Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for allowing the opportunity to present today.
I'd like to bring greetings from Minister Belliveau. He's at cabinet today, but he would like to be here with me as we speak about the snow crab industry in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, I have to fly solo today.
As you know, we have fisheries all around our coast, so I'd like to speak a little more generically. I realize you're here in the Maritimes region focusing a bit more on area 23 and 24. However, I'm going to speak to the gulf areas as well. I understand you're going to be in Moncton tomorrow, so some of the items I'm going to cover would be the types of issues you'll be dealing with tomorrow.
I'm going to speak on a number of points. First, I want to talk a bit about crab conservation. I'll talk about crab management.
I handed around some graphs and maps. I wish I had been able to get this material to you earlier. I apologize for that. It was just completed yesterday, and we couldn't get it forwarded to translation in time.
You see around Nova Scotia we have the gulf activity in areas 12, 12F, 19, and former area 18, which is now included in area 12. In the Maritimes region, we have in Sydney Bight 20 to 22, and then along the outer coast areas 23 and 24, and in the southern Nova Scotia area, 4X. I'm going to talk about the management approaches and some of the issues in each of those areas. Of course I'm going to talk about the economic importance to the province.
Snow crab has been, in roughly the last ten years, in the top three and sometimes four fisheries in Nova Scotia. It's been as high as two. Our biggest fishery, of course, is lobster. It's usually valued anywhere from $300 million to $500 million, but in the last few years snow crab is anywhere from second, third, or fourth most important fishery for the province.
I did hand around a graphic as well to give a little information on the value and the landings. You can see that the landings would range anywhere from about 12,000 tonnes provincially up to roughly 20,000 tonnes provincially. The value is where you'll find the real extremes, and you'll see anywhere from about $34 million to in the order of $122 million. I know you're going to be talking a lot about the resource during your hearings, but in Nova Scotia the impact on the price has been far more extreme on the impact on our communities, and even on the resource. The snow crab resource goes up and down, but the dramatic change in the price, largely because of exchange rates and our reliance on the U.S., has had a huge impact on our coastal community and our fishermen.
A little bit about conservation.... You probably touched on this a bit this morning. I'd like to stress that we are very fortunate in dealing with snow crab that they have a number of built-in conservation measures. First, and most importantly, the reproduction is largely protected in snow crab. We don't direct or land female crabs. The size limit and their distribution will largely protect them from the fishery. Males will not be harvested or targeted before they mature and reach terminal molt. Therefore, the males get a chance to reproduce at least once, and depending on how many are left behind after each harvest year, they'll have multiple reproductions. There's a group of crabs that mature but never reach legal size. They're known as pygmies in the industry. They are always going to be there to reproduce. So we have a situation we're very fortunate with. Fish population can have reproductive potential of a virgin biomass. The females are there, they're reproducing, and they're able to contribute to future stocks.
Now there are some concerns in the scientific community that maybe just removing males could have an impact on reproductive potential. That's a could; that's a possibility. I think it deserves some research, but by and large we would wish to have such a scenario in lobster, in groundfish, and some of the other fisheries, and be able to say we don't target any females, that all males finish their growth and are able to reproduce. So it is a very good situation for stock reproduction.
Also from a conservation perspective, I talked about the terminal-moult males. They finish their growth before they enter the fishery. They reach a terminal moult. Initially they're soft-shell crab, then in about a year they recover to be a good hard-shell crab. They're good quality for one or two years, and then their quality deteriorates and they're going to die. You have two to four years to be able to harvest these crabs—after that they're gone. So the idea of leaving large numbers there for long-term harvest is untenable. We don't have that luxury in snow crab. From a biological perspective, it's a good stock to be able to fish.
There are a couple of key areas. The protection of white crab, the moulted crab, is key, particularly those that moult to the size that are terminal and can be caught. It's imperative that we allow those to be left on the bottom without damage until they recover and they're able to serve the fishery. Those are your valuable crabs for the following year. Most fisheries have protocols that protect white crab.
Good science is also key. The trawl survey has been applied successfully in the snow crab fishery. We're fortunate. It's probably some of the best fishery science we have for stock assessment. However, let's not be overconfident. It is a tool. It's not 100% accurate. There are ranges in the estimations. The number we always talk about is the one that's in the middle, but depending on how many samples are done there's quite a range. Still, we are fortunate to have this trawl survey data for managing this fishery.
Enforcement is a priority, particularly for conservation, when we deal with going over lines. It's probably more of an issue in the gulf, where there are so many different fishing areas. In Scotia-Fundy the landing of the quota is an issue. There's a concern with overharvesting. They have to make sure that the landings are monitored properly to ensure that the quotas are actually followed and not abused. These are key points for our conservation.
I want to talk a little about management. I think there should be some flexibility in management, particularly on things like exploitation rights. I know that you're going to hear tomorrow about the precautionary approach. You're going to hear about the overharvest in area 12 and the need for a dramatic reduction this year. That's a legitimate perception. At the same time, it's a bit like motherhood. People talk about how a stock is going down fast, so we have to take drastic measures. It's hard to argue against that.
