Category: Salmon Commodification Project

“Commodities had long existed and people exchanged them in various ways in previous social systems. But the social changes that were ushered in with the arrival, growth, and spread of capitalist production moved societies toward what sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein call ‘the commodification of everything’” (Longo, Clausen, and Clark 146).

This is never more true than in the fishing industry today. Where not only are the species caught commodities,  but the very act of fishing is a commodity. You can buy and sell fishing trips, you can buy and sell fishing quota, boats, and gear.

It is not a surprise that fisheries management is not the tragedy of the commons, but of the commodity,  for anything existing in the Capitalist socioeconomic system is prey to commodification. “The tragedy of the commodity arose with the emergence of capitalist development. As a growth-dependent economic system, capitalism pursues endless accumulation. Thus, it reproduces itself on an ever-larger scale” (Longo, Clausen, and Clark 175). We can clearly see the issue here. As the industry pursues that growth, their catch grows and grows until stocks can no longer sustain themselves. When that happens fishing stops and the industry crumbles in on itself, or they seek out farmed fish another byproduct of commodification.

If the problem is the social structure and system put in place, how can we change our fishing management before the salmon are gone? Before all that is left are farmed fish and failing ecosystems?

Maybe the answer isn’t in the hard science of the fisheries, maybe the answer lies within our relationships to each other, and to our environments.

To understand the answer, we first have to realize that no answer is universal, and in fact there may be many answers to this question. Each ecosystem requires different moving parts and solutions will be a response to those missing or damaged parts.

Some answers presented by Longo, Clausen, and Clark include:

• “Transcending the Tragedy of the Commodity” (178). We need a deep and lasting socioeconomic change, moving away from Capitalism and Globalization (in some regards). This includes severing ties with the political agenda’s present in today’s world, and pursuing a different narrative. We also need a consumer movement; in which you do not consume or buy fish products that aren’t sustainable or near you.
• “Forging the Future and Mending the Rifts” (188). Community Management and moving away from state control. When individual communities are given direct control over economies and ecological planning they can create a more just system. Not just political democracy but also economic democracy. Those who produce surplus must also decide how to distribute surplus. Workers must be in control of production in food systems, not small groups of individuals where the power is concentrate. The bottom line is having de-centralized power and give power back to all the players who participate in the resource.
• “Beyond Capital: A Resilient, Sustainable, and Just Social Metabolic Order” (198). We do not need to return to the past but there are some lessons from those past civilizations that we can learn today. Capitalism is not rooted in stone, in fact it’s easier to change a political impossibility (capitalism) than a biophysical impossibility (pollution killing us). WE cannot replace Capitalism with another form of nature and labor exploration.

When it comes to reform in fish management, we have to reform the social barriers, and the economic barriers. We need to bring communities back together and untie our hands from the shackles of the state run social systems.

The biggest solution (that I see) is stopping worker exploration in the food system (and most industries), give those workers the production management, allow workers to decided how surplus is distributed, and stop using our natural world for the base of all commodities.

The political barriers to these changes are possible. The impossibility is the recovery of our earth from the point of no return. No earth=no humanity.

This week’s blog entry will be featuring Craig Smith the Harvest Program Manager with the Nisqually Indian Tribe. Craig is focused on conservation efforts, specifically on how to conserve Nisqually Salmon while also exercising treaty rights to fish. This blog will be question and answer style, with a few comments by me throughout.

 

What is the nature of your work?

I am the Harvest Program Manager for the Nisqually Indian Tribe protecting the Nisqually Tribe’s treaty fishing right. I am the technical liaison between the State, Tribe, and Federal Government. I help to ensure sufficient fish return to the terminal area, to fulfill our treaty rights and escapement needs. I manage our in river Treaty Fishery to assure escapement to hatcheries and the spawning grounds depending on species and management intent (lots of catch, hatchery, and escapement data analyzed to create computer models). Some stocks are considered hatchery management stocks, some are hatchery and wild, and some are wild only. Listed fish take precedence in management (i.e. Chinook and Steelhead).

What do you love most about your job?

