Reprinted from The Economist

Virtue rewarded

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Conserving the Falklands' resources is the key to their continuing prosperity

The earliest visitors to the Falkland Islands were intent on depredation. In the 18th and 19th centuries whales, seals, sea lions, penguins and albatrosses were exploited to the brink of extinction in the hunt for their oil, skins and eggs. When Britain occupied the islands in 1833, the herding of sheep replaced the exploitation of wild animals as the islands' economic mainstay, but that did not help the local ecosystem much. The sheep almost wiped out the tussock grass that provided nesting sites for marine birds. The settlers also exterminated the Falklands' only native land mammal, the warrah (a species of fox).

Now things could hardly be more different. The islanders have realised that ecology pays dividends. Sheep may still safely graze on the Falklands, but wildlife is positively welcome to share that grazing. And the latest round of hunting—for invertebrate, rather than vertebrate prey—is informed by ecological studies that have increased yields but still maintained populations at sustainable levels.

Squid pro quo

The Falklands' ovine monoculture went into decline in the 1960s, but until the Argentine invasion in 1982, nobody in the outside world took much notice. After Argentine troops were ejected, though, British government scientists started looking more seriously at what was in the waters surrounding the islands.

What they found were huge quantities of squid—particularly two commercially important species called Illex and Loligo. Illex is a popular delicacy in East Asia. Loligo graces Spanish restaurants as calamares. Some of the money obtained by selling licences to catch these squid has found its way back to researchers who are studying the squids' life cycles, so as to exploit them efficiently without exterminating them.

Sasha Arkhipkin, the islands' chief fisheries scientist, studies Loligo. His work has revealed that this squid's South Atlantic population is divided in two: a winter-spawning group that reproduces from May to July; and a summer-spawning one, which breeds in October and November. The offspring of the summer spawners seem more vulnerable to predators, because their hatching and early growth coincides with the penguin breeding season, when those birds are hunting most.

In 2000 the fisheries scientists addressed this problem. Having identified the main Loligo nursery grounds, they recommended postponing the opening of the fishing season in these areas for a few months after summer spawning. The infant squid that escaped the penguins were thus given more time to grow, and when fishing started the fishermen were able to land a bumper catch that more than made up for the wait.

In the case of Illex, the islanders' chief competitors are not penguins but other people. While Loligo stays in Falklands' waters all year, Illex migrates. Its South Atlantic population swims down South America's coast from southern Brazil, circles the Falklands in February, and then returns north in April. Understanding the details of this migration allowed the Falklands' and Argentine governments to come to an agreement to close their Illex fishing season early in 2001, to give the stock a chance to recover from overfishing. The two governments have also set up a scientific commission to advise them on the desirability of further closures in the future. Michael Harte, the Falklands' government's economic adviser, hopes that the Illex agreement will become a model for deals on other species that face overfishing because their migrations straddle different human jurisdictions.

P-pick up a penguin

As well as financing studies of the fisheries themselves, the money from fishing licences has allowed the islands' government to support research by Falklands Conservation, an organisation that studies both offshore and onshore species, and manages some wildlife sites on the islands. Besides being environmentally friendly, this work makes economic sense. The rising popularity of eco-tourism means that the number of visitors staying on the Falklands has grown to some 3,000 a year—about the same as the archipelago's population.

On top of that, around 40,000 tourists a year sail through Stanley harbour on their way to Antarctica and sub-antarctic islands such as South Georgia. Many of them call in on the Falklands' spectacular penguin, albatross and seal colonies while their ships are in dock. The farmers who own Volunteer Point, one of the best places to see king penguins frolicking on the beach, now earn more from charging admission to tourists than from selling wool from their sheep.

All this has been good for the penguins. After a shaky start, when over-enthusiastic visitors almost wrecked a site called Gypsy Cove by trampling over the birds' breeding grounds (which are known as rookeries), penguin numbers are increasing. Since Falklands Conservation cordoned off the cove's main rookeries in 1999, the number of breeding pairs there has more than doubled to 354. Other areas have done well, too. The king penguin, which had been wiped out in the Falklands by 1870, has returned with a vengeance. A survey in 1980 found 150 breeding pairs. Now, there are about 500. The islands also have huge colonies of the smaller gentoo and rockhopper penguins: studies show that these populations are currently stable and that the fishing boats do not pose serious competition for their food supply.

Not all the ornithological news is rosy, however. While penguins may co-exist with fishermen, albatrosses do not. Nic Huin, a researcher at Falklands Conservation, has discovered a steep fall in the population of the black-browed albatross, for which the islands are the world's main nesting area. Similar declines have been noted in other albatross species. The cause seems to be “long-line” fishing, which involves unreeling a fishing line with a series of hooks carrying bait. Albatrosses and other marine birds swoop on the bait, get caught on the hooks, and are dragged under water.

This can be avoided by attaching streamers to the fishing lines to scare the birds away; by unreeling the lines at night; by attaching weights to the lines so they sink faster; or by using a device that attaches the bait after the hook goes under water. The Falklands' government has now imposed such measures on boats fishing in its own waters. But albatrosses are still being killed elsewhere in the South Atlantic.

Even here, though, economic self-interest may help conservation. As John Croxall of the British Antarctic Survey observes, “every bird on a hook means no fish on that hook”. Catching birds wastes time and money for fishermen. But fishermen are cussed creatures, who tend to resist changing their ways. Whether the expected declaration, later this year, that the black-browed albatross is officially a threatened species will make any difference remains to be seen.