However, we have to keep in mind that we're talking about exploitation rights on a small percentage of the population out there. We don't fish any females. We don't fish any juvenile males. We only fish the terminal-moult male crabs, the large males. When you talk about an exploitation rate of 50%, people think it's very aggressive. But you have to realize that probably 75% of the population is not even in the mix to be harvested. It's 50% of the available biomass, or 20% of the available biomass—males that have finished their growth and are now terminal. That's a message I'd like you to take from me today. When people are talking about exploitation, they're not talking about the whole population. It's just a small fraction that you fish.
I believe that, within limits, the industry should be given some flexibility in choosing their exploitation rights. There should be a range that's considered reasonable. The long and short of it is that if you take them this year, they're not going to be there next year. But a number of those are going to die through natural mortality. You can't leave them there for long periods of time, so you want to find the balance of some stability and responsible management with utilizing the terminal molts that are available as the pulses come through the fishery, because it is a pulse resource. I've seen them cycle in the gulf. That fishery is a mature fishery, has been there since the early seventies. They've cycled up and down. It's a relatively newer fishery in the outer coast of Nova Scotia, but the same cycles are there.
I also want to mention the precautionary approach in management. I'm all for precautionary measurements and being responsible resource managers in our fishery. We have to manage for sustainability, but if we get to the point where we're doing it on principle rather than really good scientific reasons, then I have some concerns. I fear that's sometimes the case with snow crab, that people just give the motherhood notion out there that stocks are way down so we have to cut back on our harvest. It could be a very natural cycle. There's nothing we're going to do. So if we have a very small biomass, we can do our best to work through it from the fishery, or stand back, maybe be very conservative on the harvest approach, and watch as they are going to die within one or two years anyway through natural causes.
So again, it's almost sacrilegious to talk like this, but I'm putting it on the table, just for your consideration.
Quickly, I'll go through the areas. Area 12, 18, and 12F has been the most productive crab zone in the Maritimes. It has the longest commercial history. It was explored—Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick—in the mid-sixties. It was established as a commercial fishery in the late sixties or early seventies in New Brunswick and Quebec, and in the early seventies in Cape Breton, and later in Prince Edward Island. It has followed very cyclical landings. I recall, I believe it was in the late eighties, when the TAC was 7,000 tonnes. So that was quite a shocker at the time. I remember in the mid-eighties, the landings, before TAC management, were in the order of 32,000 tonnes. So the stock has cycled up and down, and since science has done the trawl survey, it has been very apparent. You can see the waves of year classes moving through that fishery. So it has gone up and down.
On old area 18, you're going to hear a number of different perspectives tomorrow. One is the mismanagement from an allocation perspective. You will hear from traditional area 12 folks. Part of that concern was the movement of the P.E.I. areas into the full area 12 fishery, and of area 18. Area 18 is a Nova Scotia area, and that is of significant interest to us. That area is a very productive area as well and has had a long history of white crab. So basically there was a lot of recruitment and growth in the area, and the crab would move out into the larger gulf area, so to speak. So the decision was made for area 18 to combine, to take their crab that is traditionally produced in area 18 and put it in the bigger pot and join with area 12. That enabled the area 18 fishery to stabilize on the white crab problems. It was a very good deal for the resource, and it was a good management decision for the area 18 fishermen.
It's the same situation for the area 25 and 26 fishermen in Prince Edward Island. So some will argue that it was part of the problem in area 12. Well, as I mentioned, the area 18 merger came with the resource that they brought into the bigger pool. So it really had no impact on the other fishermen but was able to stabilize the fishery in area 18. So it was a good thing.
Area 12F is a fringe area up in northern Cape Breton, a very small fishery, with localized crab that would have died there had they not been harvested in the area. So it's not very big but it's very important for the few fishermen who are in that area, and as in all other areas, the big issue for the economy up there is the prices.
Area 19 has been fished since the sixties. It's a highly productive area. If you look on your charts, that's the area off Cheticamp and there have been cyclical fisheries through that time. That fishery expanded from six inshore licences to 180 inshore licences, and contrary to many other areas, this was largely industry-led. They put forward various plans to include multi-species fishermen, largely the lobster fishermen.
Each of the 180 fishermen can have anywhere from three traps to 26 traps. So there are quotas associated with traps. They have an industry-designed management plan that is quite unique, which shares the resources but allows transferability as well. It's a summer fishery, so they do multiple fisheries. The do lobster and then snow crab, and they have a white crab protocol to protect their resource.
Area 19 is relatively small compared to area 12. It's a very dynamic area as far as movement of snow crab goes. So there are crabs coming in and going out. The fall survey in a small area such as area 19 is not very good for predicting what you're going to have in a fishery the following summer. That's the biggest issue in area 19, and I hope you hear about that tomorrow.
The way the industry has gotten around that in the last few years is to have a spring survey. Basically, when the crabs are harvested out in summer, then there's mobility of crabs--they mix around. In a small area such as area 19, a little bit of movement can make a dramatic impact on the biomass that's available for the fishery, and that movement can take place largely after the trawl survey. So the spring survey, which takes place just before the fishery, gives an accurate scientific assessment of what's available in area 19.
