DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

FISHING FOR SHRIMPS IN GREENLAND COMPARING FLEETS AND AN ALTERNATIVE FISHING METHOD BY USING LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

Madeleine Mann

Degree project for Bachelor of Science with a major in Environmental Science 2018, 180 HEC

FISHING FOR SHRIMPS IN GREENLAND COMPARING FLEETS AND AN ALTERNATIVE FISHING METHOD BY USING LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

Madeleine Mann Thesis for the Degree of Bachelor of Science degree with a major in environmental science, 15 credits. Fall semester 2018.

Supervisor: Friederike Ziegler, RISE

Assistant Supervisor: Carl André, University of Gothenburg

Examiner: Lennart Bornmalm, University of Gothenburg

Abstract 

Northern prawn is the most consumed type of shellfish in Sweden. It is fished within the country but is mostly imported. Most of the imported shrimps originate in Denmark and a major part of it from Greenland. In Greenland, shrimp are trawled and the fishing boats are divided into a coastal and an offshore fleet, with different requirements on landings and operation area.

The aim of this study was to compare the environmental impacts from the different fleets, with special emphasis on greenhouse gas emission, stock exploitation and bycatch, and also to compare the result to the only alternative fishing method for northern shrimp in use, trap fishing, with data from Atlantic Canada. This was done by using the method Life Cycle Assessment, a method commonly used to assess environmental impact of products, following them through the supply chain.

Trawls are equipped with selective grids and both trawling and trap fishing lead to low discards and 

landing of other species (bycatch). Both stocks are considered to be fished sustainably. Although 

trawling led to higher greenhouse gas emissions than trap fishing (and offshore more than coastal 

trawling), the Greenlandic fleet was relatively fuel effective compared to other shrimp trawl fisheries. 

The relative advantage of the trap fishery over the trawl fishery in terms of greenhouse gas emissions 

rapidly disappears if the product is airfreighted to the market or if a large proportion is wasted. 

Therefore it is important to both optimize the fishery and the following supply chain to minimize 

impacts of consumption. Studies like this can be used to guide consumer advice regarding seafood, 

but are hampered by the challenges to obtain detailed data for fisheries.  

Sammanfattning 

Nordhavsräkan är det vanligaste skaldjuret som konsumeras i Sverige. Den fiskas såväl av den inhemska fiskeflottan som importeras. Större delen av de importerade räkorna kommer från Danmark och härstammar till stor del från Grönland. Vid Grönland fiskas räkorna med trål och fiskebåtarna är indelade i en kustflotta och en offshoreflotta, med olika krav på landning och fiskeområden.

Avsikten med föreliggande undersökning var att jämföra miljöpåverkan från de olika fiskeflottorna, med särskild betoning på utsläpp av växthusgaser, utnyttjande av bestånden och bifångst, men också att jämföra resultaten med den enda alternativa metoden som används för att fiska nordhavsräka, nämligen burfiske, och datauppgifterna från detta räkfiske är kanadeniska. Studien utfördes med hjälp av metoden Livscykelanalys, vilken vanligen används för att bedöma miljöpåverkan av produkter, eftersom den möjliggör att följa miljöpåverkan genom hela produktionskedjan. Trålarna är försedda med selektiva rister och både trålning och burfiske leder till låga nivåer av utkast av andra arter (bifångst). Räkbestånden som fångas vad såväl bur- som trålfiske anses vara hållbart fiskade. Trots att trålning ledde till högre utsläpp av växthusgaser än burfiske (och trålningen offshore mer än den kustnära), så var Grönlands fiskeflottan relativt bränsleeffektiva jämfört med andra räkfisken. Den relativa fördelen med burfisket framför trålfisket, vad gäller växthusgaser, försvinner dock snabbt om produkten flygtransporteras till avsättningsmarknaden eller om en stor del av räkorna går till spillo. Därför är det viktigt att optimera såväl fisket som efterföljande produktionskedjor för att minimera effekter av konsumtionen. Studier som denna kan användas för att ge råd till konsumenter om sjömat, men är begränsade av svårigheterna att få tillgång till detaljerad data över fisket.

