Examination of Witness (Questions 133-139)
2 DECEMBER 2003
PROFESSOR JOHN
GAGE
Chairman: Welcome Professor Gage. You
are a solo performer. We have just had the joy of a very large
number of people upon whom to focus our attention. Now we just
have you. Nonetheless you are extremely welcome. We were very
grateful to you for your written evidence, which was pithy and
helpful and we are looking forward to your responses to the questions
we are going to put to you, so I should like to ask my colleague
Mark Lazarowicz if he would be kind enough to commence our questions.
Q133 Mr Lazarowicz: You said in your
written evidence that the deep seabed within the UK continental
shelf beyond the continental shelf edge may represent the only
remaining large pristine reservoir of marine biodiversity but
that this environment faces serious threats. Could you give the
Committee an indication of what the principal threats to marine
habitats and species in this deep sea area are?
Professor Gage: Yes, indeed. The
view that this is still a pristine area should be expressed in
terms that inshore shallow water seabed has been impacted; it
has been impacted by fishing for decades, hundreds of years in
fact and the best opinion now is that it presents a degraded environment
in terms of biodiversity and habitat structure. The deep water
in contrast has not been impacted by fishing until 10 or 20 years
ago and by the oil industry only within the past 10 years or so.
We reckon as biologists that this environment is still in its
pristine original state, in other words it has not changed significantly
probably since the last ice age. You mentioned the chief ongoing
impacts. The oil industry has been there for the past 10 years
and has undertaken considerable and wide ranging exploration and
now has three producing wells in the Faroe-Shetland Channel. In
contrast to fishing, the oil industry is subject to a very stringent
environmental and regulatory framework. My personal opinion—speaking
personally rather than as the Scottish Association for Marine
Science, whose opinion may coincide with mine, but it is still
my personal opinion—is that this impact has been minimal.
In no surveys I have been associated with have we detected any
negative impact from the oil industry on the seabed biodiversity.
That is not to say there has not been some detectable impact on
mid water or surface populations of organisms. Fishing, by contrast,
is a very different sort of impact. I suppose, apart from the
targeted fish stocks they are going after, which in this case
are very slow growing and long-lived species, it is in fact almost
certain, that the fishery itself is completely unsustainable,
probably is already facing a steep decline. It seems only to be
maintained in terms of viability by heavy subsidies from the European
Union Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the fact that these subsidies
enable the boats, which are heavily over-capitalised, to maintain
the effort. I feel that the whole thing is going to collapse very,
very soon. Apart from the impact on those targeted stocks, there
is also a collateral impact on the fish they catch accidentally.
These include sharks and rays, which are very slow growing, and
also species which are not very fecund, that is they do not produce
very many young, like dogfish which have a single progeny wrapped
up in a mermaid's purse and that is left on the seabed somewhere
in most cases. There is also a serious impact on these collateral
populations. The other impact is to do with the seabed itself.
This is an area where I have some expertise and I do know that
the physical impact itself is very serious, particularly in terms
of what we call the epifauna, that is the organisms which grow
attached to the seabed. These might range from cold water corals
to glass sponges which are rooted into the seabed. When a rock
hopper is used, which is a very aggressive bottom trawl which
the industry has to use in deep water because they have to be
sure that the trawl is going to come back to the ship after being
trawled over a seabed, often a rocky unknown seabed, these sorts
of organisms are badly damaged, they are crushed and in the case
of cold water coral completely reduced to rubble by the trawl.
There is also a re-suspension effect caused by the trawl boards,
because the sweep of the trawl might be 50 metres or more, so
the trawl swathe is much wider than that of the physical impact
of the foot rope on the seabed. This causes massive re-suspension
of the muddy deep sea sediment and this comes up in the water
column and comes back down eventually and smothers the sea floor
over a much wider area.
Q134 Mr Lazarowicz: You spoke about the
effects from the oil industry to date as being minimal. Do you
have any concerns about the future development of industrial activities,
not necessarily just the oil industry but future industrial activities
in the deep sea area?
Professor Gage: In broad terms
there are two arguments. One can either go for an exclusion policy
in terms of deepwater marine management where maybe all man's
activities, all industrialisation are prevented and one allows
the seabed diversity to recover and then we admire it or cherish
it in some way, get to know it better anyway in the way the BBC
Blue Planet series is encouraging us to do, or we apply
a management policy which is sustainable in the sense that we
can ensure that the targeted stocks are fished or exploited at
a level which has sustainability.
