Examination of Witness (Questions 160-175)
2 DECEMBER 2003
PROFESSOR JOHN
GAGE
Q160 Mr Lazarowicz: In terms of priorities
for action, from your personal expertise, or that of your laboratory,
what do you think are the priorities for action in the marine
environment on the information we do currently have? Which areas?
Professor Gage: JNCC are actually
addressing this issue in terms of trying to decide where the offshore
marine protected areas ought to be sited and how they ought to
be managed. They have some ideas. They certainly made a good start
with the Darwin Mounds and I believe they are also considering
the three seamounts within the UKCS. I am not criticising the
designation of the Darwin Mounds, but it is not the only cold
water coral reef which occurs in UK waters. There is at least
one other known to the Scottish Executive in inshore waters in
Scotland and it has been investigated by my organisation. One
almost has a feeling that that one has been done so they can forget
about the rest. It seems that maybe some of the other ones might
be more at risk now than perhaps they were now that the Darwin
Mounds have achieved some measure of protection.
Q161 Mr Lazarowicz: Do we have information
about damage done to these seamounts? I think you referred to
evidence of damage to the Darwin Mounds from a particular type
of trawls.
Professor Gage: Yes. From the
seamounts, there is barely any evidence of damage at all. These
are such difficult and challenging areas to explore that there
does need to be a considered effort to see what state they are
presently in. We do know that they have been targeted by fishermen
for orange roughy, so one can imply from that, that seabed trawls,
rock hopper trawls and the like have impacted the seabed.
Q162 Mr Lazarowicz: Roughly, referring
to your map, where are these seamounts?
Professor Gage: In the darker
blue areas within that wedge of territorial seabed to the west
of Scotland there is a large one just north of the mid line, just
visible I hope, which is called the Rosemary Bank. The one to
the south of it is the Anton Dohrn seamount. The third one actually
lies on the dividing line between the Irish and the UK territorial
seabed and is right on the edge of the light blue area which designates
the continental shelf, right there in the corner. One can just
about make it out. That is an indication of the three seamounts
in the UKCS. There are other submarine banks which are probably
of similar volcanic origin and they also support similar, comparable,
biodiversity to the west.
Q163 Joan Ruddock: I get the impression
from listening to you today and reading your submission that perhaps
the state of our scientific knowledge is such, or the lack of
it, that it is impossible to say how we ought to be determining
the safeguarding of these deep waters.
Professor Gage: To an extent that
is true. On the basis of what we do know, we ought to do what
we can and where we have discovered and delineated an area where
we might find cold water coral, then it is correct to proceed
with some kind of conservation measure. Where we have another
environment such as the seamounts, where we feel confident that
there is likely to be fairly unique biodiversity, then these too
ought to enjoy some measure of protection. Regarding the other
areas which are mainly sediment covered, it is a more difficult
one. As far as the fish stocks presently targeted, it would be
sensible to urge the European Union to close down the fisheries
as of now, because nothing is being served in the case where there
are good arguments for the stocks now declining so that any continuation
of effort is just going to make the problem worse in terms of
eventual recovery. There is no regulatory framework applied to
those fisheries at present, apart from the so-called total allowable
catches. These are not based on biology, they are based on track
record, which is just how much you caught in the past, which is
meaningless in terms of stock management.
Q164 Joan Ruddock: Are you not making
assumptions rather than saying what may happen is predictable?
Professor Gage: I think what I
am doing is adopting a precautionary principle. Rather than making
any assumptions I am saying we do not have sufficient knowledge,
let us hold fire until we do. I know it is a fine line.
Q165 Joan Ruddock: We might be persuaded
of that. I think others would not, so that is a difficulty. Some
of the evidence we have had from NERC and yourself was expressing
concerns about the difficulties in combining the scientific knowledge
which is available. They talked about institutional barriers to
data sharing and collaboration. I wonder how you would see those
and what do you think could be done to address that particular
problem?
Professor Gage: There is no doubt
that there are barriers of a kind I mentioned earlier, which certainly
impede our rate of progress. I do think these ought to be addressed
and the marine inquiry will be an ideal vehicle to make a few
sharp points in this direction. I do think a concerted and joined-up
effort ought to be applied to this whole problem. NERC can play
its part and DEFRA can play its part and this is the only action
to take.
Q166 Joan Ruddock: You also talked about
turf boundaries. Could you just elaborate on that?