   

Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1 

Swedish consumption of seafood ....................................................................................................... 1 

Environmental impacts of shrimp fishing ............................................................................................ 1 

Background of Life Cycle Assessment ................................................................................................. 2 

Aim ...................................................................................................................................................... 3 

Methods .................................................................................................................................................. 7 

Target species ...................................................................................................................................... 3 

Shrimp trawling in Greenland ............................................................................................................. 4 

Trap fishing in Nova Scotia (Canada) ................................................................................................... 6 

Life Cycle Assessment .......................................................................................................................... 7 

Results ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 

Inventory analysis ................................................................................................................................ 9 

Impact assessment ............................................................................................................................ 13 

Discussion .............................................................................................................................................. 15 

Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................ 17 

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... 17 

References ............................................................................................................................................. 18 

Appendix 1 – Flowchart ......................................................................................................................... 22 

Appendix 2 – List of abbreviations ........................................................................................................ 23 

 

   

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Introduction 

Swedish consumption of seafood The National Food Agency in Sweden (Livsmedelsverket) recommends Swedish citizens to eat seafood 2 to 3 times a week because it is a good source of nutrients such as protein, vitamins, iodine and selenium (Livsmedelsverket, 2018). The most common types of seafood to consume in Sweden are salmon, cod and herring with northern prawn being the most common type of shellfish consumed (ranked at sixth place) (Ziegler & Bergman 2017). Northern prawn is fished in Sweden but also imported from several countries, both within and from outside the EU (Table 1). Most of the shrimps are imported and bought frozen from Denmark (EUMOFA, 2018; Ziegler & Bergman, 2017). Shrimps imported from Denmark can be both caught in Danish fisheries, imported to Denmark from other countries or from Greenland, since Greenland is an autonomous region, formally part of Denmark.

Although consumers are recommended to eat seafood, it is important to minimize environmental impacts related to our food consumption and consumers are therefore also advised to choose products that are certified by organizations such as MSC, ASC and KRAV to support sustainable fishing practices (Livsmedelsverket, 2018).

Environmental impacts of shrimp fishing Capture fisheries is the only large-scale food production based on wild resources and in 2015, 59.9% of assessed fish stocks globally were fished at maximum sustainability (fished to the point where the stock is able to reproduce at the highest level and therefore give maximum sustainable catches) and 33.1% were overfished, a concerning situation not only due to the ecological aspects, but also because it has social and economic consequences (FAO, 2018e).

Eco labeling aims to make it easier for the consumer to make more sustainable choices with a focus on harvest and landings. There are more potential environmental impacts of shrimp fisheries than overfishing, such as habitat destruction and different emissions from the vessels; the latter is normally not considered in eco-labelling (with Swedish KRAV as the exception). One fishing method with potential environmental impact is bottom trawling. When an area is swept several times, slow growing and slow reproducing species can have a hard time to recover, which can lead to a loss in biodiversity. The resuspending of sediment can cause changes in various fluxes, changes of sediment by altering the grain size and smothering of suspension feeders (Thrush & Dayton, 2002). Bottom trawling for crustaceans is also one of the least energy-efficient fishing methods, because of the combination of target species and fishing method (a relatively energy-intensive fishing method used to catch small volumes of target species results in high fuel use per landing). A low fuel efficiency contributes to higher emission of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas contributing to climate

Table 1: Import of northern prawn to Sweden 2017 (EUMOFA, 2018a; 2018b.) 

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change (Parker & Tyedmers, 2015; Parker et. al., 2018). A less fuel intense method for fishing crustaceans is the use of traps, although it is not considered as a low fuel fishing method (Ziegler & Valentinsson, 2008). To assess also these global scale environmental impacts of production systems, a method called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been developed.

Background of Life Cycle Assessment  To assess environmental impacts of products, for a long time several different methods, with a variety of names, have existed, and were used trying to give an environmental perspective on products and their production chains. Around 1970 the first studies resembling a LCA-study were conducted, as they tried to look at beverage packaging’s whole life cycle, but it was first in 1991 the concept were given the name Life Cycle Assessment. In the 1990’s LCAs got a more diverse application, including food products, building materials, chemicals and electronics, and the method started to spread geographically around the world. In 1997 the first standard for the method was agreed upon, ISO 14040, since then several more standards have been established to get a uniform and comparable method for LCAs (Baumann & Tilman, 2004). In the early 1990’s, the first LCA studies of food products were done, followed by the first seafood studies in the early 2000. The current ISO standard was published in 2006 (ISO 2006a,b) Today LCA is used widely in policy and by industry to improve their own production, to set environmental demands on suppliers or to communicate environmental performance to customers, sometimes also as a basis for certification criteria. The method is the basis for the European Union “Product Environmental Footprinting” (PEF) initiative (European Commission, 2016). At present, it is a voluntary way to demonstrate the environmental performance of products, which in the future could become mandatory for all products sold in the European Union.

