In an unprecedented move, US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke has approved a plan to ban fishing in more than a half million square kilometres of American waters in the Arctic – not because of overfishing, bur anticipating changing climate.
The plan, the first of its kind, has been worked out in previously scarcely seen cooperation between environmentalists and the Marine Conservation Alliance, a consortium of Alaskan harvesters and processors.
No fishing is presently pursued in these waters north of the Bering Strait, but they are believed to be rich in cod and snow crab, among other species. Marine biologists think they could well provide a new home for cold-water species like pollock and salmon that are already moving north as global warming increases water temperatures in their normal habitats.
In an editorial comment to the plan, the New York Times recently said that the US Government hopes that the plan will send a signal to other Arctic nations — including Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark — that are also eyeing the potentially huge resources beneath the thawing Arctic icepack, telling the world that “ the United States is putting its own house in order until science determines that fishing can be allowed in a responsible and sustainable manner”.