At the AFS Mid-year governing board meeting in Atlanta on March 10, the board voted to present a statement on economic growth to the membership for a formal vote. As I've documented here many times, the AFS Water Quality Section (WQS) and Socioeconomic Section (SES) attempted to work on this jointly. Failing that the WQS proceeded independently. From the WQS:
There is a long history of work on this issue, and it is documented on our website as well as in the Fall 2005 and Summer 2006 issues of the SES Newsletters. We worked long and hard on the Statement below. While not a "joint" proposal between the SES and the WQS, the draft statement incorporates many of the comments and ideas of the SES.
I requested one change (see 7th paragraph below) and it was incorporated in the version that was voted on favorably. The statement argued for lower per-capita income. I argued for a more vague target income level. I still don't agree with much of the statement but it was time to stop being a cranky obstructionist.
Draft AFS Policy Statement
Economic Growth and Fish Conservation
A. Issue Definition
Economic growth has been a profoundly important process shaping national and global societies. It has been associated with substantial improvements in the living conditions of human beings, and is an explicit policy goal of most national and international governments. However, economic growth also poses numerous challenges to sustainable resource management. And some believe that growth has actually become “uneconomic” in the sense that it now does more harm than good to living conditions in the aggregate. The appropriateness of economic growth as a public policy goal is a matter for citizens and governments to assess and decide, but to do so, in an informed way, requires knowledge of many factors affected by economic growth. The American Fisheries Society (AFS) does not presume to know if economic growth remains an appropriate policy goal for North American nations or other nations of the world. However, the AFS does believe that the relationship of economic growth to fish and conservation of regional and global biodiversity is a key factor for consideration by citizens and policy makers.
Economic growth is an increase in the production and consumption of goods and services. At any geographic scale (local, state/provincial, national, continental, global), economic growth may occur from increasing population or increasing production and consumption per person. For most of recorded human history, population and per-person levels of production and consumption have grown except during unusual periods. Economic growth of a nation is generally indicated by increasing gross domestic product (GDP). The size of the global economy is indicated by gross world product (GWP).
As economies grow, all or some of their sectors grow. These sectors include industries that derive energy or materials from ecosystems through activities such as mining, agriculture, logging, fishing, ranching, and electricity generation. They also include manufacturing sectors ranging from heavy (e.g., iron ore refining) to light (e.g., computer chip manufacturing). Economic sectors also include services such as banking, insurance, and information exchange. Economic growth typically involves an expansion of infrastructure such as roads, power lines, canals, and reservoirs, as well as urban housing and commercial sprawl (for example, malls, golf courses, and marinas).
The majority of current fish population declines are almost invariably caused either directly or indirectly by economic activities associated with the above sectors. In most cases complex interactions among activities within numerous sectors are involved. The expansion of these sectors occurs in all biomes and in all types of ecosystems. In the case of aquatic and marine ecosystems, fish and their habitats are directly affected. In the case of terrestrial ecosystems, fish habitats are indirectly impacted.
In addition to fish population declines from overexploitation and habitat loss, economic growth entails increasing levels of pollution, which may be discharged from point or diffuse sources. Although some pollution problems have been solved, economic growth complicates the situation by the introduction of a rapidly increasing variety of pollutants to atmospheric, terrestrial and aquatic systems. Consequently, many ecosystems face chronic disruption and biodiversity reductions that are especially acute in aquatic ecosystems. Of particular concern, recent unprecedented rates of global warming are now known to be largely a function of greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn are predominantly a result of fossil fuel combustion. Because fossil fuels are the primary energy source for economic production in American and global economies, global warming is largely a function of economic growth.
Another effect of economic growth that is harmful to native fish species, fisheries, and associated ecosystems are invasive alien species. Although some species introductions are intentional and occasionally beneficial, the spread of unwanted alien species and their negative impacts on natural ecosystems is principally an unintentional effect of increasing levels of national and international trade.
The empirical linkage of declines in fish habitats, fish species, commercial and recreational fisheries, and fish assemblages to the rapidly increasing volume of national and global economic activities is evidence of a conflict between economic growth and fish conservation. Numerous ecological principles provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical conflict, most notably the principle of competitive exclusion. Growth of the human economy occurs at the competitive exclusion of other species including fish from their habitats. This principal suggests that stabilizing aggregate human population and per-person production and consumption
below current levels areis necessary for effective national and global conservation of fish and sustainable fisheries.Some believe that technological development will allow humans to maintain economic growth without harming the environment. Indeed, there is a long list of technological developments that have diminished the environmental impacts of economic growth. However, on balance, these have been insufficient to halt or reverse a general pattern of accelerating rates of loss for biological diversity and fisheries in both global and North American aquatic ecosystems. Although some technological development may be used for purposes of conservation, when technological development is used principally for purposes of economic growth, it tends to result in the extraction of more natural resources, accompanied by increased impacts on fish and their aquatic habitats.
B. Needed Actions
The AFS takes the position that there is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and: 1) fish conservation; 2) sustainable fisheries and; 3) the integrity of aquatic and marine ecosystems. The AFS also takes the position that the conflict between economic growth and fish conservation should be considered in public policy decisions pertaining to economic growth. For society to maximize benefits from fish and associated industries, debates and decisions involving economic growth and natural resources must be based on striving for ecologically sustainable economies. Although approaches taken to date have enlarged national and global economies, they have clearly failed to demonstrate ecological sustainability at either scale. For purposes of fish conservation, AFS believes that a prudent approach would be to move towards a sustainable economy in which the human economy, biodiversity in general, and fish species in particular, are relatively stabilized and reasonably balanced within a few human generations. This will undoubtedly entail the application of a mixture of both microeconomic and macroeconomic tools.
For example, carbon emissions may be capped, and tradeable permits allocated among industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality. More directly related to fish species, individual transferable quotas (ITQs) may be granted to commercial fishers within the framework of a Total Allowable Catch (TAC). However, these microeconomic tools are unlikely to have more than local, temporary effects on fish conservation unless the macroeconomic policy goal is something other than economic growth.
Declines in environmental quality, including the loss of native fish species and sustainable fisheries, are not accounted for in income accounts such as GDP and GWP. Current economic policies rarely take into account the value of ecosystems and natural resources in performing valuable services such as maintenance of water supply, flood control, and climate regulation. Thus, although GDP is a reasonably good measure of the physical dimensions of an economy, GDP is not an accurate measure of economic health or of the non-economic aspects of economic growth where marginal costs exceed benefits. The AFS believes that the stated health of an economy should reflect the condition and sustainability of fish species, biodiversity, ecological integrity, and natural resources at large, as well as the economy’s ecological footprint.
The AFS believes that greater attention needs to be given to the fundamental conflict between economic growth and the conservation of fish and aquatic biodiversity at national and global scales. To accomplish this will require concerted efforts by the membership and leadership of AFS to immediately accelerate the development of a richer dialogue and action agenda on these issues among fisheries scientists, social scientists, economists, policy makers, legislators and the general public.
Next stop is publication in AFS Fisheries magazine for consideration by the entire membership.
