“Destructive fishing” – a ubiquitously used but vague term? Usage and impacts across academic research, media, and policy

Abstract

Tackling the global problem of 'destructive fishing' is central to the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 'Life Below Water', yet the term remains vague, making it difficult to track and quantify progress. Here we evaluate the frequency and range of uses of the term 'destructive fishing' across the peer reviewed literature and media. Our research elucidated the clear lack of a consensus definition for 'destructive fishing', with only 6 academic articles to date providing a definition, and none of these matching. There is also a mismatch between regions where academia and policy identify fishing practices as 'destructive' and the regions in which the media reports it. There are however clear trends in the types of fishing activity referred to as destructive in the academic literature, media and policy, and the term is used to refer to practices beyond those previously exemplified as 'destructive' in an international policy context. We conclude that further exploration around the definition and scope of this term is warranted. By assembling a culturally and sectorally balanced pool of expert views, future research plans to use an iterative, anonymised approach to constructively address the conceptual vagueness and contention around this term.