From 2000 to 2016 the use of LCA as a method to quantify seafood’s environmental impact increased rapidly and today hundreds of case studies have been published as well as a number of review studies. Even if more studies are done, most of them are based on fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, (Avadí & Fréon, 2013). They usually target a small number of key species, most common for capture fisheries are trawled or longline fished Atlantic cod, and for aquaculture Atlantic salmon and Rainbow trout (Parker, 2012). Most of the studies use traditional impact categories such as acidification, eutrophication, energy consumption and the most common impact category global warming potential (a relative measurement connected to greenhouse gas emissions) (Vázquez-Rowe et. al., 2012). By the development and using of new fishery-specific impact categories, such as seafloor impact, bycatch and discard reporting (as seen in for example Ziegler et al. 2011; Vázquez-Rowe et al. 2011), the method is improved and expanded to cover a broader environmental perspective. LCAs for fisheries often show that the fishing activity is the most important phase in the life cycle, dominating environmental impact, and fuel use is the main contributor to greenhouse gases and climate change (Ziegler et al., 2016a).

When it comes to LCA studies on shrimps, a number of studies on aquaculture exist, while examples from fisheries are scarce. Examples found closest to this study are Ziegler et. al. (2016b;2018), both studying northern prawn trawl fisheries based in Scandinavia.

With most of Swedish shrimps imported from Denmark and Greenland being one of the world’s biggest producers, as well as being an autonomous part of Denmark, one can assume

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these imported shrimps originate from Greenland. Something Swedish shrimp wholesalers confirm (Tanaka, pers. Comm.).

Target species The northern prawn (Pandalus borealis)(also appears as northern shrimp or cold water prawn, but in this study referred to as northern prawn or just shrimp) (Figure 1) is a protandric hermaphrodite. It matures as a male at the age of three and converts to female when it is around 5 to 6 years old (NOAA, 1958). It lives on soft bottoms consisting of clay and mud at a depth ranging between 20-1330m. It has a wide geographic distribution and prawns can be found in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific (FAO, 2018c).

 Figure 2: Total catches in the worlds shrimp fisheries.  Catches have steadily increased but since 2004 the landings have decreased to levels close to those in the beginning of the 1990’s.(FAO, 2011‐2018) 

Northern prawn is predominantly fished in the North Atlantic, in FAO fishing area 21 and 27. Global production has steadily increased from the 1950’s but since 2004 the landings have decreased down to levels equal to landings in the beginning of the 1990’s (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Pandalus borealis, target species.  (NOAA, 2018) 

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 Figure 3: Top ten shrimp fishing nations in 2015. Canada is the biggest producer of shrimps (134603 tonnes) followed by Greenland.(73043 tonnes) (FAO, 2011‐ 2018) 

In 2015 Canada and Greenland dominated the fishing production of northern prawn (134603 and 73043 tonnes respectively) followed by Norway, Russia, Estonia and Iceland, with Sweden at 9th place with landings at 1515tonnes (Figure 3).

Shrimp trawling in Greenland Stock assessment 

The stock being exploited by the Greenland fisheries is located on the west coast of Greenland, within the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organizations (NAFO) subarea 1, with a small part stretching in to subarea 0 that is fished by Canada (Figure 4).

Calculations of the stock size are made by The Greenland Institute of Natural Resources who uses different indices from surveys as well as from the fishery. A Schaefer production model includes values from Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE), total catch, fishable biomass, cod biomass, predation from cod and overlap between cod and shrimp stock, together with data from 30 years. The Joint NAFO/ICES Pandalus Assesment working Group (NIPAG) makes a recommendation for sustainable quotas, from which the government decides on TACs. The stock has since the late 1990’s been over Bmsy (reference point indicating the biomass necessary to produce maximal sustainable yield) (NIPAG, 2017).

Figure 4: NAFO fishing areas along the coast of Greenland and Canada. (Norebo, 2018) 

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Fisheries 

The export of shrimps together with Greenlandic halibut, Atlantic mackerel and some other species is one of Greenlands most important trade resources for the economy, and the fishing industry is an important employer for the people living in Greenland (Statistics Greenland, 2018; Naalakkersuisut, 2018).

