World Fisheries Day 2022
3 billion people rely on fisheries for nutrition and their livelihoods around the world. As the most traded food in the world, fish and the environments they live in are essential.
On World Fisheries Day, we take a look at the different research underway at SAFS involving both oceanic and freshwater fisheries, and explore what sustainability means for the ecosystems that support these fisheries.
Active in his field for over 50 years, SAFS Professor Ray Hillborn identifies two important issues when thinking about sustainability in fisheries: sustaining species providing the food, and the extent of environmental impacts.
Since the mid-1990s, the US has been a leader in efforts to sustainably manage oceanic fisheries, with laws to conserve fish stocks to maximize long-term yield such as the Magnuson–Stevens Act of 1976.
Areas for improvement
So, what goes into sustainable fisheries management? Data is key according to Chris Anderson, Fisheries Economist and Professor at SAFS. In the US, data-rich approaches to fisheries management are supported by both the resources to ask detailed questions and management capacity to tailor programs to meet the goals of specific users of these fisheries in response to a dynamic environment.
Fisheries are always changing. Species migrate, seasons shift, climate changes, and so too does the quest for sustainability to address these transitions.
As with any food production, fisheries inevitably come with environmental impacts. One is bycatch, where unwanted fish and other marine creatures are caught by commercial fishing nets. Reducing bycatch is a big issue being tackled in fisheries according to Hillborn. High-tech solutions that are being developed include mounting cameras in nets and using artificial intelligence to identify and sort the target catch and releasing others.
With the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), which just celebrated its 50th year and other legislation such as the Endangered Species Act, tackling bycatch has always been at the forefront of ocean conservation work.
Frontier work in this area, Hillborn explains, is taking technologies that we know work, such as innovative streamer lines used in long-line fisheries to avoid seabird bycatch and implementing these in other longline fisheries.
Looking further afield, and not just at fish
An interesting theme in conversations about fisheries and sustainability is the concept that a fishery is bigger than a fish stock. Anderson says that sustainability has to include the people and communities who catch, process and depend on the fish. Data on people who depend on fishing is almost always scarce, both in the US and in low and middle income countries where fisheries are essential for food security and livelihoods.
Gordon Holtgrieve, Associate Professor at SAFS, spends a lot of time researching freshwater fisheries in the Lower Mekong Basin, where more than a million people fish daily. In these incredibly species rich areas, the sheer scale of fishing combined with a comparative lack of scientific data found in oceanic fisheries, presents challenges when defining and implementing sustainability.
Fish are fundamental to the Cambodian way of life, from culture to nutrition. Different ways to manage fisheries in Cambodia have been implemented over the years, such as those based on a smaller number of private concessions in a lot system, versus community fisheries where access is more equitably distributed.
Holtgrieve notes there is a need for robust, systemic scientific data on how many fish are present in these freshwater ecosystems, not only to ensure fisheries are sustainable but also that their use is equitable amongst local populations who rely on the fisheries for subsistence and income.
This is a basis of a Cambodian research project Holtgrieve has been involved in, to use acoustics to count the fish present so as to build a baseline count which can then facilitate future comparative data.
Celebrating World Fisheries Day
World Fisheries Day celebrates the essential role of fisheries for communities around the world, the importance of healthy ocean ecosystems and the need to ensure sustainable stocks of fisheries.
Research is a key pathway in ensuring the sustainability of fisheries around the world, both in ocean and freshwater ecosystems.
From collecting robust data to ensure sustainable yields of seafood and supporting the communities that rely on the world’s fisheries, to exploring and mitigating the impacts of climate change, the breadth of research underway at SAFS is leading the way in supporting healthy aquatic ecosystems.