Preface

The issues of deep-sea fisheries have, to a considerable extent, crept up and ambushed those responsible for governance and management of these resources where, indeed, clear responsibility for this role could be assigned. On the one hand, the management community has been preoccupied with the daily concerns of managing traditionally (over-) exploited fish stocks; on the other they may have been, and in most management jurisdictions are, severely constrained in their ability to obtain the institutional resources (people and funds) to proactively address newly arising and future management concerns. Further, many of the deepwater fishery resources are relatively small, even if valuable on a unit-weight basis. And the number of fishing operators, and thus the number of flag states involved in these fisheries, has been limited. Rapid advances across a wide spectrum technologies (e.g. underwater acoustic capabilities, satellite gravitometry and global position fixing) have resulted in the capacity to exploit fisheries resources that before have been unavailable to fishing gear and hence not vulnerable to harvest. Also, it has not helped that many of the deepwater species, as many of the papers in these proceedings eloquently describe, have biological characteristics (slow growth, episodic recruitment, aggregating behavious, etc.) that make them particularly vulnerable to overexploitation.

Thus, a major motivation for convening Deep Sea 2003 was the realization by many States, intergovernmental organizations, industry groups and civil society organizations that technological development and market demand were resulting in deepwater fisheries being exploited at increasingly unsustainable levels. In tandem with this was the recognition that existing regulatory regimes, based primarily on the 1982 Law of the Sea agreement^[2], are proving incapable of effectively regulating these fisheries, many of which occur exclusively as high-seas stocks and others as straddling and transboundary resources.

The idea for the conference was first raised among a group of participants at a preparatory meeting for a Southwest Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission in Reunion in February 2001, most notably from the FAO and the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries. Following two years of discussions in Wellington, Canberra and Rome the delegations of New Zealand and Australia brought the concept for the Conference to the floor of the 25th session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) in February 2003. The COFI supported the concept of the Conference, which was to have as its primary sponsors the Ministry of Fisheries, New Zealand, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Australia with funding support from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, Canberra and technical cooperation of the Fisheries Department of the FAO, Rome. The COFI requested that the Conference organizers report on the outcome of the Conference to the 26th session of COFI, to be held in 2005.

An explicit objective of the Programme Committee for Deep Sea 2003 was that it embrace all disciplines and interests involved in deep-sea fishing - industry, governments and international regulators, marine legal scholars, fisheries scientists, national and international environmental groups as well as staff employed by regional fisheries management and intergovernmental organizations. This the conference achieved through a programme of structured theme sessions within a framework of formal reporting and ultimately a synthesis through a "report back" to the Conference that provided the prognoses of a carefully selected group of thinkers from government, academia and industry. This theme structure has been maintained in the reporting in these proceedings.

The conference participants, from 36 countries, presented a broad cross section of expertise and, with rare exceptions, participated in a personal capacity. This enabled a free exchange of views and ideas, unrestricted by the need to remain within the bounds of institutional policies or ideologies and it was gratifying to the Conference Programme and Steering Committees to see the successful fusion of ideas and experiences, views and counterviews, which emphasized the complexity of what had been undertaken by the meeting.

The governance of these deepwater, and thus mainly high-seas, fisheries has essentially been based on a convention built on three international conferences held over the period 1958-1982. They were of such extent and importance that the careers of many legal officers in ministries of external affairs centred on the preparations and follow-up of these meetings. My introduction to these issues was as a graduate student at the University of British Columbia. Dean George Curtis of the UBC Law School gave the four of us in his course on international fisheries law in 1971, the year of his retirement, what was almost a personal tutorial. Dean Curtis had participated in both UNCLOS I and II and it was my first indication of the sense of achievement that was felt by those who participated in the series of UNCLOS meetings - the third of which was then yet to be held. Despite this, it would be difficult to conceive of the negotiation of a similar legal instrument today given the current threats to the effective governance and sustainability of the high-sea fisheries and the growing understanding of the need for strong user rights if the disaster of open-access fishing is to be avoided. Hence, it was interesting to discover the existence and divergence of two streams of views during Deep Sea 2003, between those who sincerely felt that reopening these negotiations would be counter-productive and what must be done was to build on the existing foundations, and those to the contrary who felt that the existing legal foundations, as provided by UNCLOS III, were so flawed that a new management regime structure was going to be necessary if there were to be any hope for the world’s high-seas fisheries.