Greenland’s shrimp fishing fleet is divided in to a coastal and an offshore fleet. The coastal fleet has an exclusive right to fish up to 3 nautical miles from the base line and usually has vessels smaller than (75GRT/120GT), with some exceptions operating both coastal and offshore (MSC, 2018b). The two biggest fishing groups on Greenland are Royal Greenland (state owned) and Polar Seafood (private) (Naalakkersuisut, 2018).

All vessels in the offshore fleet (around 8 vessels) can process a big part of their catches onboard. The processing mainly consists of size screening, cooking and freezing. The production consists of so called Japan shrimps, Italian shrimps, “Cooked at sea” shrimps and Industry shrimps, differentiated by size and grades of processing (MSC,2018b). The offshore fleet has to land at least 25% of the catch unprocessed to one of the four processing plants for shrimps, all based on the west coast of Greenland. In the same way the coastal fleet (around 20 vessels) is obliged by the same law to land all their catches on land, except for two factory trawlers with the same percentage as the offshore fleet. This law was created to support the local labor market (KNAPK, 2014; MSC, 2018b; FAO, 2018d).

To catch shrimps, the vessels use otter trawls (MSC, 2018a). Trawling is performed by togging a cone shaped net across the seafloor in a speed between 1-7 knots, usually 3-5 knots. The nets have two lateral wings with trawl doors designed to keep the net open horizontally. The mouth consists of a headline, kept up by floats, and a groundrope with weights to keep the net on the seafloor. Usually there are extra devices on the groundrope to keep the net protected from getting tangled and stuck. The nets body ends in a codend where the catch is gathered. It has become more common to use more than one trawl at the time, so called multitrawl rigging, something the offshore fleet on Greenland has adopted and use double trawls (FAO, 2018a, 2018b; NIPAG, 2017.). The nets stretched mesh size is not allowed to be less than 40mm and it is, since 2001 for the offshore fleet and since 2012 for coastal fleet, mandatory to use Nordmore sorting grids with 22mm spacing, to avoid bycatch of bigger fish. Smaller fish passing through the sorting grids are of no commercial value and are routinely discarded at sea but discarding of small size shrimps is not allowed (MSC, 2018b).

In 2013, the West Greenland northern prawn fishery became certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC, 2018a).

Licenses and the quota system 

The offshore fleet has been restricted by area and quotas since 1977, and current regulations control the whole fishery with licenses, TAC, quotas and technical measure limitations (NIPAG, 2017).

There are three different types of licenses for the shrimp fisheries. One license for offshore vessels with production on board, a license for coastal vessels with onboard production and one for coastal vessels with no production. Further on the fishing is limited by Total Allowable Catch, a catch limit set for a year for the whole stock by the Greenland

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government. The government’s decision on TAC is based on The Institute of Natural Resources estimations of stock size and NIPAGs stock assessment (MSC, 2018b).

Canada and Greenland set independent and autonomous TACs. Greenland allocates a quota from their TAC to the EU and within Greenland 57% is assigned to the offshore fleet and 43% to the coastal fleet. In 1990/91, Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQ) were implemented and a limit was set for persons, vessels and companies to have at the most 33.3% of the offshore quota and 15% for the inshore quota. The ITQs are to some extent exchangeable, even between coastal and offshore fleet (MSC, 2018b, NIPAG, 2017).

Trap fishing in Nova Scotia (Canada) The only existing alternative method to trawling Northern prawn is trap fishing, of which examples can be found in the northeast of the United States and outside Nova Scotia in Canada. The trap fishing in Canada is restricted to Chedabucto Bay in Shrimp Fishing Area 15 (SFA15), an area located in NAFO subarea 4W (Figure 4). Experiments are made with the aim to try start up trap fishing in Sweden and Norway as well (DFO, 2018; SLU, 2016)

Stock assessment and TACs 

The stock is distributed over SFA 13-15. Stock assessments are made by the Eastern Scotian Shelf Shrimp Advisory Committee based on different indicators such as CPUE for both trawling and trap fishing, recruitment of shrimps, spawning biomass, cod recruitment, fishing effort etc. The TAC has since 1994 fluctuated depending on strong year classes for recruitment but have since 2015 and 2016 declined and 2017 reached the lowest level since 1992 (2.600mt). A single TAC is set annually for trawls and trap fishers by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and trap fishers are allocated 8% (DFO, 2018). Within those 8%, trappers fish competitively (DFO, 2014).