There's some talk that the 2010 fishery will not have a spring survey in area 19. There's a connection with area 12. The area 12 industry is asking why there are special deals for 19. Area 19 is unique. It has a unique set of circumstances, so that spring survey is essential. They also have a long-term co-management plan. They've been probably the most cooperative group of fishermen, for any species, I've observed as far as working with DFO to come together with a collective fishing plan over multiple years goes. They've been doing this for over a decade in area 19. That plan has a range for exploitation rates. It has a season range, and it spells out how they're going to manage that fishery.
The other message that “we just did something to area 12, so now we're going to do it to you in area 19 as well” causes concern. You have an industry group that has cooperated fully with DFO and will potentially be punished because of issues in another area. So it is essential to have the spring survey to set an accurate biomass level for the 2010 fishery and to maintain that long-standing co-management plan that has been agreed to between DFO and the industry. Time is running out, so I'm hopeful that you folks in the committee may be able to influence that survey that's needed within the next several weeks and will be able to maintain the good relationship and the positive fishery that we have in area 19.
Just turning briefly to the outer coast of Nova Scotia, in areas 20 to 22 there is relatively low productivity. It's important for the number of multi-species fishermen who are there, but it's been a challenge, particularly with low prices.
You've heard a lot about areas 23 and 24 today. Those opened up in the mid-1970s. There's been a huge expansion in the last ten years. These are very large areas, so there's a concern that the province is on some of the sub-areas. Initially, when the areas opened up, there were areas 23A, 23B, 23C, and 23D, and a slope area--you probably heard about that--and the same was true in area 24. When the fishery was changed about five years back, the sub-areas were removed. Back at the time when we made our presentation, we said we would like to see the sub-areas maintained at least until there was another tool to ensure distribution of fishing effort throughout the area.
Regarding the crab population, as I mentioned, you can harvest the terminal-molt crab only in a certain window. If they reach terminal molt and people are not fishing them, then there's lost opportunity, and fishermen will crowd in on areas that are easiest to get to. That becomes a real problem with low prices. You're going to try to spend as little money as you can to harvest your resource, so there's concern about lost opportunity in areas 23 and 24 for crab that may not be harvested because of these distant areas.
Also, there is a concern that as crabs age from a terminal molt they grow barnacles on their shells. So an issue we need to address in areas 23 and 24 is some kind of a protocol that will accommodate for this. If fishermen are bringing in crab that are lower quality, the price will be lower. And if the processors are saying that on that crab they're going to lose 10% because they have to scrape the barnacles off and they will lose the quality, that becomes an issue. So the way around that is to have a protocol that will allow some adjustment for barnacled crab. It's done in Newfoundland, so it would be the same thing in this region, to have an adjustment for the weight if it's barnacled crab.
The alternative will be high-grading so people will take only the best-quality crab. Then, of course, the older crab is discarded. It is going to be an economic opportunity lost to the fishery.
You've heard about the access issues. I'm sure that's one of the main reasons you're here. Minister Belliveau has heard both sides, and both sides are passionate about their position. In this fishery and in several others he has put forward the concept of a tribunal to be an independent arbitrator of these sorts of disputes. If you recall the Fisheries Act--the last two attempts at that--that concept was in there and it probably will be there again when the Fisheries Act is reintroduced. We've had a few goes at this, and we still haven't got a new Fisheries Act. So what the minister would like to see is a tribunal mechanism set up to deal with disputes such as access in crab fisheries and in others to hear both perspectives and then put forward a balanced and objective position.
Those perspectives may change from year to year, as you've heard around here. What may have happened in some areas in 1990 or in 2005 in the case of snow crab may be different in 2010. We usually always talk about resource. As I mentioned, the price factor is critical.
Finally, the processing is an extremely important industry in eastern Nova Scotia--crab processing. What's really hurting us are the exchange rates in the U.S. and the economic downturn in the U.S. In Canada, particularly in the fish industry, we can't dictate exchange rates, but what we can do is try to expand our market so we don't have all our eggs in one basket. They're having trouble in Europe. In Asia, we're into Japan with snow crab, and there are great opportunities in China, so we have to explore that.
In Europe, Marine Stewardship Council certification is key in some areas. There is an interest that's developing here in eastern Nova Scotia for snow crab. The province has basically financed a number of MSC activities in other fisheries, and we're prepared to help in the snow crab fishery as well. We think that is critical to get into new markets in Europe. So if the industry is prepared to move in that direction, we are prepared to work with them.
Landing gluts are a problem for the processing sector, as well as quality. So that's either white crab, which is largely managed by the industry, or barnacles, which need to be addressed, as I mentioned.
Unfortunately, we still have the processor-harvester disputes on pricing, and there is a lot of distrust. We see these two sectors as industry partners out in the much larger global marketplace, and again, we would like to encourage or assist in any way we can to improve those trust levels and have the two sectors work as partners.
So those are my not so brief remarks. I thank you for giving an opportunity to put our perspective on the table.