The Future of Sustainable Fishing: More Oversight and Lower Yields

Overfishing, pollution, and climate change continue to undermine the sustainability of global fisheries. To prevent the collapse of wild fishing stocks and preserve ecological sustainability, states will need to expand oversight, increase compliance with international agreements, and recognize a lower carrying capacity within their fisheries.

—

The proportion of wild fishery stocks exploited at biologically unsustainable levels has been increasing for the past four decades. As measured by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) across their 17 Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs), 35.4% of managed fisheries were considered to be unsustainably exploited in 2019. Only 64.6% are fished at what is commonly referred to as the maximum sustainable yield (MSY), down from 90% in 1974. The World Bank estimate of 90% of global fisheries being fully exploited or overfished is just as dire, explaining the overall decline in fish catches.

The abundance of fish populations declines as exploitation rates increase. To ensure a long-term yield is optimised and deemed “sustainable,” stocks must be exploited at a lower level that aligns with their fertility and rebuild rate. This is the MSY and requires rigorous data collection and analysis of individual fish stocks within a wild fishery, relying on well-funded and effective state-level oversight.

Individual countries are responsible for managing fisheries within their borders and their exclusive economic zones (EEZs), which can extend 230 miles (200 nautical miles) beyond their territorial sea. State agencies tasked with managing fisheries must control access by deciding who gets to fish and with what methods, calculate MSY to regulate harvest levels and enforce compliance, as well as rebuild stocks through habitat protection and artificial propagation when necessary. 

These state-run fisheries will often partner with one of the 17 RFMOs established in 2001 by the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA) to improve cooperation across national boundaries for monitoring and protecting fish populations and their habitats.  

Managed Fisheries Need Resourcing and Reliable Data

Despite the existence of RFMOs and inherent incentives for individual countries to effectively regulate fishing within their borders, serious gaps in fisheries management persist. 

Developing countries often do not have the resources to fund effective oversight, leaving their waters vulnerable to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by industrialised fishing fleets that trawl their EEZs. These fleets are known for unsafe working practices, slave labour, human trafficking, and criminal abuse. Unfortunately, it can even be other states that see opportunity in fisheries without oversight. An example is China, which is regularly unresponsive to international fishing laws and home to some of the worst offenders of IUU.  It is estimated that one in five fish are caught illegally, with IUU accounting for 30% of all fish sourced from developing countries’ fisheries. 

The FAO offers the most comprehensive view of global fish stocks, catches, and fishing trends available, though it often relies on self-reporting of states, meaning it receives inconsistent and often unreliable data from many countries without the infrastructure to track and report fishing activities, nor the political interest to provide it. The data they get often focuses on a handful of commercially viable stocks or uses different measurement standards making it difficult to compare across countries. Outside EEZs in areas beyond national jurisdictions – also known as international waters – trustworthy data becomes more difficult to attain. 

You might also like: 19 Overfishing Facts That Will Blow Your Mind

Determining the health of a wild fishery along with its complex and integrated ecosystem matters. Even with carefully calculated MSYs, there are consequences, as any level of exploitation has the potential to transform an environment. 

Overfishing of one species can remove a predator or food source for another, which has subsequent impacts throughout the food web. In the case of fishing fleets’ excessive pursuit of bottom-dwelling ground fish with weighted trawl nets that drag across the ocean floor, overfished vertebrates are being replaced by invertebrate species, such as shrimp, crabs, and lobsters. Coastal fisheries such as kelp forests have been transformed into urchin barrens, and coral reefs replaced by algae. 

Without accurate and timely data, states are challenged to maintain effective oversight. The wrong MSY or incorrectly calculated stock productivity – which refers to the number of fish born and reach adulthood – can lead to the overfishing of key species, increasing the potential for a trophic cascade – or tipping point – rippling through a region’s food web and causing the collapse of an entire stock. 

Once the most abundant stock of species in the world, the Atlantic cod fishery off the Canadian coast of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia collapsed in the 1990s, having lost 97% of its numbers since the late 1950s. The same occurred to the California Sardine in the 1950s, the North Sea herring in the 1960s, and the Peruvian anchovy in the 1970s.

Challenged By Climate Change

Managed fisheries often assume stable parameters when determining an area’s productivity, basing these assumptions on historical evidence that has shown single species stock rebuild when fishing pressures are reduced (e.g., overfishing, pollutants) and the environmental conditions are held constant. 