Q135 Mr Lazarowicz: In lay language,
why is the future condition of the deep-seabed important to us?
Professor Gage: This is a quasi-religious
question. It is a difficult one.
Q136 Mr Lazarowicz: The devil's advocate
argument in all these areas is that you always damage the environment.
What is particularly important about this environment which requires
a new approach to it, if it does?
Professor Gage: If we value biodiversity,
certainly documents such as this, DEFRA's Safeguarding Our
Seas, which is a splendid document and presents a very far-sighted
vision, do present a case for value of biodiversity and the United
Nations' conferences too put a value on biodiversity. In scientific
terms, it is always difficult to account for biodiversity in terms
of good and services, but if we can encourage the general public
to put a value on the natural biodiversity, then perhaps we move
in the direction of putting a value on it in terms of socio-economic
value.
Q137 Chairman: Before I unleash Mr Mitchell
on you on the subject of fishing, may I just ask a question to
try to get into my mind a bit more clearly the effects on the
marine environment and the type of damage you have been describing?
Let us for a moment just be very philistine and say "So what?".
We smash up some corals, we clear out all the fish and we drill
lots of oil wells. What happens then? Looking at your evidence
I have been searching desperately for a before and after effect.
In other words, state of marine environment now: marks out of
ten. Or, before the intervention of man what was it like? Man
comes along, drills lots of holes, takes lots of fish out, smashes
up all these things you have been describing: marks out of ten.
Then, if we are a bit more conscious about what we are doing,
where do we get to on a Richter scale? Ms Clay, who gave some
evidence earlier, made a very telling point. We cannot, unless
it is through programme like the one you have described, actually
see, touch or feel the potential for damage and, more importantly,
understand what happens. When we talk about agriculture and bad
agricultural practice and bad soil management, we can see the
dust bowl effect, for example, so cause and effect are illustratable.
Give the Committee a feel for what happens if we just carry on
rampaging through the marine environment doing all of this damage.
What happens next?
Professor Gage: That is a very
difficult one to answer. The levels of uncertainty, particularly
in the deep water, in the marine environment, are much, much higher
than those of the terrestrial environment. I read an article just
the other day and in New Zealand they have lost 38 or 39 of their
flightless birds over the past 100 to150 years, yet there has
been no obvious detectable effect of that biodiversity loss on
the structure and the way the natural system works there. There
have been lots of introductions from Europe and other places too,
replacing species. The levels of uncertainty are high enough in
the terrestrial environment and they are certainly much higher
in the marine environment. I am going to dodge the question. We
just cannot give an answer to that until we apply more scientific
effort. This is an honest reply despite scientists being good
at asking for more funds and saying they must do more and more
work.
Q138 Chairman: If, for example, we understand
an ecosystem on the land, it is clear that you can in agricultural
terms have a reduction in different bird species because you upset
the birds' food chain because of agricultural practice. So we
change the practice because we can see cause and effect. Your
argument seems to say that we cannot be certain about what is
going on beneath the oceans, but it is just wrong to go around
disturbing the balance which is there. Is it as simple as that?
Professor Gage: It is probably
not quite as simple as that. We do need more hard information.
Take for example cold water coral. These have reached an iconic
status recently because they do rival the tropical coral reefs
in terms of associated biodiversity. You can go to an area where,
say, a Norwegian fishing boat has flattened the cold water coral
and find flat seabed, rubble-strewn seabed and none of the associated
animals which were using that cold water coral as habitat and
more than 400 or 500 have been recorded. That is one single demonstrable
effect that you are going to reduce at a local level the supported
biodiversity in a particular area. Putting a value on that is
a difficult question, which somehow we have to address, or scientists
and sociologists and economists have to address.
Chairman: Our own Austin Mitchell, Mr
Fishing, will now address the Committee.
Q139 Mr Mitchell: A dreadful introduction,
Chairman. I have actually been to sea. Where are we talking about?
We are talking about waters to the west, which are within the
British 200-mile limit, so even more of which would have been
within the two-mile limits if we had not been so daft as to give
up Rockall. Is that right?
Professor Gage: Yes, indeed. I
have some charts here which I could pass round.
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