Fisheries 

In the trap fishery, cages are baited and sunken down with weights. Usually ten lines with ten traps in each line are set out by the boat each day. The shrimps are lured in to the cage by the bait (most commonly frozen herring is used as bait) and the entrance is designed to hamper the shrimps from getting out (FAO, 2018f; DFO, 2018). Retention of bycatch is not allowed and neither is discarding of shrimps (DFO, 2013).

Aim The aim of this study was to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of shrimps caught in coastal and offshore trawling in Greenland and in trap fishing in Canada, using Life Cycle Assessment.

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Methods 

Life Cycle Assessment A Life Cycle Assessment aims to characterize the environmental burden of a product or process through its whole life cycle, from extracting raw materials to the waste management, from the cradle to the grave, including all chains of resources connected to the product. The standard ISO 14040 and 14044 (ISO, 2006 a,b) makes up a framework for the process, usually divided in to four steps (Figure 5.). The process starts with definition of Goal and scope were the aim and boundaries are set for the study. A functional unit is chosen reflecting the function of the product and impact categories of interest are decided. These choices determine what data to collect for the studied system. The second step, the gathering of data and information connected to the product makes up the Inventory analysis, resulting in a list of different inventory flows. The next step, Impact assessment, describes the potential environmental consequences. The inventory flows from the inventory analysis are characterized, weighted and categorized in different impact categories, to make the result manageable and comparable. In the final step the results are interpreted to see how these depend on inventory data and what conclusions and recommendations can be made and how the results can be presented. Sometimes additional data needs to be collected and often a sensitivity analysis is performed, to understand and demonstrate the importance of method choices and key data for results. All the steps are a working process and reflection, reevaluation of earlier choices and changes will most likely have to be done along the way. 

Goal and scope 

The goal was, as mentioned earlier, to quantify the environmental impact of shrimp products imported to Sweden from different origins, i.e. based on different fisheries and fishing methods and transportation routes to Sweden. Environmental impact categories were decided to be greenhouse gas emissions, target stock exploitation and by-catch. Intentions were to include seafloor impact as well, but it was unfortunately not possible to obtain the data needed for this, like trawling speed and size of the trawl.

The functional unit, the reference flow, was set to 1 kilo of unpeeled shrimp, in some cases boiled and frozen at sea (although the energy use for this processing at sea is not accounted for in this study), in others landed fresh after which the products were shipped to Gothenburg, Sweden, in different ways.

The fishing fleet in Greenland was selected since this is the origin of most imported frozen shrimps on the Swedish market. Trap fishing is the only important fishing method besides trawling for fishing Northern prawn.

Figure 5: The working process for Life Cycle Assessment according to ISO 14040 

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Inventory analysis 

Inventory in Greenland 

The Institute of Natural Resources at Greenland, provided data for total landings, bycatch and fishing effort for the Greenlandic shrimp fishery for the last five years (2012-2017). Due to lack of data for fuel use, the Equation 1 designed to estimate a vessels fuel use intensity FUI, was used together with a list of all vessels and their engine capacity (Bastardie et. al, 2010,2013; MSC, 2018c) to estimate the fuel use indirectly

FUI = E*(0.236*P+3.976)+S*0.75*(0.236*P+3.976)  (Equation 1) 

It was assumed that all vessels on the list participate equally in the fishing and therefore all vessels engine power P (kW) and fishing effort in hours trawled E (h), which unfortunately was only available in aggregated form for each fleet (coastal and offshore, with the EU-vessel assumed belonging to the offshore fleet), were used. In lack of actual data, it was assumed that the steaming time S was equal to the fishing effort. I.e. for the offshore fleet the engine power for the 8 vessels were summed up and divided by 8 and total effort was also divided by number of vessels (8), to get an average vessel representing this fleet. Power and effort for this average vessel was then inserted into the equation, with effort also used as estimation for steaming time, resulting in a FUI for the offshore fleet. The same was done for the 22 vessels in the coastal fleet as well as for all 30 vessels together.

Inventory in Canada 

In the case of the trap fishery, real-world data from a survey over the Canadian eastern shore shrimp trap fishery for the season 2002-2003 from the Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen’s Association was used. The data constituting the basis for calculations made for trap fishing was collected by Katherine Newell and was kindly made available by Prof. Peter Tyedmers, Dalhousie University, comprising data from seven vessels using shrimp traps.

In both cases, information about the stock status and management of the fisheries was collected from online reports from the relevant bodies.