I love the Nisqually River. I grew up in the Olympic Peninsula where habitats and rivers are mostly in really good shape. The Puget Sound is a habitat nightmare and the golden child is the Nisqually Watershed due to my predecessor’s forethought and determination to bring all parties together to work towards habitat restoration. I love steelhead spawning ground surveys. The smell of cottonwood, the chorus of the river, birds singing in the spring, the chrome bright steelhead and redds illuminated by sun under massive fallen trees creates a euphoric nature party. It is medicine.

What is the hardest part about working in your career?

Salmon provoke unimaginable emotions in massive amounts of people from all walks of life. Wild opinions (meaning wild salmon) are rampant and a product of these emotions, not educated opinions. As a person that is technical in nature, I work very hard to work with what we know and what we don’t know about the resource. I often am confronted by someone who knows more than me on how to do my job. I always ask them what they do for a living. Let’s say it is driving a Dump Truck. I ask them, “Do you think I could negotiate the specificities of operating a Dump Truck better than you?” Everyone “knows” something about salmon.

There are few people that tell me thanks for what I do for the resource. Resource Managers usually are not viewed as helping the fishermen, because they use science to perpetuate runs for the future. Very few fishermen want to hear they cannot fish.

 

**As someone who has also worked with the fishing population this is very true. Everyone believes they can do your job better, without realizing all the working components of fish management.

 

Do you know about the Tragedy of the Commons approach to management?

Yes

What are your thoughts about it?

Salmon are a food source. Salmon are managed and could be managed better. Not managing with the best available data and/or letting money counter sound management produces Tragedy of the Commons. However, on the flip side, if Salmon are not managed as a food source it neglects to become a resource, and when that happens it becomes a silent Tragedy of the Commons. Habitat continues to decline because no one cares.

If not what do you believe is the best way to manage fisheries?

In the river plain and simple. Pre terminal fisheries produce a fine product but are not sustainable.

**pre-terminal areas are those areas fished in the ocean, where all salmon stocks are mixed, fishing in the river allows for more selective fisheries, where you can fish healthy stocks, without hurting stocks that are weak. Here is a good short video by the Northwest Treaty Tribes that explains terminal and tribal fishing. 

What is the state of salmon on the Nisqually River?

This is a loaded question. Chinook, Coho, Pink, Chum, and Steelhead. A book could be written on this.

**yes a book could be written on the subject, I know right now Chinook and Steelhead are threatened status.

What are some hot issues surrounding salmon currently?

What are we going to do with climate change and 2.5 million more people that are headed to the region? Rampant habitat destruction.

How is habitat restoration progressing on the Nisqually? Good, bad, stagnant?

Fantastic. More on the way, however no one can prepare enough for glaciers being gone and sea level rise.

**Habitat restoration is an ongoing process, that includes tree planting engineering log jams, re-meandering stream or tributaries that run in to the Nisqually, acquiring land so that restoration can happen and so that the land can be managed.

What are some core values that contradict each other about salmon fishing vs. salmon protection?

Not understanding how pre-terminal fisheries impact salmon. Pre terminal fisheries disrupt the natural maturation and force smaller fish to the terminal areas. Mark Selective Fisheries are supposed to harvest the first legal fish. However, many fisheries and especially winter season derby fisheries encourage the largest fish so people release fish that are small. Because you are not seeing a dead fish when caught, managers have to provide a model with assumptions. Assumptions often become accepted over time when they are not testable or managers are unwilling to test because of cost or other reasons.

*Mark Selective Fisheries is a term used in fishing and management. It’s a tool where only marked hatchery fish can be retained. Hatcheries will mark fish usually by clipping the Adipose Fin, although other methods are used. 

Are fisheries sustainable?

Depends upon which fisheries you are talking about. Some are some are not. For example Chambers, Minter, and Tumwater Chinook hatchery programs are sustainable in the sense that they are not a wild stock, they never had Chinook in these areas, and fisheries on these stocks are only managed to make sure the hatchery gets enough back to perpetuate the program. These programs are considered “wipe out fisheries/stocks”. However, in a non-direct way these programs production are not sustainable because they can prop up pre terminal fisheries on non-wipe out stocks or ESA listed stocks. Also, these productions have competition impacts while rearing in the same places that wild stocks are rearing.

