing, or for identifying targets for rehabilitation measures (Pauly 1995: 430). An historical perspective on the status and trajectory of marine ecosystems is thus critical in assessing their resilience. Moreover, historical overfishing may be the key culprit in pushing these ecosystems towards a tipping point (Steneck et al. 2011, Hughes 1994). In 2001, after examining a variety of historical records and evidence, nineteen marine scientists jointly concluded that “[e]cological extinction caused by overfishing precedes all other pervasive human disturbance to coastal ecosystems, including pollution, degradation of water quality, and anthropogenic climate change” (Jackson et al. 2001b: 629). This study emphasized the significantly greater abundance of almost all fished marine species in historical times, and outlined the already-existing impacts of historical overfishing, theorizing that centuries of overfishing have set in motion processes that caused or contributed to current—and, the authors speculated—future collapses of marine ecosystems (Jackson et al. 2001b). For example, in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, fur traders hunted sea otters “to the brink of extinction” by the 1800s in many kelp forest ecosystems, allowing sea urchins to multiply in the absence of their main predator; the sea urchins then ate the kelp itself, decimating the entire ecosystem (Jackson et al. 2001b: 631). This regime-shift persists today, except in areas were recovery of sea otters is underway.

Current fishing management makes eventual ocean collapse inevitable.

Wilson et al, 9 – Professor MSO in Fisheries Sociology, Sociologist, PhD. Michigan State University [Douglas Clyde Wilson, Kjellrun Hiis Hauge, Belinda Cleeland, Fisheries Depletion and Collapse, International Risk Governance Council, 9, http://irgc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Fisheries_Depletion_full_case_study_web.pdf, 6/24/14] CC

Until the late 19th century, the fish resources of the world’s vast oceans were thought to be essentially inexhaustible, even by the most prominent biologists [Smith, 1994]. As the fishing industry expanded and technology made larger catches possible and more areas of the ocean exploitable, the received wisdom that fisheries were inexhaustible soon became discredited. FAO estimates that 25% of the world’s fish stocks are currently being fished at an unsustainable level [FAO, 2007:29], thus risking collapse. Fish are a common pool resource, meaning that it is difficult to exclude users and that exploitation by one user reduces the resource availability for others [Ostrom et al. 1999]. Common pool resources are found when a system of individual property rights is insufficient for sustainability or too costly to implement [Bromely, 1991]. Furthermore, in many cases, especially in long-distance fisheries and in developing countries, they are effectively an open access resource, meaning that a system of property rights is completely absent and thus the fish can be caught by anyone. When common pool resources are valuable and open access, overexploitation is inevitable because users have no incentive to conserve when the fruits of such conservation can simply be taken by another user. The outcome of such a situation is overfishing and eventual collapse. This is why management is required if fish are to be harvested in a sustainable and economically efficient manner. Because fisheries are common pool resources they are often owned and managed as “common property” by governments or other collective entities. These entities seek to avoid the commons dilemma by granting conditional rights of access, for example a fishing license or a rule that only certain fishing techniques can be used. Although it is a common mistake, common property should never be confused with open access because common property regimes involve these access rights. However group-level management arrangements are challenging and costly, and often require the development of complex management systems.

Democracy

No Impact

1. No impact – Peace produces democracy, not the other way around. They also overlook agression that isn’t formal war.

Binnur Ozkececi-Taner, 02, Ph.D.Candidate, Department of Political Science at Syracuse University, Fall 2002, “The Myth of Democratic Peace” http://www.alternativesjournal.net/volume1/number3/binnurozkececi.htm

One can also dispute the fact that democracy produces peace by claiming that it is the peace that produces democracy.(29) This argument presents a new problem to the "democratic peace" theory, suggesting an unclear causal link. Furthermore, as Hermann and Kegley suggested,"democratic peace" theorists have overlooked instances of coercive actions short of formal war by suggesting that there were at least fifteen incidents of unequivocally democratic states intervening with military force against other democracies.(30) This is a result of "democratic peace" theorists not making any explicit claims about the sources of non-democratic war or peace, land their total negligence, if not ignorance, of constraints on the authoritarian leaders.(31)

2. Democratic peace not true – Other factors account for peace between democracies

Stephen M.Walt 99; Professor of Political Science and Master of the Social Science Collegiate Division at the U of Chicago., Foreign Affairs January, 1999 / February, 1999

Critics of the democratic-peace hypothesis make two main counterarguments. Their first line of attack holds thatthe apparent pacifism between democracies may be a statistical artifact: becausedemocracies have been relatively rare throughout history, the absence of wars between them may be due largely to chance. Evidence for a democratic peace also depends on the time periods one examines and on how one interprets borderline cases like the War of 1812 or the American Civil War. Critics also note that strong statistical support for the proposition is limited to the period after World War II, when both the U.S.-led alliance system and the Soviet threat to Western Europe's democracies discouraged conflict between republics. A second challenge focuses on the causal logic of the theory itself. Democratic-peace proponents often attribute the absence of war between republics to a sense of tolerance and shared values that makes using force against fellow republics illegitimate. (As noted above, Weart's version of this argument emphasizes the tendency for republics to see similar states as part of their own "in-group.") If this theory is true, however, there should be concrete historical evidence showing that democratic leaders eschewed violence against each other primarily for this reason. But critics like Christopher Layne have shown that when democratic states have come close to war, they have held back for reasons that had more to do with strategic interests than shared political culture. These cases suggest that even if democracies have tended not to fight each other in the past, it is not because they were democracies.

3. Democracy doesn’t solve peace – Lurking variables.

Waltz 2k Kenneth Waltz, Research Assoc. of the Inst. of War and Peace Studies and Adj. Prof. at Columbia U, 2000 (International Security, Spring, p. 5, Structural Realism After the Cold War) (MHHARV6424)

Every student of international politics is aware of the statistical data supporting the democratic peace thesis. Everyone has also known at least since David Hume thatwe have no reason to believe that the association of events provides a basis for inferring the presence of a causal relation. John Mueller properly speculates thatit is not democracy that causes peace but that other conditions cause both democracy and peace. Some of themajor democracies--Britain in the nineteenth century and the United States in the twentieth century--have been among the most powerful states of their eras. Powerful states often gain their ends by peaceful means where weaker states either fail or have to resort to war. Thus, the American government deemed the democratically elected Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic too weak to bring order to his country. The United States toppled his government by sending 23,000 troops within a week, troops whose mere presence made fighting a war unnecessary. Salvador Allende, dem ocratically elected ruler of Chile, was systematically and effectively undermined by the United States, without the open use of force, because its leaders thought that his government was taking a wrong turn. As Henry Kissinger put it: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people." That is the way it is with democracies--their people may show bad judgment. "Wayward" democracies are especially tempting objects of intervention by other democracies that wish to save them. American policy may have been wise in both cases, but its actions surely cast doubt on the democratic peace thesis. So do the instances when a democracy did fight another democracy. So do the instances in which democratically elected legislatures have clamored for war, as has happened for example in Pakistan and Jordan.