Impact assessment 

Calculated data for fuel use (trawling) and real fuel use (trap fishing) together with background data for bait (data from Winther et al. 2009) and fuel production, the latter taken from the LCI database ecoinvent (version 3.4, ecoinvent.org), were modelled in the LCA software SimaPro (MultiUser version 8.5.2.3 Pré Consultants, Amersfoort, NL) for the LCA analyzes.

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Figure 6: Modelled way for transportations and type of transport for fished shrimps. 

Different hypothetical ways and mode for transportations were chosen as shown in figure 6.

The waste scenario was modelled with a figurated 2% loss for frozen shrimps transported by boat due to losses during transportation. The fresh shrimps transported by flight was given a higher degree of waste (5%) because of losses during transportation and the fact that fresh seafood has a shorter shelflife, often resulting in a higher degree of waste. This meaning; for an equal amount of shrimps to reach the consumer, as stated in the transport scenario, more shrimps has to be produced.

Results 

Inventory analysis Trawling in Greenland 

Stock situation 

Since 2013 the stock biomass has slightly increased and at the end of 2017 the biomass was estimated to be 39% above Bmsy (NIPAG, 2017)

Bycatch  

Discarded fish are mostly redfish (different species), capelin, American plaice, cod and Greenland halibut. Between 2002-2016 total discarded bycatch of all fish species ranged from 0.56% to 1.49% of shrimp catches (Table 2) (MSC 2018b).

The striped shrimp (P. montagui) is common as bycatch, and between 2010-2017 catches varied from 0.5% up to 5.3% of shrimp catches (Table 3).

Table 2: Bycatch of fish 2002‐2016 (MSC, 2018) 

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Table 3: Bycatch of the striped shrimp Pandalus montagui in Greenlandic catches of Pandalus borealis.from 2010‐2017 (MSC, 2018b) 

 

Fishery data 

Table 4 shows data provided by The Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, for total landings of shrimps, effort and bycatch, and the different fleets’ contribution under the time period 2012-2017.

Table 4: Data over the Greenlandic fleets landings of shrimp catches, fishing effort and bycatches during the time period 2012‐2017, shown for total fleet, coastal fleet and offshore fleet and provided by The Greenland Institute of Natural Resources. 

 

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For 2017 the average vessel from the offshore fleet (8 vessels and a total engine power of 39,130kW) had a FUI per catch at 1.580l/kg and the coastal fleet average vessel (22 vessels and a total engine power of 23,949kW) 0.715l/kg. The average vessel counted for Greenland’s whole fishing fleet had a FUI per catch at 0.882l/kg, with the high number of vessels in the coastal fleet contributing to a FUI closer to the one of that fleet.

   

Figure 7: Bycatches (kg) per catch (ton) for the different Greenlandic fleets during the time period 2012‐2017. The offshore fleet shows a higher grade of bycatch than the coastal fleet. 

 

Figure 8:  Catch per unit effort for the different Greenlandic fleets during the time period 2012‐2017. The offshore fleet have a higher catch per unit effort than the coastal fleet. 

Data for shrimp landings in Greenland shows a higher catch per unit effort (CPUE) for the offshore fleet compared to the coastal (Figure 8), but the offshore fleet has a larger amount of bycatch in their landings (0.11kg/ton compared to 0.04kg/ton) (Figure 7).

   

0

0,02

0,04

0,06

0,08

0,1

0,12

0,14

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

kg/ton

Coastal Offshore Total

0

0,2

0,4

0,6

0,8

1

1,2

1,4

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

ton/h

Coastal Offshore Total

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Trap fishing in Nova Scotia 

Stock situation 

The Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB) is used as indicator for biomass and the two last years SSB has been under the Upper Stock Reference, but well above the Limit Reference Point, placing the stock in the cautionary zone. When in the cautionary zone different management actions is possible such as precautionary TAC reductions (DFO, 2018)

Bycatch 

Most common bycatch in traps are Atlantic rock crab, crab of other species and cusk. On rare occasions cod, hake, haddock and dogfish can be caught (Seafish, 2018). No data over the amount of bycatch in the specific fishery was available but a study done on trap fishing in the Gulf of Main (south of Nova Scotia) showed bycatches of 1.21% in 2010 and 1.11% in 2011, by weight of landed catch (Moffett et.al. 2012).

Fishery data 

Table 5 shows collected results from the trap fishing survey over landings, fuel use and bait use. Weighted average for a vessel in this fleet had a fuel use intensity of 0.104l/kg.

