Reconciling sustainability, economic efficiency and equity in marine fisheries: Has there been progress in the last 20 years?

Abstract

This paper reviews the progress made over the last 20 years in achieving sustainable, economically efficient and socially just marine fisheries, referred to here as reconciled fisheries. It examines the substantial changes that have occurred in policies, practices and the challenges to fisheries. These include greater awareness of the impacts of climate change, implementation of ecosystem approaches, recognition of the needs and role of small‐scale fisheries, greater demands for fish and seafood and greater pressure from other sectors. Progress has been made in some countries and fisheries in improving sustainability and economic efficiency but much less in many others. Globally, substantial problems remain in the status of stocks, threats to biodiversity, incidence of undesirable ecological impacts, economic inefficiencies, and poverty, food insecurity and marginalization of fishers and other dependents on fisheries, particularly small‐scale fishers. Effectiveness of management and governance is linked to the development status of countries, so the challenges are most marked in developing countries but developed countries are also failing, particularly in achievement of socially equitable fisheries, while also transferring some of their problems to developing countries. The paper argues that reconciled fisheries will only be attainable in conjunction with meeting human development needs as a whole, which are reflected in the 17 United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs). This requires that the global commitment to address the SDGs as being “integrated and indivisible” and in “a spirit of global solidarity” needs to be taken much more seriously than it currently appears to be.

Global insights on managing fishery systems for the three pillars of sustainability

“…National governance conditions are second only to catch management in explaining variation in environmental outcomes (Figure 2). The conservation effect of catch limits relies critically on a well‐functioning central government that supports the legal basis for addressing overfishing, upholds rule of law and respects local control of access (Cochrane, 2021; Ostrom, 2009; Pomeroy et al, 2011; Sissenwine et al, 2014). For economic outcomes, national governance conditions are second only to infrastructure in importance, while harvest rights take third place.…”

The Contribution of Thai Fisheries to Sustainable Seafood Consumption: National Trends and Future Projections

“…It is also important to acknowledge that scenarios S3 and S4, which consider the potential expansion of Thai aquaculture production, have excluded an increase in domestic fish meal import, which is however likely to be necessary. ’Fishing the feed’ is a growing issue in the sector, as aquaculture often requires a huge amount of wild fish, particularly trash fish, to feed farmed fish and shellfish [ 77 , 78 ]. As such, the sustainability of Thai fisheries might pose a great burden of foreign fish stocks.…”

Equity – the Bottleneck and the Opportunity

“…There is ample recognition across societies and nations that extreme inequity is unjust, and governance processes from local to global have adopted Principles and processes intended to address inequity (Agyeman et al, 2016;Burgass et al, 2020). Correspondingly progress in fighting poverty and marginalization is being made (Cochrane, 2020). Nevertheless progress is slow and unequal at all scales, with even negotiated modest sustainable development goals rarely achieved and progress usually far short of more aspirational goals (Racioppi et al, 2020;Huan et al, 2021).…”

“…• Substantial progress on each factor is possible when a proper diagnosis of the particular drivers underlying trends toward unsustainability is followed by implementation of appropriate measure(s) for the features of Nature being used or impacted, the manner of use, and the socio-economic context in which the use is occurring (Wright et al, 2020). • Regardless of how much progress is made, unsustainability seems always "just around the corner" when either the factors previously responsible for unsustainable use reemerge in ways that may diminish or negate the measures used to tame the factor or in places where the tools are not readily applied, or new circumstances are encountered to which the existing management regime is not robust (Cochrane, 2020).…”