None of the papers presented in these Proceedings have been ‘refereed’ - the authors’ papers are published as they have expressed their views and experiences no matter what they assert. I have, however, spent considerable efforts attempting to establish a more uniform style of presentation. I have learned that lawyers love footnotes (e.g. of the form ‘[See Art. 16/v. Para I]’), which is fine but it greatly increases demands for space (there are more than 1 000 pages in the proceedings). Their preference I have had to balance with that of economy. Reference to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has been abbreviated to "LOSC" to avoid confusion with the three Conferences, UNCLOS I, II and III, following the style recommended by Edeson (2000)^[3]. ‘States’ in their ‘Flag’, ‘Port’ and other unspecified forms and ‘Contracting Parties’, etc. have all been diminished to ‘state’, ‘flag’ or ‘port’ and ‘contracting party’, though I finished the editing process with the view that this is probably a minority editing practice. I beg the indulgence of authors who carefully scrutinize how their papers (there were 112 of them) have been presented in this regard.

Other editing challenges were alternatively interesting or frustrating. It took until the middle of the editing process to decide upon "armourhead" as opposed to "armorhead" (for Pseudopentaceros richardsoni and Pseudopentaceros wheeleri), a decision made no easier by the use of both spellings by some authors My decision on the latter practice reflects British spelling - FAO practice - of ‘armour’ while many readers may more easily recognize the fish by its other common name - ‘boarfish’. Other editing practices are dictated by my institution’s publishing conventions, e.g. ‘1 000’ and not ‘1000’, 10 ‘percent’ and not 10%, etc. - practices intended to otherwise occupy an editor’s evenings.

In addition to the main Conference contributions, those presenting posters at Queenstown were also invited to submit papers based on their posting. This, many have done and these are included in a second volume.

The four and a half days scheduled for the conference meant that discussions and treatment of issues and problems would necessarily be synoptic, and thus render difficult addressing all problems in detail. Hence, it was decided to hold several workshops on topics of specific relevance to the Conference theme. Four such workshops addressed the themes of:

i. Assessment and Management of Deepwater Fisheries
ii. Management of Small-Scale Deep-Sea Fisheries
iii. Conservation and Management of Deepwater Chondrichthyan Fishes and
iv. Bioprospecting in the High Seas

They were held concurrently in Dunedin at the University of Otago, from 27 to 29 November, just prior to Deep Sea 2003. Because of the relevance of these workshops to the Conference’s objectives, those presenting papers in the Dunedin meetings were invited to provide a paper based on their presentation for inclusion in the Proceedings. For various reasons few papers were provided by participants to the Workshop on Assessment and Management of Deepwater Fisheries but there are many contributions from the other three workshops.

These Proceedings follow the publication of the Conference Report (FAO 2003^[4]), which summarizes the presentations and discussions of Deep Sea 2003 and identifies where the Conference thought future action, both at the national and international level, was needed to address problems that characterize the management of existing, and future, deep-sea fisheries. The verbal proceedings are given in that report. Interested readers are encouraged to refer, in tandem, to the Conference Report, copies of which are available on request, together with these Proceedings.

From a perspective 18 months subsequent to the Conference, the lack of agreement on avenues for management action and slow pace in achieving improvements in governance, relative to the effects upon the resources continues to emphasize the reasons and justification for the convening of Deep Sea 2003. Any progress in resolving these problems will require renewed commitment to the difficult challenges of achieving consensus on actions. Perhaps, it may not be direct human intervention that saves the high seas deepwater resources, but rather the compelling economics of bunker costs arising from >$60 a-barrel-oil that result in fuel costs of more than $5000 a day for high-seas factory trawlers. This, tied to declining catch rates, may achieve what has proven beyond the efforts and interventions of lawyers and fisheries managers.