Table 5: Results from the trap fishing survey showing the different boats landings, fuel use and use of bait with calculated fuel use intensity and bait to landings ratio. 

 

   

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Impact assessment Fishing  

 

Figure 9: Result for the different fleets’ emissions of greenhouse gasses, presented in kg CO2 equivalents per kg shrimp fished and divided into the contributing activities; fuel combustion during fishing of shrimps, fuel production for the fuel used and the using of bait in the cages. 

The offshore fleet led to higher emissions (4.83 kg CO2 equivalents/kg shrimp at landing) than the coastal fleet (2.19 kg CO2 equivalents/kg shrimp) with both fleets having a high grade of emissions originating from the combustion of fuel during the fishery, compared to emissions from the production of fuel. The general fleet (overall average for coastal and offshore, representing the average Greenlandic shrimp when not known if fished by the coastal or offshore fleet) shows a similar distribution with total emissions at 2.70kg CO2 equivalents/kg shrimp (Figure 9).

 

Figure 10: Greenhouse gas emission for the trap fishing, presented in kg CO2equivalents per kg shrimp fished and divided into the contributing activities; fuel combustion during fishing of shrimps, fuel production for the fuel used and the using of bait in the cages. 

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Trap fishing led to emissions of 0.46 kg CO2 equivalents/kg shrimp, the lowest value of the different fisheries. Once again the combustion of fuel during the shrimp fishing contributes to most of the emissions. Emissions from the use of bait contribute with around 27% of total emissions (0.13 kg CO2 equivalents/kg shrimp) (Figure 10).

Transport scenario 

 

Figure 11: Greenhouse gas emissions for the different transport scenarios, presented in kg CO2equivalents per kg shrimp and divided into fishing activity and the different transportation methods (flight, lorry and shipping). 

Adding transportation scenarios to the analyze made trap fished shrimps that were airfreighted from Halifax to Gothenburg, the scenario with most emissions, releasing 9.04 kg CO2

equivalents/kg shrimp, with air transport contributing with as much as 8.58kg CO2 equivalents to the total sum. Trap fished shrimps transported by boat and truck from Halifax to Gothenburg is the alternative with least emissions, 0.75 kg CO2 equivalents/kg shrimp, transport contributing with 0.29 kg CO2 equivalents to the total sum. Trawled shrimp transported by boat and truck from Nuuk to Gothenburg performed better than the air transported shrimp, but worse than the shrimp transported by boat from Halifax to Gothenburg. The transport scenario added 0.09 kg CO2 equivalents/kg to each trawling scenario (Figure 11).

   

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Waste scenario 

 

Figure 12:  Greenhous gas emissions for waste scenarios, presented in kg CO2equivalents per kg shrimp, with extra emissions added, resulting from shrimps going to waste, to fishing and transport activities  

Adding an additional 5% waste scenario in the case of airfreighting of fresh shrimps from Halifax to Gothenburg increased total emissions with 0.48 kg CO2 equivalents/kg shrimp. The assumed 2% of waste added to frozen shrimps transported by boat and truck from Halifax to Gothenburg increased the total outcome with 0.02kg CO2 equivalents/kg shrimp (Figure 12).

Discussion Coastal vs. offshore  trawling  

Although the offshore fleet has a higher catch per unit effort (CPUE), the coastal fleet is still more effective when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Worth to notice is that the offshore fleets energy for processing the shrimps is not accounted for and therefore will make emissions even higher, this will have to be compared to the emissions from processing the shrimps ashore for the coastal fleet, making energy source an important factor. When processing at sea, the energy source is fossil fuel, when processing ashore, other energy sources can be chosen. Overall the offshore fleet is younger than the coastal fleet, when it comes to the age of the vessels, and one would think the offshore fleet should perform better regarding fuel efficiency since technological development should lead to newer vessels being more fuel efficient. However, this is a result of the interactions between engine power, fuel efficiency of the vessel and its fishing efficiency.

The Greenlandic fleet, in particular the coastal fleet is, as far as this study shows, a relatively fuel efficient shrimp trawl fishery compared to studies done on shrimp trawling in Norway, Sweden and Denmark (were fuel use varied between 4-8l/kg) (Ziegler et. al., 2016b, Ziegler et. al., 2018), and also for what would be expected for a trawl fishery targeting crustaceans (Parker et. al., 2018).

