Environmental and Worker Health & the
viability of fishery communities
Barbara Neis
Coasts Under Stress and SafetyNet,
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Presentation to Change Islands Conference
August 2006
Funders and Partners
Funded by the
Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
and the
Natural Science and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC),
Here and globally we are fishing down the
food chain
Environmental Health: Managing
for recovery makes sense
Landed Value of 4R Fisheries – 2002
Total: $45,186,130
586,510
633,920
448,500
559,980
377,540
550,340
2,361,060
2,700,240
5,551,170
8,434,320
13,139,430
9,843,120
Northern Prawn and Pink Shrimps combined
American Lobster
Queen Crab
Atlantic Cod
Atlantic Mackerel
Atlantic Herring
Greenland Halibut
Atlantic Halibut
Capelin
Atlantic Redfishes (Ns)
Witch Flounder
TOTAL - Other Species
Cod should be central to Recovery What Could 4R Cod be Worth?
60
Mid
1950s:
2002:
3,937 t
2003
prices:
around
$1.41/kilo
Millions of Dollarss
around
35,000 t.
9x!
50
40
30
20
10
0
1954
Northern Cod – 250,000 t = ?
2003
Are we managing for recovery?
• Some progress but science still tends to
follow fisheries around
• Eastport sustainable lobster fishery,
collapsing in St. John Bay
• One lobster scientist in NL
• 15 years later – don’t know enough about
stock structure, location of spawning areas,
nursery areas, critical habitat…
• Disagreements industry and scientists
• Basis for disagreements? Way forward?
Managing Cod for Recovery?
• $1.2 million in research and a commercial and
recreational cod fishery that could take more than
5,000 mt legally – is this “experiment” worth the
risk?
• Catch rates in commercial fishery- what will they
tell us?
• No science from recreational fishery – no data
• Risk of enhanced poaching …
• Risk of high-grading – data fouling – and targeting
of larger, older fish…
$5 million spent a different way
Fishermen’s knowledge: local stocks, protect the mother fish,
spawning areas …
• Community-based science – bring youth home
• Acoustic surveys using fishing vessels
• More tagging in inshore waters
• Identifying and closing spawning areas and nursery areas
• Beach seine surveys for juvenile cod
• Protection of habitat – Mapping goose grass.
• Designing fisheries to protect young, old, egg-bearing cod, as
in lobster
• Investment in stewardship development
• Improving prices so need to take less to survive
• Improved fuel efficiency, reduced insurance costs
• Development of tourism and eco-tourism linked activities
• Paying for it? From taxes – stewardship isn’t free and won’t
come through fishing alone
Fishing Occupational Health & Safety
 On an industry basis, fishing has one of the highest
potential for risks for accidents:
How safe is our fleet? Are vessels designed
to be safe work platforms?
Fish harvester focus groups
•
CUTTING COSTS, THE COSTS OF CUTTING
• technologies cost money
• enterprises cut costs by dumping insurance, cutting
crew – can increase risk
•
QUOTAS
• IQs reduce risk involved in competitive fishery
• Trust agreements can take away IQ Safety gains
•
OTHER FACTORS
• High risk of motion induced interrupts on vessels
• fatigue – overlapping seasons, fishing from ports
outside one’s home community
• inexperienced crew – divisions of labour
Health, Safety and Shellfish processing
Shellfish processing workers are exposed to a broad range of health
risks
Occupational asthma and allergy:
1. Varied but overall high prevalence (16.3%) highly likely/almost
certain snow-crab OAA among participating workers.
2. Higher among women workers (more years of exposure/higher
exposure areas)
Work-related Musculo-skeletal Disorders
(Solberg, Molgaard, Vezina)
1. High prevalence of symptoms among surveyed workers: 89% for
women, 82% for men
2. Escalating work burden as labour shortages increase and work
force ages
Legacy of Prevention Failure
No systematic approach to prevention in
industry and knowledge gaps
Limited detection, prevention, diagnostic,
rehabilitation capacity in rural areas
Substantial burden of injury and disease in
aging workforce - Work until can no longer
work
Scale of burden likely to be greatest in older
plants/labour forces
Threat to productivity and to industry profits
When plant closes, the town/family are left with
burden of illness
Investment in improved OHS training/capacity