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The Case Against The Fishing Limits

There has been, over the past few months, a concerted press campaign directed against the activities of foreign fishing vessels operating around New Zealand, building support for the proposed 200-mile fishing limit. This campaign naturally has had a strong nationalistic, anti-foreigner (and particularly anti-Russian) flavour. An example is the article headed "'Raping Vessel Has Sophisticated Gear" in the Evening Post earlier this year. This article is based on a claim by a Wellington fisherman that "the Russians are raping our Cook Strait terakihi grounds with what appears to be a sophisticated fish tracking device." "There seems to be one law for foreigners and one for the fishermen here making a living" — though he actually admits that the Russian vessel had been fishing outside the international limit. Another example is the interview in Salient, April 13, 1977 with the president of the Wellington Trawlermen's Association, P.J. Stevens — "The Russians are fairly thick-skinned. They know they're going to dominate the world one way or another, and they probably are. . .

Should students support this campaign, and the 200mile fishing limit? The answer is no.

The campaign attempts to win support on the grounds of conservation of fishing resources — this is why so much is made of the 'sophisticated fish tracking device' of the Russians, and the Japanese fine-mesh nets. The argument goes: all we need to do to protect our fishing resources is to get rid of those 'raping' vessels, and hand over the industry to our own responsible fishermen. But this argument does not explain why over-fishing occurs. If conservation is in everyone's interest, as it should be, then why does over-exploitation ever happen?

Over-exploitation is the inevitable result of capitalist markets determining the rate of exploitation. When fluctuations in market prices occur, and the price of a certain kind of fish rises, a swarm of capitalists pours investment into outfitting ships to catch that fish. When the total catch increases and the price drops, the capitalists, are stuck with huge investments. In order not to go bankrupt, they must step up their efforts and further increase the volume of their catch — by overfishing if necessary, as it often it. It is the profit drive of individual capitalists that leads to this over-exploitation. The individual capitalist takes only a small part of the catch. A small increase in the catch of one capitalist will not have a decisive adverse influence on the stock of fish and such a small increase can solve this capitalist's economic problem. Thus, all of these individual capitalists together, each following their own profit drive, combine to increase the catch beyond the reproductive capacity of the fish.

It is inherent in the capitalist system of exploiting resources that over-exploitation will occur. And it must be remembered that this moans that New Zealand Capitalists are no Better than Foreign Capitalists Examples of overfishing by the local industry have already been seen in the Nelson scallop beds. High prices and easy access a few years ago brought a huge huge increase in the number of boats operating in the area, and already the beds have been dangerously depleted. They are now so depleted that it is uneconomic to continue to exploit them — capitalist over-exploitation has fished itself out of existence. A similar case of plundering high priced resources is the crayfishing in the Chatham Islands.

This is why the 200 mile limit is not a conservation measure. The experience of Iceland, a country with a more highly developed capitalist fishing industry than New Zealand, is relevant here. In 1972, the Icelandic Government extended the territorial waters to a 50-mile limit. Here is what the Fylking, and Icelandic socialist organisation, said about the consequences of this.

"What was the response of the Icelandic capitalists and the Icelandic state? Did they seek to limit fishing? ....No!

"After the Icelandic capitalists recovered from the 1967-70 slump, they began to invest in the fishing industry. In 1972-74, the capital in Icelandic fishing doubled. But this great increase in investment was not in proportion to the increase in the catch The volume of the catch rose really only in 1972 and 1974. but in 1974 it did not come up to the level of 1970.

"It is pretty clear that the investment of the Icelandic capitalists led only to increased overfishing. The state of the cod banks is especially bad. The catch dropped from 471.000 tons in 1970 to 379,000 tons in 1973. a decline of 20 percent." (Intercontinental Press, January 26, 1976.)

Even if the purpose of the 200-mile zone were as a conservation measure, it would be inadequate. As P.J. Stevens, agrees, "fish move." They migrate over long distances. For this reason, it is impossible for each country to solve its fish conservation problems individually. Any genuine measure would have to involve the co-operation of all the affected nations. But such co-operation between capitalist nations is impossible, especially in a time of crisis, when all capitalist nations are trying to solve their economic problems, often at the expense of the others.

The only way conservation can be achieved is by a planned economy. The fishing industry as a whole must be planned to prevent the depletion of fish, and to do this it is necessary to reduce the individual capitalists' right to control the fishing done by their own ships — that is, to treat their ships as private property. The incomes of individual fishing operations should be organised so that they are dependent not on the volume of the catch that each brings in, but on the total income of fishing operations. There should be quotas set over wide areas taking into account the migration patterns of the particular species of fish.

Such planning obviously cannot be undertaken within the framework of capitalism — it requires the establishment of a planned, socialist economy. This is the conclusion the Icelandic socialists came to:

"The working class is the only social force that has the capacity to advance genuine conservation of fish reserves. It is the workers who have a fundamental stake in assuring conservation in this feild. The capitalists can solve their immediate problems by overfishing. But it is the workers who will have to contend with unemployment and worse conditions when the consequences of overfishing are felt." (ibid.)

This is why the campaign for the 200-mile limit should be not just ignored as an ineffective conservation measure, but Actively Ignored—because it is a campaign in support of New Zealand capitalism. And it is why the capitalist press has leapt into this campaign with such enthusiasm "Look at the newspapers, not one dissenting. . . We put a notice in the newspapers. All the newspapers in each main centre dashed down to talk to the fishermen, did a bit of research and came up with articles." (P.J. Stevens in Salient.) Supporting the 200-mile limit means supporting enlarging the navy to police it whose interests will that be defending?

It is not only the capitalist press that has been taking this position, but also groups such as the Campaign Against Foreign Control in New Zealand, groups supposedly fighting for social change They also call for the 200-mile zone all the more eagerly because they see a good chance to get at the Soviet Union, in line with the propaganda of the Peking regime, which they follow no matter how reactionary.

Just as we should recognise the reasons for the media's support for the New Zealand fishermen's nationalistic frenzy as being an attempt to divert working people from the real issue, we should see the anti-Soviet flavour of the campaign as one directed against a workers' state: it dovetails with the foreign policy of the New Zealand Government, which invariably goes against the interests of the oppressed in New Zealand and world wide.

The Soviet Union is not at the mercy of the capitalist 'free' market system, which is the main driving force of the plunder of the sea. That is why it, like China, has taken a huge step forward, in that over-exploitation is not essential to its economy, whatever the policies of the present Soviet Government may be.

It is the reactionary nationalistic outlook of the Soviet bureaucracy which leads them to ignore the problems of conservation in their exploitation of the sea — the same narrow nationalism that sets the bureaucracy in the People's Republic of China to [unclear: bosily] towards another workers' state.

How is the reactionary nature of the Soviet bureaucracy to be countered? Is it by reasserting capitalist control of the seas resources, as the 200-mile zone would help to do?

The situation is analogous to the New Zealand union movement, where a potentially progressive force is hampered by a bureaucratic and conservative leadership. How is this obstacle to be removed? Certainly not by bringing in the forces of the capitalist stale!

No one has any right to over-exploit fishing resources — neither foreign [unclear: nor] local fishing fleets But over-exploitation is an inevitable result of the capitalist 'free' market system. The 200-mile fishing zone is a measure to defend New Zealand capitalism. That is why we should oppose it.

James Robb.