Marine reserve status for whole Arctic region is best way to protect it

A fishing boat returns from a trip to the Barents Sea to the tiny port of Sommaroya, northern Norway. The entire area should be afforded marine reserve status as its default position, says Stephen Eades. Photograph: Alister Doyle/Reuters

The question that the scientists at the Institute of Marine Research in Norway have to answer is why it would not be in the best interests of the whole area to have marine reserve status as its default position (Targeted marine protection provides best hope for the Arctic, Letters, theguardian.com, 11 March)?

This would mean that no fishing could take place (be licensed) unless that proposal to fish could prove that it was not injurious. This is exactly what all other human marine activities have to do, so why should fishing be exempt?

Having been through this process, a licence could then be customised in order to ensure the fishing activity is responsibly undertaken and the needs and integrity of the marine ecosystem respected. This is the ecosystem approach to marine management.

One must therefore request the institute to clarify its support for the ecosystem approach – a key principle supported by Ospar, of which Norway is a member – and whether the default position of the area being that of conservation, with all human activity responsibly licensed, is not wholly consistent with the ecosystem approach?
Stephen Eades
Director, Marinet Limited

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