The advent of Deep Sea 2003 was possible only through the generous support of a number of sponsors who provided either direct financial support to the activities of Deep Sea 2003 or made available staff whose organizational work was essential to the Conference’s success. Here, the New Zealand Seafood Council deserves particular recognition for allowing Dr Kevin Stokes to participate as a Steering Committee member and Programme Committee Convenor, and for Ms Sandra Diesveld who ably managed the Conference Secretariat. Their efforts were complemented by those of Ms Eidre Sharp-Brewer as Conference Director. The conference also benefited from the wisdom and energy of Dr John Annala, then Chief Biologist with the Ministry of Fisheries in Wellington, New Zealand and at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Portland, Maine, USA. A complete list of the members of the Steering and Programme Committees and Conference sponsors follows.

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee was responsible for the overall direction of the conference, its organization and content. Members were:

Dr John Annala, Conference Convenor Ministry of Fisheries, Wellington, New Zealand
Dr Ross Shotton, Food And Agriculture Organization, Fisheries, Rome, Italy
Mr Glenn Hurry, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Canberra, Australia
Dr Kevin Stokes, Seafood Industry Council, New Zealand Convenor - Programme Committee
Ms Kylie Paulsen, Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, Canberra, Australia
Mr Geoff Rohan, Australian Fisheries Management Authority, Australia
Dr Malcolm Clark, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand
Dr Richard Tilzey, Bureau of Research Services, Canberra, Australia
Dr Ian Knuckey, Australian Fishing Industry
Mr George Clement, New Zealand Fishing Industry
Dr Alan Williams, CSIRO, Hobart, Australia
Ms Kristina Gjerde, International Union of Conservation Nations
Dr Denzil Miller, CCAMLR, Hobart, Australia
Ms Eidre Sharp-Brewer, Conference Director, Wellington, New Zealand

Programme Committee

The Programme Committee undertook the detailed development of the conference themes, including selection of the keynote speakers, and reviewed the papers and posters offered for presentation. Members were:

Dr Kevin Stokes (Convenor) Seafood Fishing Industry Council, New Zealand
Dr Eugene Sabourenkov, CCAMLR, Hobart, Australia
Dr Malcolm Clark, National Institute of Atmosphere and Water Research, New Zealand
Environment, ecosystem biology, habitat and diversity, oceanography
Dr Chris Francis, National Institute of Atmosphere and Water Research, New Zealand
Population biology and resource assessment
Dr Keith Sainsbury, CSIRO, Hobart, Australia
Harvesting and conservation strategies for resource management
Dr Ian Knuckey, Fishwell Consulting Limited, Australia, Technology Requirements
Mr Geoff Rohan, Australian Fisheries Management Authority
Monitoring, Compliance and Control
Dr Marcus Haward, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
Review of Existing Policies and Instruments
Mr Grant Bryden, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Wellington, New Zealand
Governance and Management Arrangements
Dr Ross Shotton, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy

The Way Ahead

The Conference was only possible because of the generosity and commitment of the various sponsors. Their logos are reproduced in the beginning of these proceedings and it is highly appropriate to note the gratitude owed to these organizations for enabling Deep Sea 2003 to be convened.

On a personal basis, I hope to continue my involvement in deepwater fisheries ‘affairs’ through the Programme of Work established for my Service in the Fisheries Department of the FAO and, in particular, follow developments, past, present and future, of the deepwater fisheries in the Southwest Indian Ocean. I look with interest to what may happen in the deep south of the Pacific.

The major task of preparing the various papers for publication of the Proceedings, as well as much of the follow-up correspondence with contributors, has been undertaken through the hard work of my secretary, Ms Marie-Thérèse Magnan, FIRM, FAO, Rome for which I am most grateful.

Ross Shotton
Editor, Conference Proceedings
Marine Resources Service
Fisheries Department
FAO
Rome, Italy