Global Fisheries Status & Crisis PDF

Status of Global Fisheries Dirk Zeller Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean School of Biological Sciences University of Western Australia www.sea...

Status of Global Fisheries Dirk Zeller Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean School of Biological Sciences University of Western Australia www.seaaroundus-io.org [email protected]  Status of World Fisheries International statutory body Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO) “Specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security” Global mandate on fisheries HQ Rome & regional offices; www.fao.org COFI (Committee on Fisheries & Aquaculture) The global parliament of fisheries, meets every two years Country reps (diplomatic corps) Drives/influences international policies on fisheries The document supporting and informing COFI: SOFIA SOFIA report (State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture) Bi-annual FAO (2022) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. Towards Blue Transformation. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome. 266 p. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc0461en [FAO (2024) just released: The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2024. Blue Transformation in Action. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome. xxvii & 232 p. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd0683en] Essentially SOFIA does three things: 1) Presents global data on fisheries (catches and aquaculture production)++ 2) Presents a global assessment of the status of fisheries resources… but… 3) ….& specialised topics Status of World Fisheries What do you see? FAO (2022) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. FAO, Rome. 266 p. Status of World Fisheries What do you see? FAO (2022) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. FAO, Rome. 266 p. Status of World Fisheries FAO (2022) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. FAO, Rome. 266 p.  Status of World Fisheries (2020) Trends in global inland (freshwater) catches “However, this continuously rising trend in inland fisheries production may be misleading, as the increase in catches can partially be attributed to improved reporting and assessment at the country level rather than entirely due to increased production. Many of the data collection systems for inland waters are unreliable, or in some cases non-existent, while improvements in reporting may also mask trends in individual countries.” Basically: Inconsistent time series Data missing for earlier years… Important point…. Will come back to this ….. “presentist bias” 5/29 FAO (2020) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. FAO, Rome. xiii + 206 p.  Status of World Fisheries Trends in aquaculture production 37% 63% FAO (2020) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. FAO, Rome. xiii + 206 p.  Status of World Fisheries Trends in aquaculture production FAO (2020) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. FAO, Rome. xiii + 206 p.  Status of World Fisheries Important to know about FAO’s mandate and position: Mandate: UN General Assembly dependent…. and country sponsor dependent Not politically or scientifically independent… driven by politics Does not collect data Reports on data provided to FAO by countries Non-reporting issues Quality of data Time series comprehensiveness back to 1950… think USA versus Congo Only accepts and uses data on landed catches… so-called ‘production’ FAO (2020) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. FAO, Rome. xiii + 206 p. Status of World Fisheries Status of fisheries resources 34% 66% What do you see? FAO (2020) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. FAO, Rome. xiii + 206 p.  Status of World Fisheries Status of fisheries resources (FAO SOFIA 2016) 31% 69% 10/29 FAO (2016) The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. FAO, Rome. 200 p.  Status of World Fisheries In late 2000s, as part of a debate with FAO on overfishing & data use, we re- developed & improved this basic method for global use Several aspects of FAO ‘status’ approach are fundamentally problematic FAO’s decisions and selections of ‘assessed’ stocks Methods and approaches not fully transparent & not peer-reviewed Time series bias by ignoring pre-1974 period We proposed an improved method that we feel avoided these issues, and we applied it globally Catch data derived stock-status plot method Uses full time series of catches Kleisner, Zeller, Froese and Pauly D (2013) Fish and Fisheries 14(3): 293-311. Froese, Zeller, Kleisner and Pauly (2012) Marine Biology 159(6): 1283-1292 Status of World Fisheries Peak catch Rebuilding Kleisner, Zeller, Froese and Pauly D (2013) Fish and Fisheries 14(3): 293-311. Froese, Zeller, Kleisner and Pauly (2012) Marine Biology 159(6): 1283-1292  Status of World Fisheries Froese et al. (2012) using catch-based Stock-Status Plots (SSP) as part of a debate with FAO: ~58% of stocks are overfished (at biologically unsustainable levels) ~33% fully exploited (within biologically sustainable levels) ~9% developing/rebuilding (within biologically sustainable levels) Overfished Froese, Zeller, Kleisner and Pauly (2012) Marine Biology 159(6): 1283-1292 Status of World Fisheries FAO-SOFIA vs. SSP Why the differences? A. FAO used 445 ‘assessed’ stocks accounting for 80% of global FAO catch data B. SSP used 100% of global FAO catch data Tells you something about ‘assessed’ stocks: Tend to be dominated by ‘good’ or ‘successful’ fisheries… often ‘managed’ fisheries Thus, FAO’s decision criteria contain an inadvertent data selection bias Froese, Zeller, Kleisner and Pauly (2012) Marine Biology 159(6): 1283-1292  Status of World Fisheries “Such plots […] should not be read vertically as is unfortunately done regularly, i.e., to infer the percentage of stocks that are in various categories (fully exploited, etc.). This is because the fraction of these categories in the overall