ENVIRONMENT: Canada averts fish war but nets evidence against Spain

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

NEW YORK, Mar 17 1995 (IPS) - Canada has defused a potential trans- Atlantic battle by releasing the Estai, a Spanish trawler seized off the coast of New Foundland last week, after catching it breaking international agreements on fishing.

But the kind of conflict, of which the Estai was the latest example, is almost certain to be repeated as fishing fleets trawl the oceans for rapidly diminishing stocks of fish .

The row began when the Cape Roger and Wilfred Templeman, two vessels belonging to the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), intercepted and boarded the Estai last week in the Grand Bank fisheries off the coast of the eastern Canadian province of Newfoundland.

The Estai, which belongs to a Vigo-based company called Pereira, was outside Canada’s 200-mile territorial waters. When the crew were ordered to “bring to” (a navigational term that means to stop), the Estai’s crew cut its nets.

The boat, the crew and their catch of Greenland halibut fish (known in Canada as turbot) were taken back by the DFO to St. John’s, Newfoundland. On Wednesday the captain and the crew were released after appearing in court when Pereira agreed to pay a 342,000-dollar bail.

Canada alleges that Spanish ships were using illegal nets to catch turbot, a slow-growing fish, that measures between 40 and 50 centimetres in length when mature. It is one of the last commercial species available in that part of the ocean.

On Tuesday night, Canadian vessels retrieved the Spanish nets which they say had a mesh size of 60 centimetres, less than half the minimum permitted by international agreement. The Canadians also reported the discovery of a secret compartment in the boat holding 25 tonnes of American plaice, which trawlers are not allowed to catch.

Fishing in the Grand Banks region, where the Estai was caught, is regulated by the 17-year-old Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO), whose 15 members range from Latvia to Iceland. NAFO has banned the catching of six species, including the American plaice, and restricted fishing for five others.

Rules for turbot, also known as the Greenland halibut, came into force last month. A catch ceiling of 27,000 tonnes was set, and the use of nets with a mesh size of less than 130 centimetres was banned to prevent the netting of younger and smaller fish.

If the Canadians can prove that the Estai was over-fishing or using nets whose mesh size was too small, their claims that the trawler was violating international law will be vindicated.

The problem, however, is that while Canadian law permits Canada to enforce the international rules outside its territorial limits, international law itself does not recognise Canada’s right to do so.

That appears to be the crux of Spain’s case which has been strongly defended by the European Union especially on the latter matter.

“It is important that we are not diverted from the principle that the Canadian authorities have taken the law into their own hands and acted illegally,” Sir Leon Brittan, the EU’s chief trade negotiator said in Brussels earlier this week.

The EU also complains that Canada 70-percent share of the overall fishing quota is too large, given the 12 percent allocated to Europe. That, say the Canadians, overlooks the fact that the Spanish and Portugese have only been fishing in the Grand Banks for four years, while the Candians have been there for decades.

Many of the Spanish vessels operating in the area are ones that have been chased away from other waters, such as Namibia’s. In fact, Spanish fishing vessels form “one of the most predatory” fleets in the world, with some 20,000 vessels roaming the oceans, says Catherine Stewart of Greenpeace Canada’s fisheries campaign.

She also points out that over a five-year period beginning in 1986, the EU as a whole reported total catches of 478,000 tonnes over and above the 115,000 tonnes allowed by NAFO.

The position of the Spanish government is an awkward one because last year the Spanish were involved in another fishing dispute in the Bay of Biscay, just off their own northern coast. In that case, it was Madrid which accused foreign trawlers of using illegal nets, rather than the other way around.

Spanish fishermen in the bay use the traditional method of pole- and-line to catch albacore tuna, but other countries use large nets called driftnets that stretch over several kilometres. Well over a thousand boats are estimated to fish the Bay during the season that lasts from May to September.

The EU sets a maximum length of 2.5 kilometres as a limit for these driftnets, although many of its members, such as France, would like to see this increased. Italy has called for the limit to be extended to nine kilometres.

Spain accused France, which also borders the Bay of Biscay, as well as Britain and Ireland, of overfishing the bay for tuna with driftnets that were far longer than the legal limit.

The Spanish say that they found French nets that measured at least 5.7 kilometres. British nets exceeding the EU’s limits were also discovered by the Royal Navy.

The dispute was not resolved by the end of the season last September and are expected to flare up again this year in May when fishing resumes, according to observers.