Fishing feud at end of the world split U.S., U.K. over Russia
MIAMI » It’s one of the world’s highest-fetching wildcaught fish, sold for $32 a pound at Whole Foods and served up as meaty fillets on the menus of upscale eateries across the U.S.
But Russia’s obstruction of longstanding conservation efforts, resulting in a unilateral rejection of catch limits for the Chilean sea bass in a protected region near Antarctica, has triggered a fish fight at the bottom of the world, one dividing longtime allies, the U.S. and U.K. governments.
The diplomatic feud, which has not been previously reported, intensified after the U.K. quietly issued licenses this spring to fish for the sea bass off the coast of South Georgia, a remote, uninhabited U.K.-controlled island some 1,400 kilometers east of the Falkland Islands.
As a result, for the first time since governments banded together 40 years ago to protect marine life
near the South Pole, deepsea fishing for the pointytoothed fish is proceeding this season without any catch limit from the 26-member Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources or CCAMLR.
The move essentially transformed overnight one of the world’s best-managed fisheries into a France-sized stretch of outlaw ocean — at least in the eyes of U.S. officials threatening to bar U.K.
imports from the area.
“In a world beset by conflict, the U.K. is playing a risky game,” said Will McCallum, head of oceans at Greenpeace U.K. “The history of Antarctic protection is one of peaceful cooperation for the common good of humanity. Russia’s consistent willingness to abuse the process cannot excuse unilateral action by other Members. We trust that countries who have previously imported South Georgia
toothfish will not accept the catch of what is now an unregulated fishery.”
For decades, the fishery near South Georgia was a poster child for international fisheries cooperation, one that brought together sometimes adversarial powers like Russia, China and the U.S. to protect the chilly, crystal blue southern ocean from the sort of fishing freefor-all seen on the high seas.
Last year, as tensions with the West were rising over Ukraine, Russia took the unprecedented step of rejecting the toothfish catch limits proposed by the Antarctic commission’s scientists. The move was tantamount to a unilateral veto because of rules, common to many international fisheries pacts, that require all decisions to be made by unanimous agreement.