Improved management is the main driver behind recovery of Northeast Atlantic fish stocks

Abstract

Decades of intense fishing have not only caused widespread declines in marine fish populations but in recent years have also spurred progress in the development of resource policies, coinciding with reports of positive trends for selected fish stocks in several ecosystems. Anthropogenic pressures and environmental changes affect fish populations, but it is unclear whether improved fisheries management or natural conditions are responsible for the observed recoveries. We show that, for a large set of Northeast Atlantic fish stocks, long‐term declines in biomass from 1960 to 2000 were due largely to fishing, suggesting that external drivers caused stock fluctuations at a time when catch regulations were weak or largely absent. After the year 2007, a general pattern of increasing biomass and decreasing catches was observed across most taxa and geographic regions. Implementation of adequate policies to reduce fishing mortality is crucial for overexploited stocks to recover, underlining the positive impacts of science‐based management. Because attempts to rebuild Northeast Atlantic fisheries have been only partially successful, and management targets were not fully achieved, policy‐making efforts must continue.

Evaluating Stock Status of 16 Commercial Fish Species in the Coastal and Offshore Waters of Taiwan Using the CMSY and BSM Methods

“…Effective fisheries management is the main driver for recovery of fish stocks (Zimmermann and Werner, 2019;Hilborn et al, 2020). Therefore, we believe that the overall size of Taiwan's fishing fleet, generated by continuous growth in the last four decades, is the major reason why the technical measures listed above are not bearing fruit as expected.…”

Global status of groundfish stocks

“…In contrast, in the Northeast Atlantic, as others have shown, most stocks are rebuilding (Cardinale et al., 2013; Fernandes & Cook, 2013; Froese et al., 2018; Zimmermann & Werner, 2019) and European stocks have generally responded more quickly to changes in fishing pressure. The Northeast Atlantic stock mean trend has been increasing since 2000 despite the fact that fishing pressure appears to have been greater than U MSY (Figures 6 and 8).…”

“…There have been a number of papers on the status and trends in European Atlantic fisheries (Cardinale et al., 2013; Cook et al., 1997; Fernandes & Cook, 2013; Froese et al., 2018; Zimmermann & Werner, 2019) and Mediterranean fisheries (Fernandes et al., 2017; Vasilakopoulos et al., 2014). Two papers have examined the status of global tuna fisheries (Juan‐Jorda et al., 2011; Maite et al., 2016), and a third paper (Pons et al., 2017) explored the relationship between various management measures and stock abundance.…”

Greed is Good: From Super-Harvest to Recovery in a Stochastic Predator-Prey System

“…It has been shown that implementation of adequate policies to reduce fishing mortality is crucial for overexploited stocks to recover, underlining the positive impacts of science-based management (Zimmermann & Werner, 2019). The idea of acting greedily at harvesting the predator in order to spare the prey guides our heuristics that seek to rebuild the prey stock.…”