   

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Trawls vs. traps 

Trap fishing have a clear advantage to trawling when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, this has been shown previously (Ziegler & Valentinsson, 2008) and is confirmed here, but the trap fishing addresses a quite small and niched market which makes it more vulnerable to fluctuations in prices and dependence of stable stock sizes. The low fuel use makes other aspects from the fishing activity more prominent. If possible, an improvement could be to use bycatch as bait instead of herring from other fisheries, to make emissions even lower. Additional advantages of traps are the lower bycatch and the higher discard survival (Ziegler & Valentinsson, 2008). Although, it must be mentioned that the trawl fishery have a low grades of bycatch, owing to the use of the Nordmore sorting grid.

One thing to remember is that the trap survey is from the 2002-2003 fishing season and trawling data from 2017. Conditions could have changed for trap fishing during this time period and might not be representative for the trap fishing at this time.

Transport and waste scenarios 

The transport scenario shows that a product produced under best circumstances might not be the best alternative at the final destination. If transported by air, emissions can rise considerably making it to a bad alternative with high emissions of greenhouse gases. This visualizes the importance to take a products whole lifecycle in to account.

The waste scenario demonstrates why it is important to make sure as much as possible of the product reaches the consumer. When part of the product goes to waste, emissions during the whole life cycle are increased to no use.

Method 

To use aggregated data and models for the Greenlandic fleet makes uncertainties of the result high. Differences between the vessels are not reflected, they can perform better or worse and contribute in different amount, for example in time of effort, to the final result. Although this would have to be seen as the best method available for this data to be able make an estimation for the fleet.

An improvement would be to use data of higher resolution for the fishing activities in Greenland, but due to secrecy regulating the handling of this data, this was not achievable. Attempts to solve this by contacting different companies who own fishing vessels directly, were not successful within the timeframe given. Higher resolution of data, to make fewer assumptions, and to incorporate more impact categories and the remaining stages of the life cycle would give a more holistic view of the environmental impacts associated with the various products.

Avadí & Fréon (2013) suggest incorporating the construction phase of the vessels more often in life cycle assessments. This could potentially represent an interesting difference between the coastal and offshore fleets in Greenland fleet with new factory trawlers on their way in the offshore fleet. 

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Conclusions To conclude- the Canadian trap fishing has lower bycatch and lower emissions of greenhouse gases per kilo shrimp fished than the Greenlandic trawling fleet, although the Greenlandic fleet performs well compared to other similar fisheries with the same fishing method.

In this study the coastal fleet in Greenland had better results in both bycatch and greenhouse gas emissions, compared to the offshore fleet, but for the final product it is not possible for the consumer to know the origin of the shrimp and therefore the performance of the general Greenlandic shrimp are more relevant for consumer guidance.

It is important to take the whole life cycle in to account and for example different transportation methods can influence greatly on the final products environmental performance.

Acknowledgements First of all I would like to thank my supervisor Friederike Ziegler at RISE for all the guiding and feedback throughout the project. Additionally, thank you to my supervisor at the University of Gothenburg Carl André for all the feedback and inputs.

I am also very thankful for all the expertise and inputs given from AnnDorte Burmeister at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and from Ole Ritzau Eigaard at the Technical University of Denmark. Thanks to Peter Tyedmers at Dalhousie University and Katherine Newell at Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen’s Association for sharing their survey on trap fishing.   

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Appendix 1 – Flowchart  

 

Figure 13: Flowchart for the project, visualizing the processes with incoming flows and related impact categories. Parenthesis indicates categories not included in this study and arrows ending outside the box indicate that the whole supply chain is not included.

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Appendix 2 – List of abbreviations  

ASC Aquaculture Stewardship Council

BMSY Biomass necessary to produce Maximal Sustainable Yield

CPUE Catch Per Unit Effort

DFO Fisheries and Oceans Canada

EUMOFA EU Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture products

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

FUI Fuel Use Intensity

ICES International Council for the Exploration of the Sea

ISO International Organization for Standardization

ITQ Individual Transferable Quotas

KNAPK Association of Fishers and Hunters in Greenland

LCA Life Cycle Assessment

LCI Life Cycle Inventory

MSC Marine Stewardship Council

NAFO Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization

NIPAG The Joint NAFO/ICES Pandalus Assesment working Group

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

PEF Product Environmental Footprinting

SFA Shrimp Fishing Area

SSB Spawning Stock Biomass

TAC Total Allowable Catch