At the Fourth North Sea Conference (Esbjerg, Denmark) held from 8 to 9 June 1995, the Ministers of the Environment of the North Sea States expressed great concern about the state of North Sea fisheries. The Ministers recognized fisheries and species and habitats issues as being very important topics alongside the traditional ones of hazardous substances, nutrients, offshore oil-production, shipping, and radioactivity, which they had addressed previously. Thus the Ministers welcomed the proposal that Norway, as host country for the Fifth International Conference on the Protection of the North Sea (5NSC), should arrange an Intermediate Ministerial Meeting on the Integration of Fisheries and Environmental Issues in 1997 (IMM97). Norway then established the North Sea Secretariat to support the Committee of North Sea Senior Officials (CONSSO) and to organize the IMM97 and the 5NSC. The North Sea Secretariat has been headed by Morten Svelle, supported by Stig Borgvang, Hans Tore Heir, and Hilde Aarefjord. Atle Fretheim of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of the Environment has been the Chairman of the meetings of CONSSO.
Morten Svelle
(Head of the North Sea Secretariat), Professor Chris Hopkins (ICES General Secretary),
and Atle Fretheim (Chairman of CONSSO), left to right, discuss plans for the
follow-up to the Intermediate Ministerial Meeting on the Integration of Fisheries
and Evironmental Issues.
At the invitation of the North Sea Secretariat ICES began participating in 1995 in preparations for IMM97 scheduled to be held in Bergen. In connection with the preparations, ICES was represented at all 12 of the meetings from the First Meeting of the Committee of North Sea Senior Officials (CONSSO), held in Oslo, Norway, from 12-13 October 1995 until the IMM97 itself. ICES was represented at these meetings by the General Secretary (Professor Chris Hopkins, on four occasions), the ICES Fisheries Adviser (Dr Roger S. Bailey, on 12 occasions), and the Chairman of ACFM (Eskild Kirkegaard, on two occasions).
The main role of ICES during this period was to provide information and advice as requested to CONSSO, and to participate in the preparation of an Assessment Report on "Fisheries and Fisheries-related Species and Habitats Issues" which was published on behalf of CONSSO by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of the Environment and the Fifth North Sea Conference Secretariat early in 1997. Funds were made available to compensate the ICES Secretariat for the time spent by the ICES Fisheries Adviser in assisting the North Sea Secretariat to prepare, edit, and otherwise complete the Assessment Report, and to engage consultants from within the ICES community to prepare contributions to Chapter 3 of the Assessment Report. These consultants were Dr Henk Heessen (RIVO, Netherlands: Input on "Status of Marine Species"), Dr Mark Tasker (JNCC, UK: Input on "Seabirds of the North Sea"), and Dr John Harwood (SMRU, UK: Input on "Marine Mammals of the North Sea"). In addition, ICES participated with the Chairman of ACFM and the ICES Fisheries Adviser in a Seminar on the Precautionary Approach to North Sea Fisheries Management held in Oslo in September 1996 (published in Fisken og Havet nr 1 - 1997).
It was a natural step for the North Sea Secretariat to seek the assistance and guidance of ICES as the premier international organization providing scientific information and advice on living resources and environmental processes in the North Sea. While the North Sea Secretariat was able to concentrate on the general preparations, meetings and deadlines, coordination and editing of the Assessment Report, and the drafting of the Statement of Conclusions, the ICES Secretariat provided information, guidance, data, texts, and illustrative material. This complementary functioning of the services of the two Secretariats, by making use of ICES experience and its international network of expertise, was effective, avoided duplication of resources, and gave confidence to the Assessment Report.
Torbjørn Berntsen, the Norwegian Minister of the Environment, and Karl Eirik Schjøtt-Pedersen, the Norwegian Minister of Fisheries, extended the historic official invitation to both the Ministers of Fisheries and of the Environment respectively of the North Sea States, and Members of the European Commission responsible within the Commission (Emma Bonino for Fisheries, and Ritt Bjerregaard for Environment), to gather at IMM97 in Bergen from 13 to14 March 1997. The outcome of IMM97 has been issued in the form of a Ministerial "Statement of Conclusions". In addition to the more general statements of political intent, a number of items in this statement are likely to have an impact on the future work of ICES. These include statements and recognition that:
• the utilization of the ecosystems in the North Sea should occur in a manner consistent with sustainable development, conservation of biological diversity, and application of the precautionary approach;
• decisions should be based on the best available scientific knowledge and advice;
• there is a need to develop an ecosystem approach to management. This should take into account processes within ecosystems that are critical for maintaining their functioning, productivity and biological diversity, as well as interactions among different components of the system and the chemical, physical and biological environment;
• a list of stocks for which assessments and/or biological reference points should be compiled as required, including the establishment of recovery plans for depleted stocks;
• as a matter of urgency, searching for all possible effective means, including the possibility of a ban, should be encouraged, to minimize discards.
In the context of these declarations, the Ministers of Fisheries and of the Environment of the North Sea States, and Members of the European Commission responsible within the Commission recognized the role of ICES as the international scientific organization for research and independent scientific advice on living marine resources and environmental issues and acknowledged the need to secure and maintain the role of ICES.
Although IMM97 has highlighted the role of ICES in a positive manner, this does not allow ICES to rest on its laurels. Rather this should spur ICES to rise even more rapidly to the challenge in several areas of marine science and advice where a greater commitment is called for. Ministers and politicians require appropriate and timely responses and answers to the so-called "Sustainability Issues" (i.e. where the rational exploitation of living marine resources and protection of the marine environment require harmonization) found in Chapter 17 of Agenda 21 arising from the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). To be better prepared to meet such demands, ICES will need to charge speedily its seven newly constituted interdisciplinary Science Committees with providing relevant direction to the research and development (R&D) activities of the many Working Groups that are required to underpin the ICES advisory function. At the same time, the Council has established a Bureau Working Group on Restructuring of the ICES Advisory Committees in order to propose how the ICES advisory function can be further improved to meet the challenges of integrating fisheries and environmental issues.
Now that the IMM has taken place, preparations will be resumed for 5NSC scheduled to be held at a venue in Norway around the year 2001. As part of an on-going process, ICES involvement is expected to continue and ICES will be invited in an Observer capacity to future meetings of CONSSO, the next of which is due to be held in Oslo in October 1997. The requirements from ICES are not yet clear, but an indication of the likely involvement may be gained from the future work programme of CONSSO which includes an annual review of activities agreed at the 1995 Fourth North Sea Conference (Esbjerg, Denmark), and relevant follow-up to IMM97. CONSSO will resume its work on environment issues, where the issue of hazardous substances is likely to be a focal point, while at the same time continuing its work on the integration of fisheries and environment management.
The consequences of IMM97 are already being considered in the emerging workplans of the environmental and fisheries regulatory Commissions with which ICES closely collaborates in the North Atlantic and its adjacent seas. Further progress also depends to a large extent on the cooperation at the national level among bodies responsible for and involved in both fisheries and environmental issues.
IMM97 documents can be found at: http://odin.dep.no/nsc.