What catch data can tell us about the status of global fisheries.

Froese, Rainer , Zeller, Dirk, Kleisner, Kristin and Pauly, Daniel (2012) What catch data can tell us about the status of global fisheries. Open Access Marine Biology, 159 (6). pp. 1283-1292. DOI 10.1007/s00227-012-1909-6.

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Abstract

The only available data set on the catches of global fisheries are the official landings reported annually by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Attempts to detect and interpret trends in these data have been criticized as being both technically and conceptually flawed. Here, we explore and refute these claims. We show explicitly that trends in catch data are not an artifact of the applied method and are consistent with trends in biomass data of fully assessed stocks. We also show that, while comprehensive stock assessments are the preferred method for evaluating single stocks, they are a biased subsample of the stocks in a given area, strongly underestimating the percentage of collapsed stocks. We concur with a recent assessment-based analysis by FAO that the increasing trends in the percentage of overexploited, depleted, and recovering stocks and the decreasing trends in underexploited and moderately exploited stocks give cause for concern. We show that these trends are much more pronounced if all available data are considered.

Document Type: Article
Keywords: Ichthyology; fishery
Research affiliation: OceanRep > The Future Ocean - Cluster of Excellence > FO-R03
OceanRep > The Future Ocean - Cluster of Excellence > FO-R02
OceanRep > GEOMAR > FB3 Marine Ecology > FB3-EV Marine Evolutionary Ecology
OceanRep > The Future Ocean - Cluster of Excellence
Refereed: Yes
Open Access Journal?: No
Publisher: Springer
Projects: Future Ocean
Date Deposited: 11 May 2012 11:48
Last Modified: 22 Jan 2019 14:44
URI: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/14278

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