However, climate change is introducing new variables and uncertainties, such as warming sea temperatures, increasing acidification of oceans, and hypoxic conditions that create dead zones when oxygen drops to levels few organisms can survive in. It is disrupting the natural dynamics of marine ecosystems, affecting biological processes, altering food webs, while changing the distribution and productivity of species. 

The historical parameters managed fisheries have relied on to enforce regulation are changing, making it more difficult to ascertain sustainable levels. 

More on the topic: 7 Solutions to Overfishing We Need Right Now

What Can We Do?

Global seafood demand is expected to grow in line with population growth until 2050, further straining fisheries as catch volumes drop and environmental pressures increase. However, the world’s marine ecosystems cannot satisfy both the global demand for seafood and remain sustainable. There will be less to catch and fisheries around the world will need to expand efforts at protecting and restoring habitats, establish realistic and sustainable limits of fishing, and combat IUU. No longer can they manage their stocks species-by-species, but rather as an integrated ecosystem where every level of the food web needs protection.

Supporting countries with underfunded agencies and lack of infrastructure to better manage their EEZs should be a priority of the FAO and non-governmental organisations focusing on sustainability, with a goal to reduce the areas where illegal fishing can occur with impunity.

Access must also be restricted further, reducing the overcapitalization of fishing fleets while ensuring compliance by allowing those who are permitted to fish to make a profit. For example, systems that leverage Individual Transfer Quotas (ITQ) or Individual Vessel Quota (IVQ) grant fishers “exclusive and transferrable rights” to catch a set percentage or amount of a MSY of a certain fish stock. This approach is widely used in the US, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Iceland, and Namibia. 

But in controlling access, the cultural and socioeconomic dynamics inherent to fishing communities – with an estimated 60 million people employed in fishing and fish farming – need to be recognized. Quotas can lead to job losses, threatening livelihoods that are deeply rooted in a maritime identity passed down for generations. Social protections have become an essential part of fisheries management to head off local IUU, providing income security, retraining, unemployment insurance, and educational resources. 

UN member states also need greater accountability for heading off illegal fishing. 

The Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) is the only legally binding international agreement for deterring and eliminating IUU-caught fish from entering ports and national markets, with adherence far below where it needs to be. Non-governmental organisations such as the Pew Trusts are devising ways to help signatories of the PSMA identify which ports are most likely to receive illegal catch to better target compliance measures. Others are helping track illegal fishing fleets and advocating for UN member states to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty. Adopted by the UN in 2023, the treaty goes beyond PSMA to combat IUU and overfishing by protecting 30% of oceans by 2030 and requires 60 countries to sign on to make it legally binding. To date, only 6 nations have written the Global Ocean Treaty into their respective laws.

Aquaculture, which is expanding in the face of growing demand for seafood, is becoming increasingly unsustainable and environmentally destructive. Focusing on commercially viable carnivorous fish stocks, they use wild caught bycatch for food, fail to support biodiversity, and are a source of chemical pollutants that spread to surrounding environments. Aquaculture is best suited for herbivorous species that do not require a diet of processed seafood. Indeed, 33% of all wild catches go to feed farmed animals. Bivalves, such as oysters, mussels, and clams, have been recognized as the most environmentally sound to farm, requiring no feed, shellfish beds filter algae and pollutants out of the water while reducing erosion by stabilising shorelines.

As for the public, it is important to recognize the limits of our oceans and the decreasing availability of wild catch, supporting sustainable fisheries by being a conscientious consumer. When choosing to eat seafood, learn where it comes from; locally sourced catches reduce the carbon footprint of transportation and provide employment to your community. If farmed, learn if the operations are properly managed. Research common brands and eco-labels, such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Blue Ocean Institute, or Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), but be aware they come with their own caveats and limitations in dealing with bycatch and sustainable fishing practices, while creating conflicts of interest by requiring fisheries to pay for certification. It is important to scrutinise certification criteria and, if possible, determine whether sourced from a well-managed wild fishery.

You might also like: 5 Sustainable Plant-Based Seafood Companies Leading the Way

As environmental pressures increase and ecosystems change, fishing communities and consumers will face the reality that there will be less wild seafood to catch. In accepting the need to further restrict access, increase oversight, and collaborate across jurisdictions, it is possible global fisheries can reach sustainability while supporting resilient, biodiverse marine ecosystems for future generations.