Wild South Sound Chum stock has been commercially fished in the Puget Sound by Treaty and Non treaty for 60 to 70 years; catching hundreds of thousands of Chum every year. Very little sport fishing is directed on this stock. The Commercial fishery has been managed very well with catch and test fishery and In Season Update (ISU) models discussed weekly by treaty and none treaty managers. Commercial fisheries are much easier to manage because there is a solid known impact, i.e. fish tickets and intensive monitoring. This fishery is almost a terminal fishery in areas 10 and 11. The fish are returning to spawn with known ages and there are minimal non-target species mortalities.

Pre terminal fisheries are not sustainable. Multiple non-target species (beyond just salmon) and ages are “encountered” and true impact to any one stock is impossible to determine.

In your opinion how can we better restore salmon?

Return management to the rivers.

Find a more sustainable source for power than hydroelectric. Evaporate cement, pollution, bulkheads, and bring back herring populations.

 

Or what steps need to happen in order to better protect salmon?

Revamp science around hatchery practices. Understand ecosystem changes that happen from our management and environmental changes. I.e. artificial production changing food web – increasing sea mammal population beyond natural capacity. Manage fisheries in the extreme terminal areas.

**Sea mammal population rise has had an enormous impact on salmon. The big issue today is the protection status of sea lions. Should they be protected now that their numbers are strong or continue to protect them?

*Here is a video to watch, this was shot by me in 2015 on board a salmon Purse Seine vessel. This is not indicative of every catch but a good example of what fishing for salmon can look like. Please watch before reading to have a visual as you work though these concepts.*

The crisis facing marine and ocean fisheries around the world is often referred to the Tragedy of the Commons, a theory created by Garret Hardin (1915-2003). “Hardin’s model is based on the notion that land, or other natural resources that are common property, will be overexploited and destroyed by the competing individual interests of the users”. (Longo, Clausen, and Clark 9).

This has surely been the dominant framework used by managers and governments to set fishing quotas in the past and present. In the book the Tragedy of the Commodity, the authors charter a new course of action, one that views fisheries as the Tragedy of the Commodity, not the commons.

In the theory of the commons, managers see all individuals as opportunistic people solely focused on their selves and families, the tragedy of the commons is an economic theory rooted in the “cold war mentality of its time” (Longo, Clausen, and Clark 9). The downfall of the commons is that it makes far-reaching assumptions about social behaviors, and capitalizes on those behaviors to curb over fishing.

This theory of the commons leads managers into troubling relationships economically, ecologically, and socially with the fisheries and people. The main tools used by managers in this model seeks to rectify the tragedy of the commons, by privatizing the industry though the use of ITQ’s or Individual Transferable Quotas, and my using the concept of Maximum Sustainable Yields.

As stated by biologist Peter A. Larkin “The dogma was this: any species each year produces a harvestable surplus, and if you take that much, and no more, you can go on getting it forever and ever (Amen)” (Larkin I). In other words we can harvest all the surplus of a certain fish species without any consequences in fish re-population. Economically the fisheries industry needs to maximum its catch quota while also leaving a viable population to continue to harvest. Can you point to the problem yet?

Because of competing interest, through various private industries, fish managers have an obligation to those interests and to help maximize their profit. If anything this only adds to the tragedy of the commons, it creates an industry that promotes over fishing for the sake of economics.

To offset this tragedy of the commons theory, and Maximum Sustainable Yields, mangers use the tool of individual transferable quotas. “The specific purpose of an ITQ is to solve the problem of fisheries overexploitation and fleet overcapitalization…The ITQ solution assumes that self-interest will discipline fisheries by providing fishers with individual private rights to harvest specified portions of fish stocks or quotas” (Longo, Clausen, and Clark 46). In other words certain established fishermen are guaranteed a certain allotment of fish, this can be caught at any point in the year. These promised quotas, become a commodity themselves. An ITQ can be bought, or sold; essentially you are commodifying the right to fish.