Professor Gage: Not in detail,
but one does come across instances where this sort of territoriality
seems to exist. It is something associated with a particular culture
of a fisheries lab and a culture of a NERC laboratory which is
supposed to be doing environmental science; the fisheries lab
are supposed to be doing fisheries science. Now we have reached
a level of recognition that the whole ecosystem needs to be addressed
at an environmental level and that sort of culture needs to be
dealt with and positively, in a way which prevents it asserting
itself. We have to adopt a new culture.
Q167 Joan Ruddock: So the actual direction
of marine science is being badly affected by these barriers you
have described. Is that what you are saying?
Professor Gage: Certainly marine
living resource exploitation, yes. It would be unfair to say that
applies to hydrocarbons.
Q168 Joan Ruddock: Overall it is both
the direction and the quality of research which you would say
is being disadvantaged, held back by these various turf boundaries
and this lack of sharing of data.
Professor Gage: Yes; indeed.
Q169 Joan Ruddock: So we cannot get to
the big picture, which, if we had it, might enable us better to
say how to conserve.
Professor Gage: Yes; I agree with
that completely.
Q170 Chairman: Just to follow on that
line of questioning, has the change in the way that fisheries
research money been allocated post devolution in Scotland—the
Welsh Assembly would not come into this—amplified the type
of turf war problems you describe?
Professor Gage: Regrettably, yes,
I believe. One has to remember too that the responsibility of
SEERAD, the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department,
only extends to the 12-mile limit and does not extend to this
whole deep water area, which is still the responsibility of DEFRA.
Q171 Chairman: You praised the Safeguard
Our Seas document. If I have understood you correctly and
given the scale of the problem here, which is not just near shore
shallow water difficulties, but offshore deep water difficulties
and you talked about fisheries issues and talked about many other
aspects of the marine environment, does that really mean this
is actually a United Kingdom/Europe/world problem and therefore
it should be dealt with on that kind of scale and not in penny
packets according to which research outfit can shout the loudest.
Professor Gage: Yes, indeed. Eventually
it will have to have an international dimension, because fish
do not have any notion of territorial seabed.
Q172 Chairman: You say "eventually".
That almost implies a slightly leisurely timescale on all of this.
The Committee received representations from our fellow committee
in Canada, if my memory serves me correctly, in which they were
critical of the North Atlantic fisheries bodies and the poor way
in which they were able to regulate fishing outside people's 200-mile
economic zones. Given the interconnected activities in the oceans
of the world, just to take the North Atlantic which is our bit
here, I can remember listening to people trying to explain why
salmon return for their migratory reasons and why they were having
difficulties when you were dealing with a question which was transatlantic
in dimension. We do not have mechanisms, research organisations
or rules which really are capable of dealing with all of these.
Would you say we needed them?
Professor Gage: Yes; absolutely.
I apologise for giving the wrong impression. I was trying to make
the point that national policy may need to be put in place and
agreed first before we are compelled to accept international ones.
That might be slightly embarrassing and is in danger of happening
with regard to the United Nations MPA initiative. I agree completely
with that and also the assessment regarding the North Atlantic.
The way the respective nations have been laggardly in organising
themselves is shameful.
Q173 Mr Mitchell: I did not quite understand
what you were saying in paragraph 18 about this system of allocation
by national governments to research "This effectively reduced
funding to an area of environmental science in which UK academics
were at the leading edge of research". What are you referring
to there? Knowledge of the deep sea environment or the interaction
between fishing and the environment?
Professor Gage: It was to do with
the interaction of fishing and the environment and was targeting
inshore problems rather than deep sea ones. It was just a mechanism
which was drawn to my attention by a university colleague who
felt that this had been a useful initiative and he was at a loss
to understand why it had been stopped as a result of this shift.
Q174 Mr Mitchell: So what you are talking
about is co-operation between universities here and in Europe.
Professor Gage: Yes.
Q175 Mr Mitchell: Is that not now occurring?
Professor Gage: It is to some
extent, but the consensus from my discussions with these people
is that they would like to have more control over that policy,
they would like to be able to show more initiatives themselves
and the level of funding which was possible from that pot was
really rather small.
Chairman: Professor Gage, thank you very
much indeed. You have certainly painted the very broad canvass
for us—in fact you have brought one with you which was very
nice. You have given us a very useful perspective on the scope
and scale of these problems for which we thank you. As I said
to our previous witnesses, in the light of our line of questioning,
if there are any further points you want to make by way of additional
submissions, the Committee would be delighted to hear from you.
Thank you very much for coming and giving your evidence this afternoon.
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