Global fishery prospects under contrasting management regimes

Abstract

Data from 4,713 fisheries worldwide, representing 78% of global reported fish catch, are analyzed to estimate the status, trends, and benefits of alternative approaches to recovering depleted fisheries. For each fishery, we estimate current biological status and forecast the impacts of contrasting management regimes on catch, profit, and biomass of fish in the sea. We estimate unique recovery targets and trajectories for each fishery, calculate the year-by-year effects of alternative recovery approaches, and model how alternative institutional reforms affect recovery outcomes. Current status is highly heterogeneous-the median fishery is in poor health (overfished, with further overfishing occurring), although 32% of fisheries are in good biological, although not necessarily economic, condition. Our business-as-usual scenario projects further divergence and continued collapse for many of the world's fisheries. Applying sound management reforms to global fisheries in our dataset could generate annual increases exceeding 16 million metric tons (MMT) in catch, $53 billion in profit, and 619 MMT in biomass relative to business as usual. We also find that, with appropriate reforms, recovery can happen quickly, with the median fishery taking under 10 y to reach recovery targets. Our results show that commonsense reforms to fishery management would dramatically improve overall fish abundance while increasing food security and profits.

Keywords: bioeconomic model; fishery recovery; fishery reform; rights-based fishery management.

Fig. 1.

Current fishery status (“Kobe”) plots for four illustrative regions. Each dot represents a fishery. The red dots represent data from RAM database, and the black dots represent our estimates for unassessed fisheries. Dot size scales to fishery catch. Shading is from a kernel density plot. The green triangle is the median and the green square is catch-weighted mean, for the given region. Panels represent data from all global fisheries in our database (A), Northeast Pacific (B), Northeast Atlantic (C), and Western Central Pacific (D) regions.

Fig. 2.

Absolute changes in projected 2050 biomass, profit, and catch (color) for the 10 countries [China, Indonesia, India, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan (A); see B for exploded view of nine countries] with the greatest increase in profit under economically optimal harvest strategy (RBFM) compared with BAU for stocks of conservation concern for fisheries in our dataset. Size of circle indicates the $MSY$ (in million metric tons) for stocks of conservation concern in the country. Country names in red indicate countries for which >50% increase in profit comes from fisheries in the FAO category “NEI.”

Fig. 3.

Aggregate global effects on projected 2050 profit and biomass of alternative policies applied to fisheries in our dataset. Size and printed number indicate catch in baseline year (“Today” bubble) or in 2050 (all other bubbles).

Fig. 4.

Timing of projected recovery under alternative policies for recovering fisheries of conservation concern in our dataset. Size and color indicate global catch and profit by year, respectively.