ITQ’s further the ecological instability of fish species, by reducing them to a single transaction that can be cashed in at any time. It does not take into consideration that fish populations are better fished at certain periods of the year, or that there need to closed seasons for rest and re-population. ITQ’s also favor some fishers over others and does not create an equitable system.

As far as I am aware though Washington State does not use ITQ’s as a tool in salmon management. Speaking only of salmon, other species can be managed differently, in Washington we set a hard quota and firm fishing dates; we have open and closed seasons and no fisher person is promised a certain catch count. Washington salmon management is measured with MSY’s so we still buy into the tragedy of the commons by trying to maximize economic opportunity while also maximizing conservation.

As you can start to see, and will further see, you cannot maximize one and expect to maximize the other. These two forces of economic interest and conservation interest are battling for the future of fish management and ocean harvests. One will have to prevail at the cost of the other, and that where we start to talk about the tragedy of the commodity.

 

Works Citied

Longo, Stefano, Rebecca Clausen, and Brett Clark. The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2015. Print.

Larkin, Peter A. “An Epitaph for the Concept of Maximum Sustained Yield”. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. Vol. 106, no. I. 1997: I

This week found me exhausted and reeling, I am just starting to understand the tremendous work and research I have willingly thrown my self into. Fisheries Management is not a cut and dry subject, especially when you throw in the term Salmon. Of course I knew this, working in fisheries management myself, but even now I am seeing a picture that wasn’t available to me before.

So this week my project is basically me starting from step one. Even step one seems substantially  unattainable to explain, but I will give it the good ole Evergreen try.

Fisheries Management: The UnComplicated StoryBased on escapement counts, and stream surveys conducted every winter, which count the returning adult salmon, the entire coast is giving a quota. This is a catch quota or allotment of fish each state is allowed to take. In Washington this allotment is then divided into Tribal and Non-Tribal Fish Management. The non-tribal quota is then divided by State Agencies into Area quotas. This area quota is divided even further into Commercial and Sport fisheries allotment. The commercial quota is divided into Spring and Summer quotas.

Fisheries Management:  The complicated story

Before quotas can be established there is a long line of varying community interest that first need to stake their claim on allotments. The first of meetings is the PMFC or the Pacific Fishery Management Council. They set the run forecasts and quotas from 3 to 200 miles off of the Pacific Coast. When this meeting concedes the annual North of Falcon conference begins. This event is attended by federal, tribal, state, conservation, and sport fishermen associations. The object being to grab every fish possible. There are often arguments and always critical judgments placed on who gets what. These conflicting interest are,  for the most part but not always, trying to claim bigger quotas then the rest. Commercial fishermen want to maximize profits and minimize cost, Sport fishermen want more fishing days and bigger fishing limits, the Tribe wants its treaty rights acknowledged while also focusing on salmon restoration efforts, conservation groups want big restrictions on fishing all together, and the government agencies say they want equality for all but still have self interest to serve. These meetings always set off a firestorm of stereotyping a name blaming for the poor runs forecasted. The atmosphere can be tense.

After an agreement is made on catch quotas the next big ticket item is fishing regulations. This encompasses everything from which poles are legal, how many poles are legal, when to open the season and when to close, daily limits, clipped or not clipped, and what gear can be used and what can’t (net size or hook type).

In the thick of this all are the struggling salmon being symbolically auctioned off before they even reach Washington’s coast or streams. The whirlwind of ‘give me my slice’ often leaves the salmon desperately swimming against a current it has no chance of overcoming. For all intents and purposes Salmon pre-season management acts the same as a commodities future market. The salmon are forced into a contract where they better delivery on time and with big numbers.

Conclusion:

Salmon are in a fast decline. The Chinook and Steelhead Salmon of the Nisqually River Stocks are already considered a Threatened Species, with only around 600 Wild Chinook salmon returning every year. My goal with this post and with this project moving forward is looking into the past and present systems of fisheries management. As you can see we have entered the Rabbit Hole, our next step is down.

 For more information you can check out Washington States Department of Fish and Wildlife.