number of stocks depends very strongly on the […] arbitrary definition of fully exploited, etc., which moreover, varies over time. Rather, with Stock-Status Plots, the key information about the status of marine resources is conveyed by the trend of the lines that separate the categories from each other. In the case of SOFIA […], the line separating unexploited from fully exploited stocks clearly trends downward and so does the line separating fully exploited from overexploited stocks. Quite simply, this means that FAO's analysis based on data reported to FAO predicts that in the future more stocks are likely to be overexploited and that underexploited stocks will likely vanish in about 2 decades, assuming nothing changes in the general trend over time.” 15/29 Pauly and Zeller (2017) Marine Policy 77: 176-181 Status of World Fisheries Pauly and Zeller (2017) Marine Policy 77: 176-181  Status of World Fisheries My main points: Actual percentages do not really matter as much as the trend over time Data comprehensiveness matters Be aware of, acknowledge and account for bias in your data selection FAO chose to only use data that fit their criteria of ‘assessed stock’, rather than using methods that allow ALL data to be used… Funny, FAO fought us long and hard on our catch-based method… Yet FAO originally invented the method we improved into Stock-Status- Plots… Grainger and Garcia (1996) FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 359, Rome. 51 p. Froese, Zeller, Kleisner and Pauly (2012) Marine Biology 159(6): 1283-1292 Pauly and Zeller (2017) Marine Policy 77: 176-181  Debate on Status of World Fisheries Large number of papers in Nature and Science on a “Global Fisheries Crisis” over the last 20+ years Debate on Status of World Fisheries Myers and Worm (2003) Nature 423: 280-283 Worm et al. (2006) Science 314(5800): 787-790.  Debate on Status of World Fisheries Myers and Worm (2003) Industrial fisheries have reduced community biomass of large predatory fishes by 80% within 15 year after 1960 20/29 Myers and Worm (2003) Nature 423: 280-283  Debate on Status of World Fisheries Much of the debate is over the degree of the crisis and the appropriate solutions: “Standard fisheries methods” (i.e., restrictive management with enforced catch, gear and effort controls) versus “Novel” approaches” (e.g., no-take areas) needed in addition “The evidence is strong that we can and are rebuilding stocks in many places” and “fisheries management works” (Hilborn) “Creating, or re-creating, un-fished areas within which fish populations can regenerate is the only opportunity we have to repair the damage done to them” (Pauly) Full disclosure: I am in the Pauly ‘camp’  Debate on Status of World Fisheries Why is there a divergence in perspective on the degree of the crisis and the appropriate solutions? Background and experience matters and influence your world view Ray Hilborn’s professional experience is exclusively with developed countries’ fisheries: USA, Australia, NZ. All with extensive scientific and management capacity. An excellent, highly quantitative stock assessment scientist. Daniel Pauly trained in traditional, developed country fisheries science (Europe), but spent nearly his entire career (especially formative years) in the developing world: Africa & Southeast Asia. All with limited scientific and management capacity. Focused his science practise on developing simple, cheap and easy methods for developing countries.  Debate on Status of World Fisheries Attempt at coming to common ground… mid-late 2000s joint working group between Hilborn and Worm, with participation by 19 others. Outcome: Worm, Hilbron et al. (2009) “Rebuilding Global Fisheries” Science 325(5940): 578-585 “In 5 of 10 well-studied ecosystems, the average exploitation rate has recently declined and is now at or below the rate predicted to achieve maximum sustainable yield for seven systems. Yet 63% of assessed fish stocks worldwide still require rebuilding, and even lower exploitation rates are needed to reverse the collapse of vulnerable species.” Seems reasonable, right?  Debate on Status of World Fisheries Attempt at coming to common ground… mid-late 2000s joint working group between Hilborn and Worm, with participation by 19 others. Outcome: Worm, Hilbron et al. (2009) “Rebuilding Global Fisheries” Science 325(5940): 578-585 “In 5 of 10 well-studied ecosystems, the average exploitation rate has recently declined and is now at or below the rate predicted to achieve maximum sustainable yield for seven systems. Yet 63% of assessed fish stocks worldwide still require rebuilding, and even lower exploitation rates are needed to reverse the collapse of vulnerable species.” Devil is in the detail… !  “Case study” problem - Worm et al. made claim about being “global” based on 66 “case studies” - But: - 59 case studies from developed countries - 7 from developing world 25/29 Worm et al. (2009) Rebuilding global fisheries. Science 325(5940): 578-585  “Case study” bias problem - Worm et al. (2009) Rebuilding global fisheries. Science 325(5940): 578-585 - Made claim about being “global” - But based on: - 59 case studies from developed countries - 7 from developing world Clearly not a global study mea culpa & ethical mistake Pauly and Zeller (2017) Marine Policy 81: 406-410 “Case study” bias problem yet again (even more misleading presentation) Clearly also not a global study Hilborn et al. (2020) PNAS 117(4):2218-2224  Summary Brief overview of status of global fisheries Introduction to debate and problems underlying global fisheries Always think carefully about what your data and analyses represent Data comprehensiveness matters Be aware of, acknowledge and account for bias in your data selection Be aware of your personal world view, as influenced by your background, training and experiences…. Keep an open mind but stick to your guns Homework Read the cited refs and reading list items…. Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean