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Sustainable fishing tourism is an increasingly popular way of diversifying artisanal fishers’ activities. WWF has been actively involved in the promotion and technical support of the Sustainable Fishing Tourism in the Mediterranean.

The current steep decline in ocean health and productivity threatens the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people. It’s a particularly serious prospect for some small coastal communities which rely on small-scale fishing. Dwindling catches and falling revenues put income and food security at risk.   These communities are often in regions which receive a high number of tourists, and some small fishing ports are gradually becoming more like marinas for summer visitors. Some small-scale fishers have seen their work areas shrink to the point where they don’t fish at all during the tourist season.

33% of global fisheries are overexploited and 59% are exploited to the maximum level.

Sustainable Fishing Tourism is one of the solutions that WWF is promoting in many countries to ensure sustainable livelihoods of coastal communities  in today’s overfished oceans.  In 2007, WWF was one of the first promoters of Pescatourism and Ittiotourism, supporting small-scale fishers, MPAs and local tour operators in Italy. Since 2014, WWF has supported fishers and administrations in Algeria and Tunisia to introduce Sustainable Fishing Tourism as a tool to diversify fishing activities in areas identified as future MPAs, with training for professional fishers in safety, communication, and tourism. Thanks to an exchange visit for the central administrations of Algeria with fishery cooperatives in France and Italy, a legislative decree to regulate Fishing Tourism was published in Algeria in July 2016, recognising Fishing Tourism as a diversification of fishing activity.  

Read the full publication here.

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Article Contents

Introduction, differentiating between global and non-global threats to the sustainability of marine environments, tuna fisheries management as a model for regional consensus on conservation of resources and development of the ocean economy, successes in addressing iuu fishing in national waters, the need to address threats at their source, an outline for action, national examples of tailoring actions for clearly identified problems, achieving consensus for regional action, conclusions, conflicts of interest, author contributions, data availability, acknowledgements.

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Solutions to world-wide fisheries problems are mostly local or regional

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Bob Kearney, Ray Hilborn, Solutions to world-wide fisheries problems are mostly local or regional, ICES Journal of Marine Science , Volume 79, Issue 4, May 2022, Pages 997–1004, https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsac033

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The benefits of multinational agreements that address global problems, such as climate change, must not be diminished by uncritical acceptance that the action that is necessary to address all widespread problems, such as overfishing, is common, globally. Evidence-based identification of the nature and cause of threats to marine ecosystems is the essential first step in effective ocean management. Action that targets each threat across as much as possible of the area in which it arises, which may be entirely different from where it manifests, is the second. These concepts are not new, however, The High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLOP) has given them increased impetus by mandating that its signatories, in addressing priority marine issues, which may vary from country to country and collectively be of global importance, must begin with addressing threats in 100% of national waters. The successful management of the world's biggest tuna resources across 50 million km 2 of the Central and Western Pacific is put forward as an example of how an initial commitment to a single shared fisheries resource assessment program can provide the foundation for consensus amongst more than 40 countries on the sharing of the benefits of managed access to widespread oceanic resources.

There is widespread agreement that there are many challenges to the sustainable management of the world's oceans, including fisheries. Some of the problems are so wide-spread that global solutions seem warranted. However, the benefits of global agreement on the need for action, which can be considerable, must not be diminished by the assumption that the appropriate action is the same everywhere. When the logical step of identifying the source of each problem is adhered to, it becomes apparent that solutions are mostly nation or region specific and, as such are best implemented locally. Foreshore developments that damage ecosystems, and point-source pollution, are obvious examples where the appropriate corrective action must be local.

Many similar problems can differ by country and ocean basin and require specific management action suited to each region and circumstance. Overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing are two that vary greatly in form and distribution. Yet both are often inaccurately characterized as being global (Sala et al ., 2021 ). There needs to be a clear distinction between problems that are global in cause and extent, requiring global action (e.g. climate change), and problems, such as overfishing, that can occur in varying forms in all the world's oceans but for which solutions can be best delivered at local, national, or regional scales. Such a distinction is seldom a prerequisite for support for generalized calls for action.

The importance of national initiatives in pursuing outcomes of global significance is highlighted in the action plan of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLOP) (World Resources Institute, 2021 ). This international initiative rises above many grand, even global, conservation proposals by the priority it gives to acknowledging that sustainability must be accepted as the foundation of more than just ecosystem protection; it is also essential for wise ocean-based production and long-term economic prosperity, both of which are vital for the sustainable development of the so-called blue economy.

International initiatives that espouse global solutions to marine problems often are not based on precise identification of the problems faced by individual countries and how efficient solutions to these problems vary between situations. For example, efforts to enclose 30% of all countries’ waters in MPAs to counter impacts of overfishing (Lubchenco and Grorud-Colvert, 2015 ) are not based on first identifying the priority threats in each country's waters or whether area management is the most effective approach to address overfishing or other threats in all areas. Recent fisheries statistics confirm that many countries are improving the outcomes from fisheries management by increased commitment to traditional fisheries management techniques (Hilborn et al ., 2020 ). Modern resource assessment science has confirmed that most fisheries management problems are best addressed at the country or region level. The high degree of connectivity and complexity of marine environments, together with the mobility of many marine organisms and water-born threats, renders area management problematic, even for relatively small areas. The 30% target is at odds with the final sentence of the HLOP Action Agenda; the overarching vision is underpinned by the commitment by member countries to “sustainably managing 100% of national waters.” This confirms adherence to two fundamental and critical principles: individual governments must take responsibility for the management of at least the priority threats to all of their waters and management must address the well-being of the whole of national marine jurisdictions, not just some part(s) of them.

There are multiple problems that threaten the protection, production and prosperity of the world's oceans. Many of them “are intense and growing” (World Resources Institute, 2021 ). Some of them are global, others are regional, while many are specific to single countries or even parts of countries. Collectively, the pressures are increasing. But not all individual threats are growing everywhere. For some, solutions are at hand and are being implemented in numerous countries, individually and even collectively. Importantly, the effectiveness of addressing each of the priority threats is greatly enhanced when management commitments are tailored to cover the whole of the area of the origin of each specific threat.

Priority global problems for the ocean are dominated by the effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations. Recent significant changes in these concentrations are disproportionately the result of human population growth, average per capita consumption and associated activities in predominantly terrestrial locations. Their harmful manifestations in oceans are primarily ocean warming, acidification, and rising sea level. As the impacts of global climate change are inexorably linked across terrestrial and marine environments by the continuous mixing of a single global atmosphere even management of 100% of all national waters will not adequately protect against these threats or effectively manage their existing impacts. Global solutions are appropriate and necessary for those problems that are truly global. Global debate of other wide-spread problems can be beneficial but should not be used as an excuse to postpone national action to deliver solutions specific to clearly described problems.

The connectivity of the world's oceans may be less than that of the atmosphere, but it is enough to challenge the management of some threats in small parts of these oceans in isolation. Connectivity is more than adequate to influence global weather and to drive ocean currents in and between oceans. These can ensure broad distribution of multiple oceanic stressors, such as soluble pollutants and invasive organisms, and concentration of others, such as particulate plastics. International cooperation to manage such threats may be essential. The connectivity of oceans also has benefits, such as the facilitation of the globalization of the benefits that effective actions in even parts of oceans can deliver, for example by promoting the growth of selected algae as a means of ameliorating negative impacts of some terrestrial activities such as the production of excessive greenhouse gasses.

The stressors to oceans arising from activities on land are becoming increasingly apparent and problematic. Amongst the most obvious are climate change, inadequately planned coastal “development” and pollution in many forms, including plastics and a wide range of chemical, biological and even physical derivatives, such as nanoparticles. Many pollutants now have almost global oceanic distribution, but their source, prevalence and impact are not uniform. Thus, there is no single marine management action in or on oceans that would provide a global solution to all, or even most, problems.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef, as a World Heritage Area, provides a high-profile example of the need to differentiate between solutions to global problems and those for more localized ones. In the last decade it has been acknowledged that climate change and its associated impacts represent the greatest threat to the Reef. The only solution to this threat is global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But the Reef also faces threats that may have equivalents in many other parts of the world but must be addressed locally or nationally. These include damaging coastal development, terrestrial runoff that is being altered by human activities such as mining and agriculture, introduced species and pathogens and inadequately managed fishing. Local actions will not solve global causes of problems faced by the Reef, and global actions will be at best inefficient, and likely distract from, the priority to address specific local threats to the Reef.

International commitments to do more for marine conservation and management, including for fisheries, are necessary and have proven useful (Maguire et al ., 2006 ). Unfortunately, the benefits of such agreement are often diminished by at least some of the participants considering the creation of an agreement as an end in itself. Reaching elusive consensus on the need to take action can provide a sufficient sense of achievement among participants to enable the necessary action to be at least postponed. The creation of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in 1975 by agreement between the federal Government of Australia and the State of Queensland, was heralded as a great success, but it was to be more than three decades before the major threats to the Reef were correctly identified and management of each seriously attempted (Hassan and Alam, 2019 ).

The strength of the association between a commitment by individual governments to state-of-the-art scientific stock assessments and healthy and well managed fish stocks is compelling. It is of global importance. Recent evaluations of the status of the world's fisheries based on all stocks for which there are credible assessments are inconsistent with the claim that overfishing is a global problem. It is certainly not globally uniform (Costello et al ., 2012 ; Hilborn et al ., 2020 ). Fish stocks in countries and regions where they are systematically assessed and where fisheries are intensively managed are on average increasing. They are also commonly at, or above, management targets. These stocks support approximately 50% of the global fish catch. In contrast, what evidence there is on fish stocks in the waters of countries with inadequate stock assessments and management, the other 50% of global catches, leaves no doubt that many stocks in these countries are overfished and that overfishing is continuing. The abundances of these stocks are on average at about half the levels of the effectively managed ones (Costello et al ., 2012 ).

Similarly, IUU fishing can occur in many parts of the world's oceans. It is a problem wherever it occurs, but it is not a truly global problem. It is largely absent from the waters of countries with strong detection and enforcement regimes, which usually include the cooperation and participation of legal fishing vessels. These countries are essentially the same as those that have a commitment to rigorous fish stock assessments. Reports of overfishing and IUU fishing being global (e.g. Srinivasan et al ., 2010 ) are inaccurate and misleading. These imprecise reports have been used to advocate for global solutions that are more often based on generalized assumptions rather than scientific assessments of individual situations. The resulting proposed global actions often do not include evidence-based assessments of global or even national outcomes from actions of the type being proposed. Such generalizations have distracted public focus and management efforts from those areas where scientific assessment and management of stocks in 100% of national waters is most needed and where tailored action to address priority local threats is most likely to have the greatest positive impact. These local impacts may, in aggregate, affect global outcomes, such as global fish supply and food security.

An increasing number of countries have brought the majority of their fishing related problems under control, e.g. Australia, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, and the USA. In contrast, correcting truly global problems, such as climate change or oceanic pollution, has remained elusive for any individual country and, to date, for all countries collectively.

Overfishing and illegal fishing are, however, not eliminated by the declaration of oceanic areas as “national waters” or “protected areas.” Both must be actively addressed everywhere they are serious threats, including on parts of the high seas. Effective action on the high seas is possible, even though it commonly necessitates international cooperation that can be elusive, particularly when the number of countries is large.

Tuna fisheries often come with problems for multiple countries. They can also pose unusual problems relating to resources on the high seas. Where resources have been successfully shared, an effective starting point has been “sustainably managing 100% of national waters” of all countries that share those resources. The tuna fisheries of the Central and Western Pacific Ocean provide a striking example.

Twenty-two Pacific Island countries and territories, of hugely varying size and wealth, have demonstrated the power of regional cohesion in addressing both overfishing and illegal fishing for the immensely valuable tuna resources in the vast area (approximately 50 million km 2 ) of their collective management influence. Achieving this cohesion was catalyzed initially by commitment from all parties to a shared, single fisheries resource assessment program of internationally recognized quality covering 100% of the waters of all relevant countries and territories. Cohesion was also nurtured by this research being, since its inception in 1977, based in the region; in New Caledonia at the South Pacific Commission (now the Pacific Community, which is the contracted Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) official science provider and data manager). Continuing consensus, even on issues that were initially contentious, such as how to address overfishing, has been cemented by universal acceptance of the quality of the science and the unquestioned integrity of the management approaches it identifies and supports. Consensus on management actions has even spanned the enormous inequalities between small island states and the world's largest distant water fishing nations that are included in the 42 parties to the WCPFC.

Estimates of IUU fishing in the Central and Western Pacific were reported in a recent publication (Widjaja et al ., 2020 ) commissioned by the HLOP and in a 2016 report (MRAG Asia Pacific, 2016 ), to total between 276000 and 338000 tonnes of tuna annually, costing more than 20 Pacific Island states an estimated $616 million USD in lost revenue from fish landings (Widjaja et al ., 2020 ). These figures are incorrect. They were the unfortunate result of comparing data from an unofficial source with that from the official, more accurate one. The discrepancy was considerable. It led the authors to seriously overestimate the amount and impact of illegal fishing in this huge part of the Pacific Ocean and to distort the global implications of this example. More recent information from fishing nations, as reported to the WCPFC by the Pacific Community, shows 100% compliance with the stringent WCPFC data reporting requirements for all but two nations (SPC-OFP, 2021 ). Both were non-Pacific Island members of the WCPFC and the problems they had were not serious: they related to minor inconsistencies in the reporting of catches from small fisheries in coastal areas that were outside the 50 million km 2 area of shared management interest (SPC-OFP direct communication 17/6/2021). They would thus not have impacted stock assessments within the management area or revenue generation by Island States from catches within that area

Illegal fishing by international purse-seine fleets targeting tuna in a huge area of the Central and Western Pacific has been effectively eliminated. Surveillance and enforcement by member states and their former colonial allies coordinated by the regional Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) have been extremely effective. Misreporting of catches has, through 100% observer coverage and rigorous cross-checking of catches by scientists of the Pacific Community, been reduced to at most a few % in the enormous tuna purse-seine fishery (SPC-OFP, 2021 ). Most of this small amount of mis-reporting has been attributable to accidental mis-identification of species, not deliberate mis-reporting (WCPFC, 2011 ). The timely submission of logbook, transshipment, and observer data on the much smaller longline fishery has been challenged by the nature of this fishery. Vessels may fish over much bigger areas than their purse-sein counterparts and often do not come into port for a year, or even more. The nature of this issue is one of timeliness of the availability of the data, not its reliability. The WCPFC is actively pursuing an electronic monitoring solution to the problem with the timeliness of data submission.

What misreporting of catches there is in the WCPFC area represents extremely little, if any, financial loss for coastal states. Under a most innovative management strategy, developed initially by a subset of the Island States, the eight Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), access fees are now based on the number of days a vessel has access to purse seine fishing grounds, not on the traditional charging system of a percentage of the value of the catch that is taken (Clark et al ., 2021 ). As the fees payable by vessel owners are now based on the number of days fished, and not on catch, the incentive to mis-declare catch has been effectively removed. Modern Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) and broader Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), aided by direct cooperation from licensed vessels and outputs from observer programs, ensure the accuracy of vessel location data for license-revenue generation and of catch quantity and location measurments for resource assessment purposes.

Issues of inequity between participating nations is frequently stated to be a major impediment to regional consensus on decisions for regional fisheries management organizations. The success of the shared management of the tuna fisheries of the Central and Western Pacific is even more remarkable because of the tremendous inequality in the size and resources of the Pacific Island countries and territories. Not only is there immense range in the size of their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), but the density of tuna resources in these zones is far from uniform. There is even considerable differences in the national stakeholders in the four major regional fisheries management bodies that cooperate in resource research and management: the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA with eight members), The Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA with 17), the Pacific Community (SPC with 22 Pacific Island countries/territories and four founding member countries) and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC with 26 members, seven participating territories and nine cooperating non-members).

In spite of their many differences, the countries of the region are moving to build on their cohesion by making even more creative use of fundamental resource assessment and stock-description science. Together, they are expanding the use of the science provided by the SPC together with catch and effort and other related data collected under the auspices of national fisheries authorities and the three other regional bodies. They are developing a rigorous science-based strategy to stabilize the benefits they will receive from tuna fishing despite the impacts of the shifts in the distribution of tuna stocks, including to the high seas, that are anticipated to result from further climate change (Bell et al ., 2021 ). Their use of quality resource description and assessment data will reduce uncertainty in the modelling of the projected impacts of climate change on the distribution of tuna species. The expected improvements in predictions will enable Pacific island nations to negotiate with confidence with the world's biggest tuna fishing nations over the need to stabilize economic returns from the total tuna resource, as its distribution changes. Pacific Island countries are providing leadership in differentiating between the need for global action to address the causes of climate change, on which they have little impact, and national and regional interventions needed to manage the impacts of climate change on the resources that are vital to their production and prosperity. Given that climate-driven biogeographic shifts in marine resources will be widespread, this tuna case study may be a model that can be applied elsewhere.

The Western and Central Pacific is only one of the many areas where overfishing and IUU fishing have been effectively addressed, albeit the largest and most complex. Australia has had similar success in addressing IUU fishing in the Southern Ocean region of its relatively large EEZ where, after initial problems, there has been only a single incursion by a non-Australian vessel in the last six years (Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA), 2021 ).. To the North of Australia, cooperative surveillance and enforcement programs with the governments of Indonesia, the Philippines and more recently Vietnam have resulted in tremendous reductions in IUU activities in the Northern parts of the Australian EEZ and beyond. In 2005/06, 367 foreign vessels were apprehended in Australian waters. These were subsequently destroyed, and an additional 281 vessels were intercepted, and their gear and catches confiscated. In 2008/09 the total number of apprehensions and interceptions plummeted to 27. By 2019/20 the corresponding number was down to four (Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA), 2021 ).

International efforts to control IUU fishing elsewhere will likely only be similarly effective if based on precise identification of problem areas and publicly identifying all culprits and bringing them to account nationally, or through international processes. While the largest fishing vessels may have global range, very little overfishing of international waters would be profitable if IUU fishing and illegal supply and distribution chains were eliminated in 100% of national waters. Cooperation between governments and licensed fishing fleets from many countries in the Central and Western Pacific has confirmed the effectiveness of this strategy. The role of legal vessels in identifying and reporting illegal vessels and activities has been fundamental. Importantly, such reporting is not possible in areas closed to all fishing.

Initiatives “to sustainably manage 100% of national waters” effectively must accommodate the need to address stressors that affect the protection, production and prosperity of these waters wherever they arise, even if this is outside national waters. The same characteristic of connectivity that expands the influence of greenhouse gas emissions beyond national boundaries renders management of stressors to the oceans in only parts of the area of impact commonly ineffective. For example, malfunction of an ocean-based extractive activity can lead to dispersion of foreign material that can cause problems that extend beyond the initial location of the threat. Oil from a leaking well can have a greater impact if the well is outside, but immediately up-stream, of an oceanic area of national significance or jurisdiction, than the same leak would have if it originated within the downstream reaches of that country's national waters. Highly migratory fish species can be vulnerable to overfishing across the whole area of their distribution, which is seldom influenced by national, or other non-physical, oceanic demarcation such as management areas. Most threats to ocean health arising from, for example, pollution injected from rivers or introduced species or pathogens from a variety of external sources, cannot be prevented, or even efficiently managed, by actions in the area that they impact; they must be managed at their source, which is commonly remote, and far more often on land than in the ocean. Remedial action may be necessary in impacted areas but, unless the problem is corrected at its source, such action will remain ineffective.

Similarly, not all threats to oceanic production and prosperity are completely constrained by the boundaries of national waters. For example, the management of maritime transport, vessel safety and seafarer well-being, including basic human rights, may begin in national jurisdictions, but modern transport, the benefits of it and the threats to its prosperity, are increasingly multi-national, or even global. Again, the solution to most related problems, even those with global implications, begins with actions within 100% of national jurisdictions. New Zealand has provided an excellent example of how increasing national responsibility for an international fishing problem can constitute an efficient and effective solution.

Several New Zealand fishing companies chartered large trawlers from other countries to catch the quota within New Zealand's EEZ. Concerns were raised that the crew of these vessels, often from a country other than the one in which the vessels were registered, were not receiving even minimum acceptable wages by New Zealand standards. Allegations were also raised that, at times, officers of these vessels bullied crew members. The New Zealand fishing companies could confirm that they were paying the correct wages in bulk to the owners of the foreign boats or to the agents who had organized the crew. However, because of the opacity of international laws and financial transactions across three or more countries, combined with varying national rules and practices, they were unable to confirm that the crew had indeed been justly paid or treated fairly. Although there were no convictions, the New Zealand Government and fishing companies remained sufficiently concerned to actively pursue an effective solution. This was found by requiring that all fishing vessels operating in New Zealand waters be registered under the New Zealand flag. This brings these vessels under New Zealand jurisdiction globally, requiring compliance with New Zealand maritime, labour, health and safety, and criminal laws. The Government also required all crew members to have personal New Zealand bank accounts to ensure all payments could be made directly and transparently to them. Government observers are required on all foreign-owned vessels and independent audits of charter parties are provided to ensure crew visa requirements and wages agreements are being adhered to (Guy, 2016 ).

This effective solution to an international human rights problem has been provided by pursuing the same vision as the HLOP; bringing 100% of the problem within New Zealand's national waters, where the commitment of one government, together with the fishing industry of the same country, was sufficient to solve it. New Zealand fishing companies have confirmed that this solution remains effective (Clement, 2021 ).

Effective protection of, and production and prosperity from, the oceans’ ecosystems will necessitate concerted efforts from at least the majority of countries in 100% of their national waters and a strengthened commitment to international efforts beyond these boundaries. Even more importantly, particularly for those stressors that have greatest global impact, it will also necessitate greatly increased management of the many terrestrial activities that impact oceanic ecosystems.

Determination of the most effective strategies to achieve sustainable management of oceans, that will likely begin within national waters, will require careful assessment of options. The logical steps in this process will be:

Identify all values of oceans that are agreed priorities

Identify the threats to these values and where each arises

Assess the risks of not adequately addressing each threat across the full range of its occurrence

Evaluate the successes from around the world and build on those that are relevant to each specific problem and situation

Based on points 1–4, identify the risk management needed to effectively:

protect the sustainability of oceans and restore them where possible

increase sustainable production from oceans

optimize prosperity from sustainable use of oceans and their contents.

In Australia, excessive catches in commercial fisheries for species such as orange roughy ( Hoplostethus atlanticus ), gemfish ( Rexea solandri ), and southern bluefin tuna ( Thunnus maccoyi ) were obvious examples of mismanagement, for a time. The stocks of more than 40 species of fish taken in commercial fisheries in Australia's offshore waters (outside three nautical miles of the coast), managed by the Commonwealth Government of Australia, were victims of overfishing in the later stages of the 20 th century. All of these fisheries have since been the subject of improved assessments and targeted management by traditional techniques, primarily reductions of effort and catch across 100% of the distribution of each fishery. The latest assessment, based on data up to 2019, is that not one of these 40 species is currently being overfished in Commonwealth waters (Patterson et al., 2020 ).

Australia is not alone in implementing effective management. The U.S. has seen similar success with only 8% of assessed stocks currently fished above target levels (NOAA Fisheries, 2020 ). New Zealand also reports that 94.3% of their catch comes from stocks that are above the abundance level that would cause management concern (Fisheries New Zealand, 2020 ).

Success has not been as marked in the coastal waters of Australia (inside three nautical miles of the coast), which are managed by individual states and where stressors to aquatic ecosystems and the amenities they support, including fish populations, have been dominated by habitat degradation, pollution, introduced organisms and recreational activities, including angling and boating, which themselves represent both realization of the amenity and threats to it.

A model for adapting a Threat and Risk Assessment (TARA) approach to the protection and prosperity of a small subset of Australia's coastal marine ecosystems was proposed for the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) by the Sydney Fish Market (SFM) in 2012. SFM held a strong belief that the popular perception that fishing was the greatest threat to the whole of the world's ocean health and prosperity, including that of NSW, was misguided. So much so that it was distracting management authorities from addressing much greater threats to local and regional problems, including those in coastal NSW. SFM accepted that the degree of initial mismanagement of a relatively small number of internationally prominent ocean harvests had been correctly highlighted as of global concern. Issues such as whaling, large-scale drift-net fishing, the capture of dolphins in tuna nets in the Eastern Pacific and overfishing of stocks of North Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and north Pacific and Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) were prominent examples. But these were specific, open-ocean issues, and time had moved on. Many of these problems had been, or were being, critically assessed and where these assessments were followed by committed management, declines in stocks had been at least halted: several, such as humpback whales, had demonstrated spectacular recoveries. Where quality assessments of stocks had not been integrated into targeted management approaches, problems have continued, such as for several other marine mammals and approximately half of the world's exploited fish stocks (Hilborn et al ., 2020 ).

SFM was convinced that the management of the targeted extraction of living marine resources is relatively easy: eliminate destructive fishing practices and reduce effort and/or catches to scientifically determined sustainable levels and the resources invariably respond. Even when overharvest inadvertently occurs, such as in years of abnormal environmental variation, provided the science is adequate, the negative effects of fishing are normally reversible with even modest levels of targeted and appropriate management. Ocean productivity has been repeatedly shown to be remarkably resilient to fluctuations in abundance of component species resulting from even moderately well-managed extractions. Resilience against cumulative inputs, such as pollution, coastal development and introduced species and pathogens, is not similarly evident; nor is it logical to anticipate it will be. Extraction from the ocean has been proven to be much easier to manage than injection.

Research to explore the utility of a threat and risk management approach to coastal marine conservation was promoted by SFM in partnership with the Institute for Applied Ecology of the University of Canberra. It was subsequently jointly funded by the Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) and based at SFM. This research highlighted the breadth of the range and the large number of different threats to coastal marine environments and provided a preliminary assessment of the relative effectiveness of the management of each. To the surprise of many, it highlighted that there were a number of threats to coastal ecosystems and fisheries resources that were having much greater impact than fishing, even though fishing was directly targeting the living resouces that were the most commonly promoted indicator of well-being of the whole system. Many of the identified problems were area-specific. Most were the result of activities on land, not in the ocean. Most were assessed to be a great deal more difficult and costly to manage than fishing. Very few were being effectively managed. Most, if not all, were not amenable to management by actions in parts of the area of their impacts. Many were, unlike the effects of fishing, not reversible. In the absence of adequate science and identified solutions, many were being ignored, or had been relegated to the “too hard basket” (Kearney and Farebrother, 2015 ).

The NSW Marine Estate Management Authority (MEMA) immediately on its creation in 2014 accepted the logic that the first step in solving a problem must be clear identification of its cause(s). It undertook a comprehensive Threat and Risk Assesment (TARA) for the whole of NSW's oceanic and coastal waters as the foundation of its Marine Estate Management Strategy for the period 2018–2028 (Marine Estate Management Authority, 2018 ). On completion of the TARA, MEMA concluded that the wise management of NSW marine ecosystems and resources required that 100% of the marine estate be managed as an entity and that threats needed to be addressed at their source. The similarity of this conclusion with the vision adopted by the HLOP is notable.

The MEMA Strategy highlighted that the greatest threats to the statewide environmental assets of the marine estate were not managed extraction of marine resouces. MEMA stressed the need to differentiate between the threats to ecosystems and those to the realisation of amenities from those resources. Most of the highest priority threats to both were unmanaged inputs from terrestrial origins. In MEMA's listing of priority threats to coastal ecosystems in particular, there were 12 above fishing (Marine Estate Management Authority, 2017 ). Fishing, if well managed, constitutes the realisation of one of the most important compontents of ocean-based prosperity; high quality food, which by comparison with terrestrial agriculture, including even that of vegetables, has an extremely low environmental footprint (Springmann et al ., 2018 ). The earlier classification by the NSW Government of fishing as the highest priority threat to coastal marine ecosystems was found to be misguided and misleading, particularly as a driver of public opinion and government conservation actions.

Another national initiative, but one with more direct international implications, was provided by Norway. In 1975, Norway acknowledged the crucial links between science and decision making in fisheries management and the lack of these links in many developing countries, particularly in Africa. In partnership with FAO, it established the EAF Nansen Programme and committed the service of a state-of-the-art vessel, the Dr Fridtjof Nansen, for the purposes of research, training and the exchange of knowledge with developing country partners (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2016 ). Norway accepted the link between science and good fisheries decision-making, “demonstrating that the latter must always be guided and informed by quality research” (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2016 ). The strength of this relationship between quality research and effective management is confirmed by recent comparison of the status of fish stocks in countries with, and without, fisheries management based on quality stock assessment science (Hilborn et al ., 2020 ).

Where cooperative international fisheries management has been effective, for example, in the Western and Central Pacific tuna fishery discussed above, the primacy of a shared commitment to relevant science of a quality that is accepted by all cannot be disputed. Consensus-based management has been further facilitated by members openly acknowledging the uniqueness of their collective situation, their common commitment to protecting ocean ecosystems and the productivity from them and accommodating the varying aspirations of their members for prosperity. Management plans that are evidence-based and species and situation specific have been the proven foundation of sound conservation and sustainable revenue generation. Gaining and maintaining the consensus support of both small developing Pacific Island states and the world's biggest distant water fishing nations in 50 million km 2 of the Pacific Ocean was initiated and maintained by the undisputed quality of relevant resource assessment science. The effectiveness of regional cooperation is seldom so pronounced.

Effective multi-national cooperation can commonly be elusive, particularly if scarce or fragile resources are shared by a large number of countries. Different countries may choose to exploit the same species at different stages of its lifecycle, or they may target different and competing predator and prey species in shared areas, creating different trophic-level interactions and outcomes. International cooperation can take time to germinate, but with the perseverance of members it can become progressively effective. The European Union's common fisheries policy provides a pertinent example. After a slow and problematic start, it is incrementally correcting overfishing. The contrast with the continuing difficulty of effectively addressing overfishing in the most intensely competitive areas in which the European Union is involved, such as the Mediterranean Sea, is telling. The prominence and persistence of the challenges in negotiating a fisheries agreement between the UK and the EU during Brexit negotiations is another reminder of the particular requirements for quality resource assessment science when addressing fisheries allocation and not merely conservation. Both examples provide testimony of the need for, but difficulty of, achieving consensus on how to manage 100% of the fished area of multiple species. Further examples of the individuality of the causes and circumstance of fisheries management problems are evident in North West Africa and parts of South East Asia where, for example, overfishing and IUU fishing remain of great concern (Hilborn et al ., 2020 ). Again, the lack of a detailed description of the problem, including quality scientific stock assessments, public identification of who is responsible, and precise assessment of the options for correcting it are at the fore.

Problems for the world's oceans that are global in both cause and effect, such as climate change, require truly global solutions. Other generic problems, such as pollution and overfishing, can, however, be widely spread in all oceans, but vary greatly in area and intensity. They are seldom amenable to global solutions. Most require actions that are specific for each threat in each nation or region. Many of the major threats to oceans, and most of those to coastal regions, are terrestrial in origin and have no ocean-based solution.

Unambiguous identification of the cause of each problem and precise tailoring of management action have too seldom been prerequisites for governments claiming they are providing adequate protection. Opportunities for sustainable development and prosperity based on well-managed use of oceanic resources have often been thwarted by hypothesized conservation and fisheries benefits from imprecise restrictions.

International cooperation has been greatly facilitated when shared science-based assessments have formed the foundation on which both conservation and development strategies are built. Consensus is more likely to be maintained when the quality of the assessment science that underpins action is acknowledged by all to be beyond reproach.

The intent of an international agreement to pursue a globally significant action plan for a sustainable ocean economy (HLOP) by first committing governments to increased responsibility for 100% of their own waters is welcomed: it is logical.

It is suggested that the Plan of Action for HLOP could be improved by more precision in how its goals are identified and pursued, and how success will be measured. Perhaps the alliteration in its current Vision could be extended to the “provision of precise protection against proven priority threats to sustainability, production and prosperity.”

Bob Kearney is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Canberra. He provides periodic advice on seafood sustainability issues to the Sydney Fish Market on a consultancy basis. Ray Hilborn is a Professor at the University of Washington. He receives research funding from many groups that have interests in fisheries outcomes including environmental NGOs, foundations, governments and fishing industry groups.

RK conceptualized the paper. Both authors outlined the paper and the main message. RK wrote the first draft and both authors revised the final draft.

No funding was received for this specific research.

No new data were generated or analysed in support of this research.

Dr Russell Reichelt, Australia's Sherpa on the International Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, proposed the development into a published paper of what were initially some discussion points on the Panel's strategy emailed to him in confidence by the authors. He also provided substantial comment on, and suggestions for additions to drafts of the paper. Bryan Skepper provided substantial assistance with evaluation of the role of Sydney Fish Market in promoting relevant research. He also provided valuable comment on drafts of this paper. Dr Peter Williams provided recent data and comments on assessments of Western and Central Pacific tuna fisheries. Dr Johann Bell provided constructive comments on drafts of this paper.

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With net-free zones locked in, businesses and fishing groups consider strategies for a new era of 'fishing tourism'

ABC Rural With net-free zones locked in, businesses and fishing groups consider strategies for a new era of 'fishing tourism'

Business operators, tourism advocates and fishing groups have begun planning for a new era of fishing tourism, following the introduction of three new net-free zones in Queensland.

A debate between commercial and recreational fishers raged throughout this year, and ended with the State Parliament endorsing the policy and the zones coming into effect on November 1.

Within the net-free fishing zone north of Mackay, stakeholders held a workshop at Cape Hillsborough yesterday to discuss the next steps.

Cape Hillsborough Nature Resort owner Ben Atherton said he expected businesses throughout his community to benefit from the new zone.

"In the drive market, or the caravanning industry, 89 per cent of [people holidaying in caravans] are recreational fishers," Mr Atherton said.

"So, obviously by us getting the net-free zone, we are hoping that we can capitalise on that within that caravanning market.

"We are hoping they come here and, when they come here, we can promote other businesses in the area so they can get more money out of the economy and hopefully more jobs as well."

The new net-free zones, near Rockhampton, Mackay and Cairns, have a ban on all net fishing, a change that angered commercial fishers.

The rationale behind the decision was that it would lead to greater numbers and sizes of species that recreational fishers enjoyed targeting, particularly barramundi.

A new marketing tool

Mr Atherton said he would actively promote his resort as being inside the net-free zone.

That strategy will also be used in marketing by Mackay Tourism, which had already been using fishing to attract tourists before the net-free zones came into place.

Mackay Tourism general manager Steven Schwer said the net-free status would have a genuine impact.

"In terms of the Mackay region, we have been promoting the fishing experiences for quite a while now, and there is a lot more that we want to do now that we have got the net-free zone," he said.

"That's something we can add into our little bag of goodies when we are going to the market to promote the things there are to do here.

"Of course, when you talk about a net-free zone, automatically the perception changes in people's minds and they think, 'Okay, great, more fish stocks'.

"So they are more likely to travel to areas with net-free zones than they would for a fishing holiday in other areas."

Catch it, release it, post it online

Stakeholders in each of the three net-free zones are considering strategies to promote their areas.

Several people from the Rockhampton area travelled up to Cape Hillsborough for the workshop, including Infofish Australia manger Bill Sawynok, who specialises in fish stock monitoring.

Most of them are much more interested in the fishing experience, and then being able to get their peers to recognise them through the photos that they put on Facebook.

"There is an underlying marketing ability through social media, because if you get guys coming into the area and catching a metre-long barramundi, or a metre-long threadfin, you don't need to do any marketing, they will do it for you through social media," he said.

"So that is going to be a fairly important marketing tool, particularly if we are going to attract these young guys who are going fishing.

"They are the guys who are going to spend the big money, because they have invested huge amounts of money in purpose-built boats, some of them cost over a hundred grand, just to get on the water to catch these fish.

"If you can attract those people to your area, the big plus in that is that most of them don't want to catch fish to 'kill and keep'.

"Most of them are much more interested in the fishing experience, and then being able to get their peers to recognise them through the photos that they put on Facebook."

The workshop at Cape Hillsborough included a presentation from the fisheries department on compliance measures, a discussion on infrastructure needs for a fishing tourism industry, and a session on strategies to get the concept up and running.

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Solutions to Overfishing

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The Innovative Solutions

Winner: PescaLocal (Local Catch)

Coalition Encourages Tourists to Celebrate and Preserve Local Coastal Fisheries

A proposal to create a premium basket of seafood sourced from artisanal fishers and female fish buyers and sold locally was recognized by the World Bank’s CFI-CF Global Knowledge Competition as the winning solution put forth from Cabo Verde. The PescaLocal solution aims to reduce pressure on overfished species in high local demand by increasing consumer demand and sales of less familiar species to local restaurants and hotels. 

Cidade Velha is steeped in nearly six centuries of history. Since 2009, the city on the island of Santiago has been designated Cabo Verde’s first UNESCO heritage site, making it a progressively popular destination for the country’s visitors. Cultural heritage and picturesque beaches across the arid Atlantic islands have traditionally been critical drivers of Cabo Verde’s economy. Tourism accounted for 24 percent of the country's GDP and 10 percent of formal employment prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Today, visitors are rediscovering its beauty. A local coalition hopes to build on the new tourism wave to roll back a troubling trend: the depletion of local fish stocks. 

Some coastal fisheries are performing poorly in Cabo Verde, where fishing is concentrated on only a few popular species. The Instituto do Mar de Cabo Verde (National Institute for Fisheries Development) recently found that black mackerel and grouper fisheries are overexploited. Overfishing occurs largely due to the catch of juveniles and fishing during breeding season. 

“It is important to promote local fish and in a sustainable and durable way,” said Januário da Rocha Nascimento, Secretario of Associação de Defesa do Ambiente e Desenvolvimento (ADAD) in Cabo Verde.

Now most fishers vie for a limited number of species that are popular among buyers. Unless something is done, an already bad situation is likely to worsen. 

“Fishermen have to go so far to find fish,” said Ana Gonçalves, technical biologist at ADAD. “There is a problem with security,” due to the danger for fishers searching unknown waters, she said, “and most times they don't bring back fish.”

Building on a model used by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in Portugal, ADAD has assembled a local coalition to create the seafood basket sourced from artisanal fishers and female fish buyers in Santiago Island, Cabo Verde. The basket would be for sale at a premium to a network of restaurants and hotels interested in sustainability.

The PescaLocal solution aims to reduce pressure on overfished species in high local demand by increasing consumer demand and sales of less familiar species to local restaurants and hotels. 

We will work together “in collaboration with fishers’ associations and with the government, hotels and other organizations,” said Nascimento. “Fishers will be able to get five percent more income based on the quality and origin of the product.” 

PescaLocal aims to create a more diverse and sustainable supply of fish species, as fishers  comply with sustainable fishing rules and regulations, such as minimum catch size and closed seasons. The initiative will begin with building the awareness of fishermen and women who sell the fish to comply with measures for the management of fisheries. The coalition will seek to increase local technical capacity in resource conservation and improve fish handling and processing to help reduce post-capture losses. 

The coalition also seeks to provide entrepreneurship training to build skills to identify alternatives to fishing and encourage financial and business organizations to invest in fishing communities.  

ADAD and IIED are working with other partners on a media strategy to support legislation and scientific plans, and better inform the public about the value of sustainable practices.

The broad representative coalition that submitted the winning solution involves fisher organizations, hotels and restaurants, local and national government, and local and regional environmental non-government organizations. The partners are International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Associação de Defesa do Ambiente e Desenvolvimento (ADAD), Network of Professional Artisanal Fishing Organizations of Cabo Verde (ROPA-CV), Camara Municipal da Cidade Velha (CMCV), Hotel Pestana, Hotel Limeira and Hotel Vulcão, Cais de pesca da Praia, MiniMinistério do Mar, Escola de Hotelaria e Turismo de Cabo Verde (EHTCV), and Associação dos Pescadores e Peixeiras de Cidade Velha (APPCV).

Winner: Small Pelagic Sustainability Coalition

Private-led Coalition in Ecuador Seeks to Drive Sustainable Fishing Practices

A proposal to establish a common responsible sourcing policy in the fishmeal industry was recognized by the CFI-CF Global Knowledge Competition as the winning solution put forth from Ecuador. The coalition will encourage fishing vessels supplying ingredients to the fishmeal industry in Ecuador to progressively comply with sustainability and transparency rules. 

Fishing is a way of life along more than 2,000 kilometers of Ecuador’s coastline. Yet the livelihoods of tens of thousands of fishers, their families, and their communities, along with the prospect of the seafood industry, is in peril. 

In 2017, much of Ecuador’s fish resources were in a state of overfishing or overexploitation, according to data collected on nine of the small pelagic and other fish species by Ecuador’s Public Institute of Aquaculture and Fisheries Research, known as IPIAP. That assessment was supported by local industry and The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Foundation, with the support of the GEF-funded Global Marine Commodities project.

The findings foretold a looming disaster, prompting the National Chamber of Fisheries and 22 industry organization to work together on a Small Pelagics Sustainability Improvement Project, knows as the SPS-FIP. 

“There's been almost four years of work with a coalition on addressing challenges,” said Jimmy Anastacio-Solis, SPS-FIP Project Manager at the National Chamber of Fisheries. 

Since 2018, SPS-FIP has built strategic alliances with IPIAP and Ecuador’s Vice Ministry of Aquaculture and Fisheries to implement a process of fisheries improvement. They enabled achievements in research and management. Recognizing the threat of overfishing, their joint efforts encouraged a doubling of the number of days closed to fishing to 134 to support the rejuvenation of fish stock.

The lesson from the debut SPS-FIP efforts is to strengthen and expand the coalition to draw in more fishers and help them contribute to a durable solution. “Without partnerships, it is not possible. We need the joint efforts—large scale collaboration—to address sustainability,” said Anastacio-Solis.

The coalition’s winning solution seeks to create a common responsible sourcing policy to increase the scale of sustainable management of the small pelagic fishery, which supports more than 24,000 jobs and exports of $235 million annually. 

The solution is built on three pillars, according to Anastacio-Solis. 

The first is the strong industry coalition that already exists.  The coalition consists of the private sector actors that represent more than 80 percent of fishmeal production in Ecuador. This bodes well for increasing cooperation across the value chain and offers the potential to sustainably manage the fishery at scale. 

“The second pillar is to create an ideal policy,” that all companies involved in the coalition agree to follow and that contribute to sustainable use of resources, he said. 

Success of the common responsible sourcing policy will require effective enforcement and monitoring of participating vessels and companies to ensure adoption of progressive improvements and compliance with the policy. While ultimately enforcement is the role of government, Anastacio-Solis predicted the industry-led approach will encourage greater acceptance, draw in more partners, and slowly reduce informality.

The new approach would encourage informal operators to join in fishery management and adopt responsible practices. It would create public registry of boats and factories to increase transparency in the supply chain and discourage irregular and illegal fishing practices.

“The third pillar is cooperation from the government in exchange for information and transparency” from coalition members that support monitoring of resources,” said Anastacio-Solis. 

Vessels supplying small pelagic product to the fishmeal industry in Ecuador would gain incentives to progressively comply with verifiable improvements in fishing practices, legal compliance, and transparency. The gradual approach to improve management aims to make it easier for vessels to apply responsible fishing practices incrementally. It recognizes the cultural, economic, and other challenges to adopt new practices in a sector with so many informal operators.

The winning solution was submitted by the Camara Nacional de Pesqueria (National Chamber of Fisheries), in coalition with a wide coalition of public and private entities that includes: Fortidex S.A., Negocios Industriales Real, NIRSA S.A., HERCO, BORSEA, Productos Pesqueros S.A., Tadel, Multiproyectos S.A., Urisa, EXU, Ecuafeed S.A., Pesqueria DIMOLFIN, Comuna Jambeli – Santa Elen, Polar, Rosmei, SEIMAR S.A., INHARIPAC S.A., Likefish, Grupo Riveto, Skretting, Vitapro, BioMar, Cargill, Ministerio de Produccion Comercio Exterior, Inversiones y Pesca, Instituto Publico de Investigacion de Acuicultura y Pesca, and Global Marine Commodities.

Winner: Fishery Area Access Network

Fishery Management Offers Foundation for Stronger Communities in Indonesia

A proposal to manage fishing practices through cooperation rather than competition was recognized by the World Bank’s CFI-CF Global Knowledge Competition as the winning solution put forth from Indonesia. The local coalition’s ambition is to build communities that are less vulnerable to multiple shocks, including threats from a changing climate.

Indonesia’s Muna District spreads over multiple islands in the Flores and Banda seas. Connections between communities and neighboring islands are not easy.  Livelihoods revolve primarily around traditional fishing and farming activities.

In Pasi Kolaga, families have become vulnerable in recent years as fish stocks have been exhausted, much like their neighbors in nearby islands. The catch isn’t as large as it used to be. 

Fisheries are largely unregulated and operate within an informal economy in Indonesia. Fishers often take whatever fish they can catch. 

A coalition of global and local civil society organizations have teamed up for change, with a concerted effort to manage fishing practices through cooperation rather than competition. Their approach leverages provincial government policies and fosters sustainable fishery practices through co-management approaches and rules to regulate their use of fishery resources. 

“Talking about fisheries is not only about the fish and the fishers,” said Raymond Jakub, technical and fisheries program director with Rare, a civil society organization that is part of the local coalition. “The stakeholders are working in tandem to build a mindset for longer-term success,” he said. 

The coalition is engaging women in the communities, encouraging savings, and fostering new financial options. They aim to help families improve incomes and manage money even  during periods of increased scarcity. 

“It is also about fishers’ families and the broader aspects of social life,” Jakub said. 

The coalition facilitates and empowers local community groups and governments to identify and map fishery resources and form a Managed Access and Reserve area starting in Muna District. 

The community members aim to work collaboratively with district and provincial governments to develop marine spatial and management plans, allocate access rights, and establish no-take zones to allow restoration of habitats and protect spawning grounds. It will also create community surveillance mechanisms. The provincial government legally supports the establishment and operation of Fisheries Managed Access & Reserve areas as regulated in Governor's Regulation Southeast Sulawesi No.36 2019.

Under this approach, local fishers, who are responsible for ensuring the sustainability of the areas, would gain primary access rights for use. The coalition itself has limited enforcement capacity, yet with a fisheries management plan it can drive the local approach and facilitate successful execution. 

To foster a more stable local economy, the coalition will work to formalize small and medium seafood enterprises, improve access to finance, and build capacity to reduce post-capture losses and improve fish quality to increase incomes in the target communities. 

The solution goes beyond fishing.

“There will be training on financial literacy,” said Waatina, a local facilitator for Pasi Kolaga Savings and Loan Associations (Kelompok Simpan Pinjam), “We want to ensure that the benefits we get from improving the fisheries can also improve households.”

Challenges remain. To engage buyers willing to pay higher prices will require product quality and volume consistency. Reaching larger cities with sufficient consumer demand will require reducing transportation and logistics barriers. 

Over time, the coalition seeks to replicate the model in other areas of the district and in the province as it works to solidify public and private mechanisms to sustain and scale the solution.

“It’s very exciting to see the changes in the community,” Jakub said. He expects that such an inclusive solution can attract further interest beyond the initial coalition.

The coalition includes Rare, Kelompok Pengelolaan Akses Area Perikanan Pasi Kolaga (Pasi Kolaga Managed Access & Reserves Management Body), Kelompok Masyarakat Pengawas Pasi Kolaga (Pasi Kolaga Community-based Surveillance Group), and Kelompok Simpan Pinjam Pasi Kolaga (Pasi Kolaga Savings and Loans Association).

Winner: Direct Sales from Artisanal Fishers to Consumers in Lima

Peruvian Coalition Strives to Make Fish Supply Sustainable

A proposal to expand an innovative fish marketing approach was recognized by the World Bank’s CFI-CF Global Knowledge Competition as the winning solution put forth from Peru. The coalition aims to sell responsibly sourced seafood products directly to customers in restaurants, supermarkets, and online in Lima.

Seafood plays a vital role in the diet and cuisine of Peru. The government even declared a day to honor ceviche, a raw fish delicacy cured in citrus, as part of its national heritage. The world-renowned favorite is only one among many that draw on local fish. Peruvians consume on average nearly 25 kilograms of fish annually, the most in South America, according to FAO.

Peru’s 1,500-mile Pacific Coast has fed its love affair with fish, which is well known. Less well known is the harmful impact of seafood’s circuitous path to reach Peruvian markets, restaurants and homes. 

Before reaching consumers, seafood is handled by a half dozen or more middlemen, leaving the fishers detached from customers and the value some buyers are willing to place on the quality of their product. The process from sea to table is inefficient and lacks transparency. 

The supply chain is destructive to coastal fisheries, according to the Simone Pisu, co-founder of Pesco Pescadería. Known as Pesco, his company is a social enterprise that describes itself as the first fishmonger in Lima to connect local artisanal fishery products directly with consumers.  

PesCo has been working to shorten the supply chain, to sell responsibly sourced seafood products directly to customers in restaurants, supermarkets, and online in Lima. It has already engaged with 2,500 customers and 15 restaurants in Lima.  

Building on its success to date, PesCo has proposed a broad coalition to expand its model of more direct sales from fishers to buyers. In doing so it aims to increase the income of participating fishers by 20-30 percent.

“We are a small organization,” said Pisu. There are hotels and restaurants seeking more sustainably sourced fish than PesCo can currently supply. Faster progress can be made, he predicted, “if partners are aligned about the practices, the goals, and the minimum conditions we consider for responsible fishing.” The Global Knowledge Competition encouraged them to formalize the partnership and build a common vision of a sustainable coastal fishing industry, Pisu said. The coalition aims to improve the supply chain to redistribute value back to the fishers.

Better fishing practices require more engagement with fishers, many of whom operate informally. The coalition aims to get more fishers to register for licenses and improve practices with appropriate equipment. 

The coalition plans to support artisanal fishers in achieving higher prices through training in responsible fishing techniques, including adopting selective fishing gear, respecting seasonal restrictions, and complying with minimum catch size. That is expected to create a virtuous cycle, according Pisu. The higher prices for quality fish products will build appreciation for the improved practices among the fishers. 

Traceability technology and systems and a publicly accessible website are envisioned to allow the coalition to report progress. Better data on artisanal fisheries can inform sustainable resource management.

Already PesCo is working with well-regarded chefs and large restaurant chains to create special menus using responsibly sourced fish. The process of building more mainstream demand will take time and patience, however. 

“It's really difficult to create that critical mass of consumers [interested in sustainably sourced fish] but it can be done,” said Adriana Sanchez, the Responsible Seafood Strategy Director at the sustainable fishing advocacy group Wave of Change.

Consumer awareness campaigns aim to increase demand for responsible fish products and provide financial incentives for artisanal fishers to adopt legal and sustainable fishing practices. 

Sanchez noted that it took more than two decades to build awareness and demand for sustainably sourced fish in the United States. Peru has different social and economic conditions that offer another context, but she remains optimistic that the coalition can generate a public conversation around sustainability that will change consumer preferences and behavior as more products becomes available.

The coalition consists of Pesco Pescadería, Comunidad Pesquera de San Juan de Marcona, Instituto Humboldt, Consorcio Manglares de Tumbes, Osaka Restaurante, Hotel Ibero Star, Central Restaurante/Mater iniciativa, Gremio de pescadores Artesanales de la Caleta el Ñuro, and CLS-Perú.

Runner Up Stories

Runner-Up: Sustainable Fishing Promotion in São Vicente and Santiago Islands

Coalition Fosters Good Practices to Reduce Overfishing in Cabo Verde

A coalition for Sustainable Fishing Promotion in São Vicente and Santiago Islands seeks to encourage sustainable fishing practices and create alternative opportunities to fishing. It was recognized by the World Bank Coastal Fisheries Initiative-Challenge Fund (CFI-CF) Global Knowledge Competition in 2022 as the runner up put forth from Cabo Verde.

In Cabo Verde, sought-after coastal fish are running low.

A study carried out from 2018-2020 by the National Institute for Fisheries Development, (Instituto do Mar de Cabo Verde), found that black mackerel and grouper have been overexploited. The primary causes are juvenile catch and fishing during breeding season.

Old ways die hard, despite the risks and efforts to restrict these practices.

Local fishers “sell the popular fish species at a very low cost and without processing,” said Maria Ivonne Andrade, a Technical Expert at Renascença Africana-Associação das Mulheres da África Ocidental –Célula de Cabo Verde (RAMAO). They rely on fishing for their livelihood and are just seeking the fish that are available whenever they can expect to sell them.

Monitoring and enforcement of fishing practices is limited, so fishers take little risk in failing to comply with new requirements. Meanwhile, there has been little formal connection to date with other interested stakeholders that might engage fishers in practices to preserve fish stocks or create alternatives to fishing. The Sustainable Fishing Promotion solution seeks to involve key fisheries sector actors and investors in São Vicente and Santiago islands, Cabo Verde to change the dynamic and generate interest in sustainable fishing practices and a more diverse local economy.

The coalition plans to put an emphasis on building awareness in fisher communities around the value of good fishing practices.

“One way is to identify alternative fish species and other [non-fishing] activities” and communicate this information to fishers to take pressure off the mackerel and grouper fisheries, explained RAMAO President Josefina Chantre Fortes.

The coalition also aims to generate interest within fishing communities through communication and outreach around non-fishing activities that can be supported by the financial community. Targeted entrepreneurship training will be aimed at promoting alternative livelihoods to fishing, such as tourism, that can improve the income of women and fishermen.

The coalition will identify ways to add value so fishers can increase the price for fish harvested in a responsible manner. The coalition will reach out to the business and financial communities to help strengthen infrastructure and equipment needed, such as cold storage, to add value to the fishing products. Parallel efforts will be made to spur more investment from the financial sector and create public awareness of business opportunities in tourism.

“We feel privileged to have received this recognition by the World Bank,” said Chantre. She said that they will try to use this platform as an opportunity to raise awareness of their efforts among potential sources of financing that can help them implement their vision and solution.

The coalition is comprised of Renascença Africana-Associação das Mulheres da África Ocidental –Célula de Cabo Verde (RAMAO), Instituto do Mar, The University of Cape Verde, The National Directorate of Fisheries and Aquaculture (DNPA), and Associação para o Ambiente e Desenvolvimento (ADAD).

Runner-Up: Monitoreo Participativo (Octopus Monitoring Coalition)

High Demand for Quality Octopus in Ecuador Can Drive Incomes, Sustainable Fishing

A coalition’s solution to promote a participatory monitoring program was recognized by the World Bank Coastal Fisheries Initiative-Challenge Fund (CFI-CF) Global Knowledge Competition in 2022 as the runner up put forth from Ecuador. Under the plan, fishers will ensure their octopus catch to meet quality and sustainability criteria so restaurants and other buyers are willing to pay a premium to the market price.

Just a few years ago, visiting surfers were wowed by a new ceviche dish featuring octopus caught in coastal waters off a then little-known beach town inside the Galera San Francisco Marine Reserve in Esmeraldas province.  Soon, more tourists came for the octopus ceviche, and stayed for the beaches with warm teal waters.

It didn’t end well for the local octopus fishery.

“The community depleted the octopus population to meet ceviche demand,” said Juan Carlos Medina, head of marine mapping at Instituto Nazca de Investigación Marina (Nazca Institute of Marine Research), “So now—it’s really incredible—in order to prepare this special ceviche, they import octopus from Peru.”

The coalition is establishing a long-term participatory monitoring program with communities in the artisanal octopus fishery based in Manabi province of Ecuador.

The solution includes approaches to improve the management and health of artisanal octopus fishery in two marine reserves through a closed season, introduction of more selective gear use, and minimum catch size.

Khen.uio, a restaurant chain in the coalition, has agreed to purchase responsibly sourced octopus directly from ASOSALAN, a fishers’ association, at significant premium to market price.

“In the market fishers receive just $2.50-3.50 per pound for octopus. The restaurant is paying $7.50 per pound—more than double what they usually get,” said Medina. “There is one condition: the catch should be responsible. For an octopus to be considered a responsible catch it should weigh more than 1000 grams.”

Medina said that other chefs around the country are demanding responsibly sourced octopus. The supply chain currently rewards the middlemen, and many buyers are not satisfied with the quality of the fish delivered. They are willing to pay a high premium directly to fishers if the fishing methods are responsible.

The coalition aims to establish better awareness of sustainable fishing practices, including permitted catch areas, minimum catch size, and avoiding capture of egg-bearing females. The coalition will establish educational campaigns and training programs with local fishers, explore product differentiation opportunities and assist further direct sales with restaurants in Quito and other key cities. It will establish a traceability system, improve packaging and transportation, and promote visibility of women who participate in and contribute to the value chain.

“What they are doing is guaranteeing that these octopus are coming from this protected area,” said Medina. That will have a big impact on buyer interest and fisher appreciation of the improved practices, he predicts.

The coalition is made up of Instituto Nazca de Investigacion Marina (Nazca Institute of Marine Research), Asosalan, and Khen.uio.

Runner-Up: Raja Ampat Sustainable Anchovy Coalition

Saving Anchovies and Revitalizing Local Industry in West Papua, Indonesia

The Raja Ampat Sustainable Anchovy Coalition is a multi-year effort to co-manage fish stocks. Its proposal to tackle overfishing was recognized by the World Bank Coastal Fisheries Initiative-Challenge Fund (CFI-CF) Global Knowledge Competition in 2022 as the runner-up solution put forth from Indonesia. It seeks to establish fishing arrangements between small-scale fishers and large commercial fishing vessels to allow anchovy stock to recover and improve economic prospects of local fishing communities.

Raja Ampat is a global marine treasure. The waters located off the northwest tip of New Guinea island, in Indonesia's West Papua province are home to hundreds of species of hard corals and more than 1,700 species of reef fish.

Among the small pelagic fish that populate the coastal areas of the Bird’s Head Seascape Papua region are anchovies. Today they are at risk of depletion, largely due to overfishing by commercial vessels that are sweeping the coastal waters clean of fish.

“The local fishermen used to supply anchovy [as bait]” to commercial fishing vessels catching larger fish like skipjack, said Dr. Stephanus Mandagi, a biodiversity, sustainable fisheries and climate change expert with Universitas Kristen Papua (UKIP). But then larger commercial vessels from Sulawesi and other parts of Indonesia introduced large nets that deplete local fish stock and leave little space for artisanal fishing.

“The community has been suffering,” said Mandagi, “They cannot get enough fish” either for bait or to sell at local markets. As the local stock diminishes he now recognizes that if the status quo is maintained there won’t be fish for anyone in the future.

The coalition is taking a long view to fundamentally alter practices and restore the fisheries. Their four-year plan will encourage commercial vessels from other regions to focus on skipjack tuna, while reviving anchovy fishing by local fishers.

The solution would create an anchovy management plan. The coalition members aim to map out the implementation of management measures, enforcement, stock and habitat assessment, and supply chain assessment. Training will be conducted on Ecosystems Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM), finance, corporate management and marketing, and fish product improvement.

The anchovy cooperative aims to restore baitfish supply and help local fishers increase their incomes. The cooperative will coordinate the marketing of baitfish supplied to commercial pole and line industry to catch skipjack tuna and selling dried anchovy to local markets. Meanwhile the cooperative will ensure local fishers comply with management measures to ensure sustainable practices.

The revitalization of the anchovy fishing by local fishers would require smaller vessels with lights that attract sufficient fish. That lighting would be designed to ensure good catches but discourage overfishing.

Under the co-management plan envisioned, large nets now used by commercial vessels would be phased out. Local fishers would work to supply those vessels with bait rather than compete with them.

“The transformation will be done slowly,” said Mandagi. “That's the only way to manage the fishery to make it sustainable.”

The partners in the coalition are Universitas Kristen Papua (UKIP), Universitas Negeri Papua (UNIPA), Muhamadya University, Masyarakat Adat Papua, and Mathbat-Yellu, Fishery Office of Raja Ampat Regency, Marine and Fishery Affairs of West Papua Province, PT Citra Raja Ampat, BLUD of Raja Ampat Marine Park Authority, Koperasi Mina Mandiri, Tafelo, YKAN, and Yayasan Misool Baseftin.

Runner-Up: Protegiendo la Anchoveta (Anchoveta Protection Initiative)

Back to the Future to Save Peruvian Anchoveta

A coalition’s solution to improve fishing practices that protect Peru’s anchoveta fisheries was recognized by the World Bank Coastal Fisheries Initiative-Challenge Fund (CFI-CF) Global Knowledge Competition in 2022 as the runner up put forth from Peru. It will encourage fishing fleets that use selective nets and pair a fishing boat with a support boat to collect and transport fish. The solution aims to reduce fishing pressure and improve fish quality and fisher incomes.

The Peruvian anchoveta found in coastal Pacific waters is a high-quality fish species in the anchovy family and among the most important fisheries globally.

But the common method for catching the fish today leads to products of low quality.

Nets designed to sweep up large amount of fish without regard for their size stress the small, delicate anchoveta. The bulk of the catch in the nets deprive the fish of oxygen. Then anchoveta are damaged as they pour through a hydraulic pump. Further stress and quality reduction occur on deck and when the fish are stored inside the fishing vessel for extended periods.

Fish degraded by this method of extraction fetch low prices. It creates a cycle that compels fishers to catch more and deplete the stock further, putting the fisheries at risk.

Blasco Nuñez, CEO and cofounder of Lumen Sapientiae, a civil society organization supporting local fishing communities, said a new approach can increase fisher incomes and allow more sustainable management of fishery. Lumen is working with the Asociación Nacional de Armadores Pesqueros de la Ley 26920, the largest guild of artisanal fishing shipowners in Peru, around the solution proposed. If successful, sustainable management measures could have a significant impact on stock recovery and benefits for local food security.

The coalition aims to reintroduce selective fishing nets to address overfishing in the Peruvian anchoveta fishery. Such nets were commonly used many years ago to naturally select the best quality fish and protect juveniles but went out of favor as the industry turned its focus to quantity.

Another innovation proposed is boat pairing. “We want to introduce in Peru fishing with two boats,” said Nuñez, who noted that a pairing practice has long been used locally. Today’s pair fishing innovation, however, will require tender boats without nets working alongside the fishing boats with nets.

The pairing approach involves a fishing boat working in tandem with a support boat that collects and transports fish. Pair fishing maintains effective cold storage from catch to landing, supporting quality and improving fishers’ income.

Existing boats withdrawn from fishing will have their hold, hatches, deck lay-out and rigging redesigned for the new practice. Repurposing a portion of the existing fleet will reduce fishing pressure while maintaining industry vitality. A decrease in the volume of fish caught is mitigated by a quality increase that results in the higher price.

The Anchoveta Protection Initiative is also working to develop new supply chains with higher quality anchoveta sold to canneries seeking these products.

The Initiative will further address overfishing through enforcement of existing management measures, including seasonal closures during spawning periods and elimination of illegal sales of juvenile anchoveta to fishmeal producers.

“If a small fleet using selective nets starts earning more money, other fishers will immediately be aware,” he said. They will ask: “Why is he making more money?”

“It is systemic change that we are trying to introduce here.”

The coalition is comprised of Facultad de Ingeniería Pesquera y de Alimentos (FIPA) de la Universidad Nacional San Luis Gonzaga de Ica, and Lumen Sapientiae, which is working closely with the shipowner’s association that represents 360 artisanal fishing vessels.

Sustainable fishing staying afloat in developed world, sinking in poorer regions

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More people than ever rely on fisheries and aquaculture for food, and income, but the seafood industry is facing a “dangerous” sustainability divide when comparing trends in the developed world versus those in poorer regions, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) revealed on Monday.

“Fisheries are facing an important crossroad and the world needs a new vision in the 21st century”, the UN agency lead with in a press statement, echoing the main message by it’s Director General, Qu Dongyu, at the opening of a major conference on the matter, which opened Monday.

By 2050, humans will be nearly 10 billion in number, and “land alone will not feed us”, Mr. Donguy explained, thus, the world will need to increasingly rely on aquatic species to eat.

The International Symposium on Fisheries Sustainability, taking place from 18 to 21 November at FAO ’s Rome headquarters, convenes researchers, business people and members of various other sectors to identify how to maximize food from the world’s rivers and oceans, without compromising the health of aquatic ecosystems.

Noting a “dangerous trend” in the fishing industry, the FAO chief said that while fisheries in developed regions are increasingly sustainable, meaning fished populations are being replenished, and conditions for industry workers are improving, developing regions lagging behind.

The great provider of life

Achieving global sustainability in the seafood sector looks murky. With the concerning state of the world’s oceans and increasing demand for freshwater species keeping best practices at bay, FAO noted.

Innovation is about stopping doing something old &amp; starting something new. It's not just about technology, it's about our state of mind. - @Manu_FAO We are starting #SustainableFisheries Symposium off with a #FisheriesInnovation event to change state of minds about our oceans. pic.twitter.com/HEUw2z4qT0 FAO FAO

Plastic pollution, the effects of climate change, habitat degradation, and overfishing are draining marine fish stocks, with one in every three stocks overfished, compared to one in ten 40 years ago. In addition, inland fisheries (in rivers or fish farms), are feeling the pressure of a growing demand on freshwater species.

Worldwide, one billion people rely on fish as their main source of animal protein, according to the UN N World Health Organization (WHO) , and in some small island states, people meet their protein needs exclusively from seafood.

A person derives, on average, 20.3 kilograms of top-quality protein and essential micronutrients from fish every year, with a rise in 3 percent of global fish consumption since the 1960’s, according to FAO.

As far as economies go, around the world, one in ten people depend on fishing for their livelihoods and are often the poorest in society.

From the mid-1970’s, developing countries have increased their net trade benefits from fish from almost zero to over 40 billion dollars each year, FAO’s Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Manuel Barange, pointed out at the Conference.

Some 95 per cent of people hinging on seafood for their livelihoods live in Africa and Asia, many struggling to make ends meet despite the degree of danger involved in the work. Commercial fishing was rated the second deadliest profession on earth in 2019.

The FAO Director-General put forward three solutions to guide fisheries toward sustainability, including re-investing in marine and freshwater sustainability programmes, investing in ocean growth, and ensuring protection measures are met with effective management.

“Treat the ocean with the respect it deserves, and it will forgive our foolish ways, and it will replenish  itself and do what it has done in the past - be the great provider of life on planet earth”, Peter Thomson, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Oceans, urged at the Sympsonium’s opening.

2020: ‘A new deal with nature’

Four of the ten targets under the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to protect oceans, will mature come 2020, including illegal fishing, which the UN’s Special Envoy said begs cooperation from countries who haven’t signed FAO’s Agreement to stamp out the problem.

Moreover, the coming year will be one “in which we create a new deal with nature” he highlighted, as a host of environmental protection events will take place: The UN Ocean Conference to scale up ocean action , the UN Biodiversity Conference , the IUCN World Conservation Congress, and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26).

By the Sympsonium’s end, participants are expected to present a technical document that synthesized the information and debate in each of the event’s sessions, to be table at the 34th session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries, set for July 2020.

The document will form the platform for a high-level policy statement on the role, value and sustainability status of global and regional fisheries.

“If we focus on our science, our innovation spirit, our technologies, we will secure and protect one of the oldest and most undervalued food industries,” the FAO chief said, urging for delegates to “aim big” and take “concrete” steps toward change.

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Fishing could help tourism recover in Europe

Angling – which is worth €2 billion to the European economy each year – could play a major part in helping the continent’s tourism sector get back on its feet after the Covid-19 pandemic.

With angler numbers growing in almost every European country during various lockdowns alongside its huge socio-economic value, the sport has a key role to play in boosting visitors once restrictions begin to ease.

The idea is part of a major report by the European Parliament Forum on Recreational Fisheries and Aquatic Environment, which includes representatives from major fishing groups and politicians.

MEP Niclas Herbst, chair of the RecFishing Forum, said the Covid-19 crisis had shown how important angling can be, as it provides a sense of nature and allows people to go outside. He also highlighted the importance of the tourism sector in Europe revealed plans to organise a European tourism convention to draft a 2050 roadmap towards a “sustainable, innovative and resilient European tourism ecosystem.”

Figures from this year so far reveal that Denmark saw a 20 per cent rise in fishing licences being bought in March and April compared to the previous year, in The Netherlands there were more than 100,000 licences sold in the first five months of 2020, where it would normally take a year to reach this amount, Sweden saw a 160 per cent hike in licence sales in May compared to previous months while Finland saw a 50 per cent rise in them in march, compared with last year.

Irish MEP Grace O’Sullivan drew on her own experience to explain how angling helped forge some life-long friendships and is being taught through generations. She revealed that, in Ireland, around 406,000 people went fishing in 2012, with a direct spending of €555 million, of which €125 million was generated by overseas tourists.

She also claimed that estimated 83 per cent of young people in schools wanted to go fishing, meaning angling could be a huge opportunity in terms of education related to nature and fish stocks conservation objectives.

Benefits of angling

Dr Stefan Spahn, a European Anglers Alliance (EAA) board member, revealed that, during the Covid-19 crisis, anglers were able to continue their hobby in most European countries, in compliance with all restrictions and measures in place. He believed that this was beneficial to all, as spending 30 minutes outside lowers levels of stress.

He then argued that angling tourism could be seen as a solution for the recovery of the tourism sector, especially in terms of ‘weekend anglers‘, whose trips have a positive impact at a more local level, and given that people would tend to travel locally rather than abroad during the COVID-19 crisis.

In Europe, there are around 25 million anglers, including 10 million sea anglers, contributing some €20 billion to the economy, from tackle, fees, lodging and travel, with sea fishing alone supporting more than 100,00 jobs. Indeed, in some countries recreational fishing delivers more economic benefits than commercial fishing, with many less fish caught.

Frank Brodrecht, CEO of specialist fishing tour operator Kingfisher Angelreisen, said: “Angling tourism is only a small part of total tourism but it is quite unique and interesting, as angling is a passion. That is why anglers really want to travel and to fish – there are very limited reasons for anglers to cancel their trips, in comparison with regular travellers. The recovery of the sector could be very fast, if the travel infrastructure is functioning.”

Igor Miličić, secretary general of the Fishing Association of Slovenia, said his country was a proven destination for travelling anglers, who spend an average of almost five and a half days in the upper Soca Valley, contributing around €300 per day or €1.6 million per year.

The organisation also works closely with the Slovenian Tourism Board as well as being involved in a number of conservation activities.

Olivier Portrat, CEO of the European Fishing Tackle Trade Association (EFTTA) recognised that those were challenging times, affecting a lot of economic sectors, especially tourism but also, that angling is social distancing at its best.

He said: “Angling is a sustainable form of tourism and a very conservation minded one: once a fish is caught, anglers are free to decide whether to release it or kill it.”

He underlined that the supposed importance of recreational fisheries on some fish stocks should not prevent the EU from proposing a policy vision and support for this sector that represents a genuine opportunity for Europe, including in tourism.

“There is always a way to manage the impact of recreational fisheries on fish stocks, through bag limits, minimum reference sizes, fishing seasons and this should be only a part of the EU’s approach to recreational fisheries.”

Explaining that data for some areas was very spares, he called for a pan-European study, which would give a general overview of the sector, covering turnover, social and economic impacts and cultural importance of the sector, at sea and in freshwater.

He underlined that angling and angling tourism are part of the Blue Economy and should be part of the strategic vision of the European Union.

He cited the 2030 Maritime Strategy of Catalonia, which rightly identified recreational fishing as an activity commonly practiced all year round, creating a relevant and sustainable economic activity, estimating that the sector provided a turnover of €89 million in 2016.

He added: “Recreational fisheries are an integral part of the strategic plan for the region, including actions related to the sustainable, integrated and harmonious development of the blue economy that respects the human uses of the sea.”

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Can ecotourism increase climate resilience in tropical small-scale fishing communities?

By Christopher Cusack, Edwina Garchitorena and Rod Fujita

Globally, fisheries are of great importance. Yet small-scale fishers and their communities in the tropics are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Rebuilding and managing the fish stocks that these communities rely on is critical to ensuring the food security and climate resilience of hundreds of millions of small-scale fishers globally. Generally, we know how to achieve this: reduce fishing pressure to allow stocks to grow to healthy levels and protect and improve fragile ocean ecosystems.

One possibility is the development of ecotourism in tropical communities. Ecotourism is based on the ability of natural ecosystems to attract tourists who spend money on guides, equipment, restaurants, hotels and other goods and services, which in turn generate income, jobs and revenues. There are many examples of this around the world, most centered around “charismatic megafauna” such as whales, dolphins and large fish such as sharks and rays. But situations where these species are present consistently and can form the basis for an ecotourism industry are relatively rare across the tropics. What is more common are communities with good (or improvable) overall environmental quality and the presence of smaller species such as reef fish and sea turtles. The coastal community of Moalboal is one interesting example.

In 2019, a team of scientists from EDF, Cornell and Stony Brook University traveled to Moalboal in the Philippines. The mission: to see whether we could use a portable acoustic transponder — or sonar — to quantify the biomass of sardines and herrings. The reason: to see if ecotourism reliant on these fish stocks could be more valuable than harvesting the fish themselves.

Many countries, including the Philippines, depend on fisheries to generate food and income by catching them. Sometimes the pressure to catch these fish is intense, driven by poverty.  However in Moalboal, a ban on fishing had been imposed in a marine sanctuary to protect these small silvery fish, and we became curious about that.

The reason for the fishing ban soon became clear — we saw boatloads of tourists visit the marine sanctuary every day and noticed that a lot of dive shops were promoting trips to “swim with the sardines.” We soon joined them, and the experience was wonderful: we were surrounded by constantly shifting silvery curtains of fish suspended in the clear azure waters.

We then looked at the different kinds of economic benefits the herring school generated to estimate its value for ecotourism. This included jobs as guides and in the hospitality industry, user fees collected by the local government, hotel stays, scuba rentals and excursion fees. We estimated the total economic value of the herring school: about $17 million.

We found four broad enabling conditions that have allowed the Moalboal ecotourism industry to develop and thrive.

First, the quality of the coral reef ecosystems and the presence of the herring school provide the draw for tourists to come and visit. Without this natural capital, it is unlikely that Moalboal would generate the huge economic value it currently does.

Second, the management structure in Moalboal is centered around the community itself. The municipality governs nearshore marine resources and includes community stakeholders in management decisions. The municipality serves an important role assessing fees for visitation of marine reserves and using those fees to administer and enforce regulations, including hiring local marine reserve monitors and enforcement agents.

Third, effective community-based enforcement of the marine reserves is enabled by their relatively small size and proximity to shore. We could see the boundaries of the herring sanctuary from the beach in front of our hotel. If one can visually delineate the boundaries of a reserve, enforcement is much easier than if a boundary is an “imaginary” line in the ocean several miles to sea.

And fourth, a large proportion of the economic benefits generated in Moalboal accrue to local community members. Rules governing foreign ownership mean Filipinos own at least half of all businesses in the community. This probably goes a long way toward preventing the “economic leakage” that characterizes many ecotourism ventures, where most of the profits go to outside tourism operators and investors rather than to the local community.

And benefits of the ecotourism industry don’t stop there. The authors estimate that the ecotourism industry provides around 1,000 jobs to local community members, including some current and former fishermen.

Ecotourism can help reduce pressure on fish stocks in small-scale fisheries by providing good jobs, profits and revenues that can be used to provide the services that people need. And you don’t need whales and other charismatic megafauna to generate these benefits — little fish can do it, too.

Related Posts

• Using sound to improve fishery management study sardines in the Philippines
• IUCN WCC | Sustainable fisheries & biodiversity conservation — working together in the face of climate change
• Finding the ways that work: tech for climate-resilient fisheries

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Fishing for solutions: ecotourism and conservation in Galapagos national park

Ecotourism is definitely 'easier said than done'. Conceptually, the idea is most appealing: carry out responsible, educational travel to natural areas in ways that contribute to environmental conservation and enhance the livelihood of local people. Put another way, ecotourism is the business of nature tourism measured against the triple bottom line: black ink for business and the equivalent of black ink for both conservation and local well-being.

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Amanda Stronza

Biodiversity and Conservation

edwin asubisye

Ecotourism is expected, by the tourism industry and academics, to grow rapidly over the next 20 years. Much has been written about ecotourism, often with missionary zeal, but there is little consensus about its definition. It is argued here that conservationists and protected area managers should adopt a definition of ecotourism which contributes to the maintenance of biodiversity and an appropriate definition is suggested. Ecotourism is not merely an alternative to mass tourism, nor is it the only alternative. The literature on nature tourism and the environmental impacts of the industry dates back to the late 1970s. Tourism is now the world's largest industry and it has an increasing impact on protected areas. Our understanding of these mechanisms, their ecological impacts and our capacity to manage tourism in protected areas lags behind the growth of tourism to protected areas. A rapid growth in nature tourism and tourism to protected areas has coincided with a shift in protected area management strategies towards integrated development. Tourism is one means available to protected area managers seeking to increase the economic value of a protected area and to offer sustainable opportunities for economic development to local people. This paper argues that potentially conflicting commercial, protected area and development interests all contribute to the emergence of ecotourism and have been doing so for many years. Ecotourism needs to be tightly defined if it is to benefit conservation. Protected area managers should consider how they can take control of nature tourism to the parks they manage and convert it into ecotourism for the benefit of conservation and the livelihoods of local people.

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Donald Self

Tourism accounts for approximately 7.5% - 15% of the world’s total employment and is the world’s most important service industry. In heavily frequented tourist destinations such as the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, the importance is even higher. International travel is projected to double by 2020 with over 1.5 billion people traveling throughout the world. Within the tourism industry, ecotourism is the fastest growing sector, growing from 10 to 30 percent a year. While exact definitions of ecotourism vary, ecotourism is defined by the International Tourism Society (TIES) as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the welfare of local people.” A subset of sustainable tourism, ecotourism has a natural area focus, which benefits the environment and communities visited, fosters environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and awareness. Because there is no universally adopted certification program for ecotourism, tourism operators...

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Sergio Ardila

Katrina Brandon

Conservation Biology

Annual Review of Environment and Resources

Carter Hunt , Lee A Fitzgerald

Ecotourism originated in the 1980s, at the dawn of sustainable development, as a way to channel tourism revenues into conservation and development. Despite the “win-win” idea, scholars and practitioners debate the meaning and merits of ecotourism. We conducted a review of 30 years of ecotourism research, looking for empirical evidence of successes and failures. We found the following trends: Ecotourism is often conflated with outdoor recreation and other forms of conventional tourism; impact studies tend to focus on either ecological or social impacts, but rarely both; and research tends to lack time series data, precluding authors from discerning effects over time, either on conservation, levels of biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, local governance, or other indicators. Given increasing pressures on wild lands and wildlife, we see a need to add rigor to analyses of ecotourism. We provide suggestions for future research and offer a framework for study design and issues of measurement and scaling.

This volume offers a close look at leading experiments under way today in ecotourism in the Americas, a hemisphere where this increasingly important form of tourism flourishes. The chapters explore ecotourism in settings as different as indigenous community lands in the Amazon (Chapters 1, 2 and 10), a luxurious private ecolodge in Montana (Chapter 7), the famous National Park and World Heritage Site of Galapagos (Chapter 5) and in the state-controlled centralized economy of Cuba (Chapter 12).

Jeff Rose , Adrienne Mathis

Thousands of tourists venture to the internationally renowned Galapagos Islands each year to admire the same pristine nature Darwin came upon over 150 years ago. While appreciating the landscape, many visitors fail to understand the interconnectedness of the tourism industry, Galapagos conservation efforts, and development on the inhabited islands of the archipelago. This research stems from 6 weeks of in-depth field research on San Cristóbal Island, Galapagos Islands, and demonstrates the ways in which island residents are forced to navigate the complex intersection of tourism, conservation, and development on the most local scale. Conservation political ecology examines the asymmetrical power relations in protected areas. Therefore, to understand the impacts of conservation and tourism on local communities, political ecology frames research findings to illustrate how relationships between conservation, tourism, and development have altered not only the San Cristóbal community, but also locals' perceptions of various actors, their own agency, and Galapagos nature. The San Cristóbal municipal government aims to implement a version of 'true' ecotourism, which would allow residents to reclaim political agency, yet the lack of aid and transparency throughout larger scales of Ecuadorian governance challenges these local ideals.

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With no-fishing zones, Mexican fishermen restored the marine ecosystem

• By Deepa Fernandes

In the Sea of Cortez, off the coast of La Paz, implementing no-fishing zones has helped the marine ecosystem recover. Now that the fish are back, many ex-fishermen have moved from fishing to guiding tourists on underwater expeditions. 

The idea that the ocean can run out of fish might seem implausible. Yet if you ask Jesús Enrique León Lara, that’s exactly what has been happening over the last decade in his tiny patch of paradise, a village called Agua Verde in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.

“We lived off what we caught, from what the ocean gave us,” León said. “There was so much fish, so many types of fish. But now it’s not like that. There’s a lot less fish.”

León comes from a long line of fishermen, stretching back at least to his great-grandparents. So do many of his neighbors. So when he and other fisherfolk in Agua Verde started coming in from a day’s fishing with very little, sometimes even nothing, worry spread in the community. Their livelihood was on the line.

It’s a problem facing small fishing communities worldwide — overfishing and other human impacts have led to days when no one catches anything. The seas off the Mexican coast of Baja California Sur — a big fishing area — have seen the fish population dwindle, according to Hudson Weaver, manager of the sustainable fisheries program at Baja’s  Sociedad de Historia Natural Niparajá , a conservation nonprofit.

“There used to be a lot more fish in the water all over Baja California,” Weaver said.

Weaver, who has worked in Agua Verde for 12 years, said there are lots of reasons for that.

“[There are] the changes we’ve seen in a lot of the climate and the water temperatures,” Weaver said. “There’s natural changes like sardines that go through boom and bust cycles, and then there’s changes in the fisheries — so overfishing or fishing past the point of being able to replenish those fish in a yearly fashion.”

Fishing boats big and small came here from all over Mexico. And even the local fishermen themselves were just catching too many fish. All these things combined ultimately brought some fishing communities here to the breaking point.

It led Weaver and her colleagues at Niparajá to begin conversations with fishing families in Agua Verde about how to reverse the trend. And the conversations came to focus on one radical idea: Just stop fishing. At least for a while.

In Baja California Sur it’s known as zonas de refugio , or no-fishing zones. The idea is that if you stop fishing, the marine ecosystem — and the fish — might eventually be able to bounce back.

But it would also mean a big hit to local subsistence fishermen and their families. So could it work?

The experience of another community in the area suggests it can.

Cabo Pulmo, 250 miles south of Agua Verde, is so remote it’s off the state’s electricity grid. But it used to be a fishing paradise.

“It was full, full of sea bass and grouper,” says longtime fisherman Mario Castro, pointing to the sea around his boat, which is moored at a spot where he used to fish every day.

In classic fisherman style, Castro regales me with stories of the huge fish he used to catch. His face is weather-beaten but animated, and he’s totally at home on the sloppy ocean that roils the boat.

Some 25 years ago, he says, things began to change. Too often his fishing line would dangle the entire day without hooking a single fish.

So 20 years ago, Castro and his fellow fishermen took the radical step of turning almost the entire area into a no-fishing zone. And the results have been dramatic.

As we traverse the ocean around Cabo Pulmo where no one has fished in 20 years, Castro points out a sea turtle, part of a thriving marine community. Castro said locals are seeing wildlife here that even some of his old uncles don’t ever remember seeing.

After two decades of not fishing at all, he says, the ocean here is full of fish.

Octavio Aburto backs up what the local residents are seeing. He’s a marine biologist who has been studying Cabo Pulmo for all those years, and he says this little patch of ocean has become a case study in underwater regeneration.

“The corals are growing faster and better. Why? Because they are healthier,” Aburto said.

The corals are the feeding ground for the littlest fish. And those now have a chance to grow into food for the big predators likes sharks, which Aburto says are also back. Altogether, he says, the fishing ban has helped restore a thriving ocean ecosystem.

“When you have a community that has all the elements for that community — like big predators, herbivores, corals, sea fans, octopuses — when you have everything there, the community is stronger and each of the species with the community they can be more productive,” he said.

Aburto was part of a group of scientists at the University of Baja California Sur who worked on setting up the no-fishing zone. They even petitioned the Mexican government to have the area declared a national park.

Mario Castro, the former fisherman, worked with the scientists and ultimately became the local leader in the effort.

It was no easy task. It meant suspending a way of life that was generations old and convincing all the fisherman to put the prospect of long-term stability ahead of short-term economic loss.

But he managed to convince his old uncles and father and brother, all the fishermen in the village, to give it a go.

Before long, Castro says, they watched beautiful fish begin to return. But they resisted temptation and stuck with the no-fishing plan, leaving just one tiny sliver of the ocean open for daily consumption. Instead, to fill the gap, they decided to try to make Cabo Pulmo into a destination for diving and snorkeling. Fishermen would become guides. Castro was one of the first to get certified.

And word slowly spread about the exotic marine life at Cabo Pulmo. Tourists began coming, despite the bumpy, dirt road access to the town and the lack of regular electricity.

At first, it was only a trickle, maybe one tourist a week. “It was 10 years of suffering,” Castro said.

But 20 years later, Cabo Pulmo is a hot place for divers. Castro’s family runs two snorkel and dive tour companies and they take out multiple boats a day full of tourists. Showing off their underwater wonders has become such a thriving business that the Castros and other former fisherfolk ultimately decided not to go back to fishing at all. They see their future in dive tourism.

And the town’s experiment may be an example to other communities in the region.

José Flores lives in La Paz, about 90 miles up the Baja coast from Cabo Pulmo, where he is the head of a fishing cooperative. He grew up fishing for what his family ate every day. But here, too, the fish started to run out.

When Flores heard about no-fishing zones, the idea seemed risky. But he also saw that it seemed to be working in other places. So he joined an effort to help establish one in La Paz. It was a tough sell, as it had been in Cabo Pulmo. But Flores says it’s working here too.

“The whole area has improved and the richness of the ocean life returned,” Flores said.

Still, he said it has been challenging to make sure that everyone respects the boundaries, especially people from out of town. Locals have had to work with the government to enforce the restrictions.

It’s a set of challenges the conservation group Niparajá has seen up and down the Baja coast. But as in Cabo Pulmo, part of the solution has been diving, although not for recreation and tourism.

On a recent July morning, young people from the remote community of Agua Verde, where Jesús León Lara lives and which also established its own small no-fishing zone, were in La Paz for a week-long dive training run by Niparajá. The participants were learning how to patrol their no-fishing zone back home and monitor changes in the abundance of fish to help determine whether their experiment is actually working.

Ultimately, the data could help make the case for expanding the protected zone. Initial results indicate the fish are coming back to Agua Verde.

And Jesús León Lara is relieved.

“There’s no other way,” León said. Unlike Cabo Pulmo, his part of Baja is just too remote to attract many tourists. So if his community is going to survive, it really needs the fish to come back.

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Avoiding and exploiting the tragedy of the commons: fishing, crime, and conflict in the South China Sea

• Original Article
• Published: 13 September 2023
• Volume 60 , pages 1294–1314, ( 2023 )

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• Kristi Govella   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0579-0748 1  

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What factors have driven the dramatic depletion of fishery resources in the South China Sea, and how have states responded? This article demonstrates that a complex mix of political, economic, and security drivers has led to the fishing crisis in the South China Sea in the fashion of a classic “tragedy of the commons.” Although states have attempted to solve this problem by cooperating through bilateral, regional, and international arrangements, the article argues that states have also sought to exploit the situation as part of “hybrid” or “gray zone” strategies that blur the lines between private and public actors and between law enforcement and military activities.  It identifies four mechanisms through which the conditions associated with the tragedy of the commons enable states to put fishers and fishing regulation on the frontlines of defending their territorial claims in the South China Sea.

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Source : adapted by author from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy ( 2017 )

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Acknowledgements

An early version of this article benefited from feedback from the participants of the conference on “Maritime Asia: The Securitization of the China Seas in the 19th–21st Centuries” hosted by the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley, on August 9–12, 2021. Casey Schneider-Mizell provided assistance with figure design.

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Govella, K. Avoiding and exploiting the tragedy of the commons: fishing, crime, and conflict in the South China Sea. Int Polit 60 , 1294–1314 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-023-00501-4

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Overtourism Solutions: Strategies to Manage Mass Tourism

This pages have been created to enable the easy sharing of experience in managing overtourism and avoiding it. There is a typology of overtourism solutions which provides an index and wherever possible a link to where further information can be found along with a contact.

The limits to growth are not just an issue for travel and tourism as the Wall Street Journal has described tourism as currently “generating a global backlash”.   Responsible Tourism is about using tourism to make better places for people to live in and to visit. Overtourism is the antithesis to this, tourism is using the place and degrading it.

Overtourism  describes destinations where hosts or guests, locals or visitors, feel that there are too many visitors and that the quality of life in the area or the quality of the experience has deteriorated unacceptably. It is the opposite of Responsible Tourism which is about using tourism to make better places to live in and better places to visit. Often both visitors and guests experience the deterioration concurrently.

The problem is not going to go away – we need to work out how to cope with it. The challenge for businesses and destination marketing organisations is that they no longer have a free hand to use the places that people live and work in to attract visitors. The residents, whose place it is, are beginning to rebel and consumers are all too aware that some destinations are not what they were. The challenge now is to develop ways of “Coping with Success”, addressing overtourism.

Essential Preconditions

In many places, there is confusion about the roles of DMOs. The same acronym is used for both Destination Management Organisations and Destination Marketing Organisations with bodies composed primarily of private sector representatives spending private sector and public money on destination promotion.

In Barcelona the management of tourism is unequivocally the responsibility of the city council. It is significant that the “objectives and strategic lines” of Turisme de Barcelona, the public-private partnership organisation which markets the city include public policy objectives.  Turisme de Barcelona recognises its “social and institutional responsibility” to “achieve a balance between tourist activity and everyday life in the city” and encouraging wider geographic distribution of tourism in the city.

• a) To boost the financial impact of the sector and to attract tourists with high spending power; b) To promote its own identity as a tourist attraction; c) To reconcile tourists/local community; d) To ensure the geographical and multi-sectorial distribution of tourism; e) To strengthen the public-private promotional model.

Overtourism is often attacked as tourismophobia . Barcelona has countered this view, as Ada Colau, now Mayor Barcelona said in 2014:

“Of course, the answer is not to attack tourism. Everyone is a tourist at some point in their life. Rather, we have to regulate the sector, return to the traditions of local urban planning, and put the rights of residents before those of big business.

The way of life for all Barcelonans is seriously under threat. And the only solution is to win back democracy for the city. This is precisely what the residents of La Barceloneta are doing – defending their neighbourhood, their city, from the free market and from the political elites that are putting our home up for sale.” more

Governance Barcelona & Kerala have effectively managed different sets or overtourism challenges by engaging the tourism sector and local communities in addressing the particular local issues and using a multi-stakeholder approach.

Barcelona's Strategy and Action Barcelona is using a wider range of mechanisms to address the challenge of overtourism than any other destination, their experience is important as others rise to the challenge.

Barcelona has sought, since 2004, to make tourist activities more sustainable, to increase the positive impacts of tourism in the city and to integrate visitors fostering coexistence, Barcelona aspires to treat visitors as temporary residents . The city is working to ensure that there are no tourist ghettos and that tourism contributes to the improvement of the quality of life and social cohesion. Barcelona has recognised that sustainability and competitiveness need to be used together in managing tourism. In Barcelona, a City and Tourism Council has been formed to advise the City Council on tourism policy and management. more

As in many sectors, the regulation moves more slowly than the growth of new business models. This has been evident in the growth of businesses like Airbnb and Uber where regulators have struggled to keep up. Similarly, the management of the public realm – streets, parks and squares - has been a major challenge as tourism numbers have grown and accelerated.

Shared/reliable common information Effective management action involving diverse stakeholders requires shared data. Dichter, a senior partner of McKinsey & Company consultancy, says that: 

“We talk to so many people in the tourism ecosystem and no one has the same facts – not even close,” …  “If you can’t even agree on how many tourists are showing up, it’s very difficult to have a proper debate.”   More

Only with good data is it possible to identify benefits and costs and develop management strategies to rebalance tourism. Shared, publicly available, reliable data has been a major plank of Barcelona’s efforts to address overtourism. The UNWTO points to the importance of “monitoring and evidence-based decisions.”

Barcelona surveys its residents regularly to determine their views about tourism and other problems in the city.

Barcelona publishes monthly forecasts of volumes of visitor numbers for each day reporting all events or activities which involve 10,000 or more people, where the forecast goes over 70,000 the calendar shows red, residents can then avoid the congested areas or avoid the city altogether. In September 2018 there were three days over 200,000, one of which was close to 300,000. example

Strategies to manage overtourism

Limits of Acceptable Change

Identify key indicators for the destination which identify the emerging issues so that they can be addressed. The growth of unlicensed tourist accommodation and change of use for the housing stock, changing retail offer, rising local housing costs, litter, trampling, crowding... choose the locally significant issues and problems.

Preferential Access for Locals At Park Güell, in Barcelona access to the Monument Area (7.9% of its area) has been regulated. In 2013, an 8€ entry fee was imposed, local residents have unrestricted and free access

Barcelona publishes monthly forecasts of volumes of visitor numbers for each day reporting all events or activities which involve 10,000 or more people, where the forecast goes over 70,000 the calendar shows red, residents can then avoid the congested areas or avoid the city altogether. In September 2018 there were three days over 200,000, one of which was close to 300,000.

Temporary Residents Changing the nature of tourism and the visitor experience by managing the destination to attract visitors as temporary residents. This strategy can change the dynamics of tourism and the host-guest relationship.

Tourist Tax

Tourism Taxes are controversial. They are generally too low to deter visitors, but they do enable local authorities to raise money to fund the management of tourism, to repair damage to lawns and pay for the removal of litter.

If one of the aspirations of Responsible Tourism is that tourists should be treated as temporary residents then it is not unreasonable that overnight tourists and day visitors should contribute to the maintenance of the public realm which they are visiting and using. Tourism taxes are generally levied through accommodation providers and occasionally through tour companies. New Zealand has introduced a $35 tourism levy to protect tourist hot spots.

Amsterdam has introduced a Day Tourist Tax for TRANSIT sea cruise and river cruise passengers that moor within the municipal boundaries of Amsterdam.

Ensuring that local community’s benefit from tourism

In Kerala, India, the state government has established a Responsible Tourism Mission to ensure that local communities benefit through the creation of shared value.

Supply-side initiatives

Accommodation Deregulated housing markets can attract international investors causing inflation in housing costs, and holiday rentals can be far more lucrative than letting to residents and families. By restricting the availability of accommodation visitor arrivals can be restricted.

Issues arise where there are concentrations of tourism in particular areas where tourism comes to dominate, and where there is unlicensed and unregulated accommodation which may cause disturbance and raises issues of health and safety and taxation.

In July 2015, Barcelona's municipal government suspended the processing of new permits for tourist-accommodation, student-residences and youth-hostel establishments, to analyse the impact of tourist-accommodation activities in all its aspects and to draft a special urban-development plan to regulate it. Ciutat Vella now has a Usage Plan designed to restrict the growth of tourist accommodation, whether hotels or apartments and a Tourist Accommodation Working Group has been tasked to complement municipal efforts to reduce the numbers of unlicensed apartments.

Disintermediation Airbnb is most often the focus of attention; the internet has replaced small ads in newspapers, magazines and shop windows as a means of advertising accommodation. This has made it easier to market accommodation and this, coupled with the deregulation of housing in many jurisdictions, has led to a significant increase in the letting of accommodation to tourists and in many places a depletion in accommodation stock available to residents, often with negative social and economic impacts.

Barcelona and Dublin have regulated Airbnb. From June, 2019, in designated rent-pressure zones, which cover Dublin and major commuter towns as well as Galway and Cork cities and part of Limerick, councils will need to grant planning approval for any short-term letting of investment properties. Where a house or apartment is a person's principal private residence, they will be permitted to rent out a room (or rooms) within their home for short-term letting without restriction. However, they will only be allowed to sub-let their entire house without planning permission on the short-term market for a cumulative period of 90 days or less annually. Individuals who own a second property will no longer be allowed to arrange short-term lettings, unless the property already has permission to be used for such purposes or for tourism. more

Matching Demand to Supply Timed ticketing and seasonal pricing all help in matching demand to supply and can contribute to ensuring that visitors have a better experience. Praia das Catedrais or “Cathedrals Beach” on the Galician coast in northwest Spain requires an advance booking . 

Spatial and Town Planning Local governments and national parks are generally able to control the siting of accommodation and other visitor services, depending on national planning policy frameworks.

The Amsterdam municipal authority introduced a zoning plan "Shop Diversity Center" prohibits new shops opening in the city center that mainly target tourists and day visitors, such as souvenir shops. The municipality argued that it wants to counteract a so-called monoculture in the city center and prevent tourist shops from gaining the upper hand in the streets. Tourism companies that existed before 2017 are excluded from the zoning plan rules.  Building owners and companies objected to the restrictions imposed by the zoning plan, accusing the municipality of violating the European Services Directive, discrimination, and causing property values to fall. In April 2020, the Council of State found in favour of the municipality deciding that the Amsterdam city council could reasonably conclude that there is a monoculture of shops and facilities in the city center, and that banning new tourist shops was in the interest of the people who live and work in Amsterdam. The Council of State also saw no grounds for claims of discrimination and building depreciation. more

Transport Barcelona has experimented with moving coach parks, bus routes and pick-up and put-down points to change the way tourists move through an urban area. In rural areas and in national parks, parking has been used to control visitor movements and reduce dispersal to the sacrifice zone. Strategies like pedestrianisation and park-and-ride can benefit residents as well as assisting in managing tourism and the tourist experience.

Closure Closing areas to allow regeneration has long been a management practice in natural areas. Thai officials said Maya Bay needed an enforced break from the daytrippers who have flocked there since it was featured in 2000 film The Beach. more Thailand closed dozens of dive sites to tourists in 2011. Koh Yoong, in the Phi Phi island chain and Koh Tachai, in the Similan Islands National Park, have also been off-limits to visitors since mid-2016. more Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced that  Boracay Island will also be closing for a few months, having, in his words, become an overcrowded "cesspool". more

Banning Second Home Building  Banning the building of second homes may have unintended consequences as those outsiders wanting to purchase buy existing properties raising prices and damaging the local building and tourism industries. 

Banning Motor Homes  In the UK Swale Borough Council in Kent has used Section 43 of the anti-social behaviour, crime and policing act to ban overnight camping between 8pm and 8am as illegal and likely to have a "detrimental effect" on locals. The Council says that the council had received complaints "This conduct is unreasonable and must stop immediately." Continued use would result in a £100 fixed penalty notice. If unpaid, magistrates can issue a fine of up to £2,500 and require the "surrender of possessions" which could then be destroyed or disposed of by police.

Section 43: Power to issue notices (1)An authorised person may issue a community protection notice to an individual aged 16 or over, or a body, if satisfied on reasonable grounds that— (a)the conduct of the individual or body is having a detrimental effect, of a persistent or continuing nature, on the quality of life of those in the locality, and (b)the conduct is unreasonable.

In New Zealand, new legislation was introduced in August 2011 empowering local councils to issue fines to people freedom camping in non-designated places. Details 

Demand-side initiatives

Ministers of Tourism and DMOs are generally judged by the visitor arrivals figures, and for national governments with their focus on exports, international arrivals are the key measure of the value of the marketing organisation. If you change the KPI of a marketer, they will deliver to it. A destination could choose to focus on visitor spend, length of stay, distribution and dispersal or on particular market segments. If you don't change the KPIs they will do the easy thing and sell the honeypots.

Attract tourists who fit the destination - change the destination's image Businesses and the destination marketers should focus their efforts on attracting the market segments which fit the destination. Barcelona has been explicit:

“What is good for citizens is good for the tourist. Places that are good to live in are also good to visit. Efforts will be made to improve the quality of life for local people by managing the friction between residents and visitors and to improve the interaction between hosts and guests…..” and that the “tourist that Catalunya wants to attract is the one who will respect the environment, the society and the local culture, eager to discover and share experiences.” more

Cap Arrivals Neither Barcelona nor Venice is able to manage tourist arrivals, both have good road links, airports, railway stations and ports, none of which are they able to manage. Dubrovnik, by contrast, has been able to limit cruise ship arrivals. In October 2018 it announced that it is limiting cruise ship arrivals from 2019 to two per day, allowing only 5,000 visitors to arrive by sea each day.

Bruges has placed a cap on the number of cruise ships and an end to all advertising campaigns encouraging daytrippers.

  Change Tourist Behaviour through marketing and advice

a) Demarketing Demarketing can be used to discourage visitors in order to reduce negative impacts – as with marketing there is a range of methods available from price rises to reducing promotional activity and spreading the word that the quality of the experience has deteriorated to discourage visitors.

b) Discourage “Bad” Tourists and Tourism Banning stag nights and hen dos. In Barcelona, it is known as “turismo de Borrachera” travelling to another place to behave in ways you would not do where you are known. This does not always require travel across an international boundary.

Rome has outlawed men going topless in public and the practice of attaching “love padlocks” to bridges, both of which carry a fine if contravened. Eating messy foods around tourist attractions, touching your lips against the spout when drinking from Roman public water fountains, Ticket touts selling “skip the line” tickets at some of the Eternal City’s biggest attractions, such as the Vatican Museums and Colosseum, are prohibited, as well as those who dress up as Roman centurions around tourist hotspots and charge money for photos.

c) Pricing and Rationing Dynamic pricing charging higher prices at peak demand and lower prices when demand and crowding is less

Site Hardening

Constructing facilities and locating trails and roads to reduce the impacts of visitors on sensitive soils and vegetation, and to help meet the visitors' needs for user access.

Managing activity in the destination

Municipal Regulation Examples where a local government organisation has taken a holistic approach to the management of tourism in the destination as has been the case in, for example, Barcelona and Sagada in the Philippines.

Introducing guide and tour operator licenses. In Barcelona, there is a city task group working to prevent the spread of souvenir shops in Ciutat Vella, Sagrada Família, Park Güell

Dispersal – Spatial Spread the tourist out by encouraging them to visit less visited places, there may well be districts and areas where people would like to see more tourists, boost less popular attractions and develop new ones. Paris has done this effectively for many years. Barcelona has adopted spatial dispersal as part of its strategy and Helsinki has encouraged citizens to invite tourists to visit their favourite places.

Create new itineraries and guided tours to less visited areas Consider regulating group size and coach drop off points to manage visitor flows

In Ireland the Wild Atlantic Way 

Dispersal - temporal Attracting tourists to visit at other times of the year, week and day to disperse the positive and negative impacts of tourism.

Timed Tickets and Differential Pricing

  'Policing' Activities and Behaviour Since May 2017 in Florence:

"From today, we'll be experimenting with a very simple measure: pouring water over the church steps to clean the spaces, and hopefully discourage people from eating, drinking and making a mess there,"

Mayor Dario Nardella told reporters. "If tourists want to sit there, they'll get wet," he said. "Florence is full of cafes with outdoor seating, tables, and benches. The churches aren't restaurants; they are religious and cultural sites." more

Since 2018 in Amsterdam: Public consumption of alcohol will result in a fine of €95; public urination, disorderliness and littering, meanwhile, will draw fines of €140.

The council has also announced plans to tackle overcrowding in The Wallen, which residents say has become “unliveable” due to mass tourism. Streets there will be monitored in real time and coded green, orange or red, depending on how busy they are. If a code red is called, officials will be deployed and “if necessary, streets will be closed,” the council said. More

Closure Komodo, Indonesia  The fight for Dragon Island  Maya Bay "The Beach" Thailand 

If you have solutions for overtourism which you would like to see included here please email [email protected] Your contribution will be acknowledged.

• EU (2018) Research for TRAN Committee - Overtourism: impact and possible policy responses
• Goodwin H (2018) Managing Tourism in Barcelona 2nd Edition
• Goodwin H (2017) The Challenge of Overtourism
• McKinsey & WTTC (2017) Coping with success: Managing overcrowding in tourism destinations
• UNWTO (2018) ‘Overtourism’? – Understanding and Managing Urban Tourism Growth beyond Perceptions, Executive Summary

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Overfishing 101: Everything You Need to Know

Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions.

Quick Key Facts

• Overfishing is the removal of fish from their aquatic habitat at a rate faster than they can reproduce. This diminishes their populations and has cascading effects down the food chain, greatly impacting the trophic structures of ecosystems. 
• Wild-capture fisheries harvested 96.4 million tons of fish in 2018 . No other industry in the world removes so many wild animals from their habitat. 
• Large-scale commercial fishing often entails harmful, exploitative practices — like bottom-trawling and blast fishing — that cause damage to coral reefs and other marine habitats.
• Non-target marine species — including sea lions, sharks, turtles, and seabirds — are often mistakenly caught as “bycatch” in trawling nets or longlines, and are severely injured or killed in the process. 
• The fishing industry provides income for 10-12% of the global population, and fish are an important source of protein for 3 billion people. A decline in fish stocks could result in economic instability and a hunger crisis for these communities. 
• Government subsidies for commercial fishing have long incentivized the fishing of overexploited fish stocks. 

What Is Overfishing?

Overfishing occurs when fish are caught faster than their populations can reproduce and replenish themselves, and it’s among the greatest threats to our oceans. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, one-third of assessed fisheries worldwide are pushed beyond their biological limits , which has severe environmental and social consequences. 

While overfishing can occur in any aqueous habitat — oceans, lakes, ponds, rivers, and wetlands alike — it is especially associated with commercial fishing in marine waters, whereby massive numbers of fish are caught at once. Some trawl nets used in ocean fishing are so big, they can hold up to 13 jumbo jets. Today, nearly 90% of marine fish stocks (a stock being defined as a group of the same species that lives in the same geographic area) globally are either overfished or exploited . 

The History of Overfishing 

Fishing itself has happened throughout recorded history, but deep-sea, commercial fishing didn’t arise until the 15th century, and became more commercial in the 19th century with the arrival of steamboats. Around that time, humans began destroying whale populations as they fished them in huge numbers for their blubber to make oil. 

In the 1950s, this type of intensive fishing ceased to be an industry that characterized only a few areas, but extended to the vast majority of fisheries. The 1970s brought the first major signs of overfishing and became clearer in the 1990s when populations of open sea fish started falling dramatically, and Atlantic cod, herring, and California sardines were fished almost to extinction . Canada’s Grand Banks cod fishery collapsed in 1992, leading to massive layoffs in coastal communities and exposing the immediate threat of overfishing. 

Overfishing vs. Illegal and Destructive Fishing 

The term “overfishing” refers specifically to fishing beyond sustainable levels, although illegal and destructive fishing often play a role in population depletion. 

Illegal Fishing 

It’s important to note that overfishing is not the same as illegal fishing. Overfishing is often not illegal, and occurs when there are inadequate catch limits, a lack of standards set by governments, or other management issues. Illegal fishing, on the other hand, entails fishing without a license, with illegal gear, in closed areas, over a set quota, or of prohibited species. It’s often called IUU fishing (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated), and breaks either regional or international laws. Illegal fishing operations are estimated to be worth about $10-23.5 billion annually , according to the Marine Stewardship Council, although much of this activity goes unreported. Total catches in West Africa , for example, are purported to be about 40% more than what is reported. Illegal operations often do not adhere to sustainability standards, and thus cause damage to fish populations and marine ecosystems. 

Destructive Fishing 

Destructive fishing is also a separate kind of harmful fishing. The term refers to practices that are harmful to fish populations and their habitats based on certain highly destructive methods, like the use of cyanide or explosives. Blast fishing, for one, uses explosives to stun the fish and raise them to the surface of the water, destroying entire sections of coral reefs and other ecosystems in the process. Cyanide fishing — which is practiced widely in Southeast Asia — uses the chemical to stun coral reef fish in order for fishers to capture them alive (although one-third to one-half of fish caught by this method usually die ), but corals are seriously damaged in the process of extracting the stunned fish, and by the cyanide itself. 

Causes of Overfishing

The causes of overfishing are manyfold and complex, with multiple factors compounding and contributing to the problem. 

Better Technology 

Fishing is no longer the imprecise, uncertain practice that it once was. Technological advances — like satellite navigation, echo-sounders, and acoustic cameras — have made it easier for fishers to locate fish and capture them with great precision. Huge, commercial fishing vessels also have refrigeration systems on board, which makes it possible for boats to stay out at sea for longer and catch greater volumes of fish at once. 

Population Growth and Demand

Quite simply, there are more people in the world, and so a greater demand for fish. Marine fish provide about 15% of all animal protein consumed by humans, but as populations grow, so does the number of fish needed to satisfy demand. The average increase of global fish consumption has actually outpaced population growth , meaning people are also consuming more fish on average. Between 1990 and 2018, consumption of seafood rose 122% , and as it’s grown, the level of sustainable fish stocks has dropped by about a third from 1970s levels.

Government Subsidies and Incentives

Governmental support is cited as a reason why overfishing continues. Currently, annual subsidies to marine fisheries globally are around $35 billion — that’s about 30% of the first sale value of all caught fish. This financial support (sometimes in the form of lower taxes) that’s given to the fishing industry offsets the costs of doing business, incentivizes the catching of fish beyond sustainable levels, and encourages companies to continue fishing in overexploited areas where they would otherwise be unsuccessful. Subsidies are also an issue of equity in the sector — they are usually given to huge industrial fisheries and not smaller ones run by local people in places like coastal west Africa and the south Pacific , so the locals are forced to compete with these larger, subsidized companies. 

Poor Management of Fisheries 

Fisheries can be managed by governments either locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally, but are sometimes managed poorly with few barriers in place to prevent overfishing. Proper management will consider research on the state of fish stocks and how to sustain their populations, and usually institute catch quotas and other requirements for fisheries. But many fisheries are governed poorly and allow for too much fishing, or have inadequate reporting, monitoring, or enforcement systems that enable exploitation of the stocks.  

Lack of Protection for Oceans 

Oceans cover 70% of the Earth’s surface, but less than 8% (roughly the size of North America) of the ocean is protected. Marine Protected Areas have limits on human activity, but it’s a broad term that could mean many things; some have restricted visitation, allow for sustainable use by indigenous populations, and or even allow for commercial fishing. In fact, 80% of protected ocean areas still allow fishing within their borders. To properly restore biodiversity, a 2021 study suggests that 30% of oceans needs to be protected .

Environmental Impacts of Overfishing

Overfishing poses a huge threat to marine environments , from declining fish populations, to habitat destruction, to ocean pollution, and even the acceleration of climate change.  

Declining Fish Populations 

When fishery stocks fall below biologically sustainable levels , populations suffer and are at risk of becoming either endangered or extinct. Among the most overfished species are Southern and Atlantic bluefin tuna, European eel, cod, swordfish, groupers, and sturgeons. Currently, only 3% of Pacific bluefin tuna remain based on the population’s historic levels. Overall, marine species have decreased nearly 40% in the past 40 years . 

When their populations shrink, fish have to adapt differently. They might change in size, reproduce differently, or mature on a different timeline. When fish are captured when they are too small — a phenomenon called “growth“ overfishing — they never make it to maturity and thus don’t reproduce as much, so the overall yield and population of the fish shrinks. “Recruitment“ overfishing occurs when the adult population is so depleted that there aren’t enough fish to produce offspring. Deep sea fish like orange roughy, for example, grow very slowly given the lack of resources on the ocean floor, often taking decades to reach breeding maturity — so when they are caught, it takes a very long time for their populations to replenish. 

Destruction of Ecosystems 

Overfishing not only threatens the species themselves, but also the ecosystems they live in — particularly already-threatened coral reefs . It has been found to be the most serious threat to coral reefs, and it’s predicted that 90% of global coral reefs will be dead by 2050 due to commercial fishing. Besides blast- and cyanide-fishing practices, reefs are also impacted by trawling (sometimes called “bottom dragging”), a fishing tactic of dragging large nets along the ocean floor to catch fish. When algae-eating species are overfished, algae can also propagate unchecked and eventually smother the coral it grows on.

Bycatch is closely tied to overfishing, and constitutes one of its largest environmental impacts. Because commercial fishing hauls in huge numbers of fish at once, unwanted fish and animals are often caught in the process and are then merely discarded. Unwanted (or “non-target” species) are swept up when trawling for large quantities of fish using indiscriminate, non-selective gear that captures all wildlife in its path, including other species of fish, sea lions, dolphins, turtles, sharks, and even sea birds. Bycatch is sometimes returned to the ocean, but the animals often die or are injured so severely that they cannot reproduce . 

Billions of fish and hundreds of thousands of sea turtles and cetaceans are lost every year as bycatch, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Six out of seven species of sea turtles are either threatened or endangered as a direct result of fishing — they often get caught when fishers trawl for shrimp or prawns on the ocean floor, where turtles like to forage. Sharks are very susceptible, too, and about 50 million are killed every year as bycatch by unregulated fisheries. More than one-third of all sharks, rays, and chimaeras are now at risk for extinction due to overfishing alone. 

A fishing practice called “ longlining ” — whereby a line is sent out with hundreds or sometimes thousands of baited hooks — results in a lot of bycatch. Longlining is usually employed to catch tuna, swordfish, and halibut, but other fish go after the hooks, too. Sea birds also get caught in the lines when they dive under the water to fish. 

Disruption of Food Chains

The removal of fished species and the death of bycatch can seriously impact marine trophic structures. Fish are a part of complex marine food chains, serving as food sources for larger fish and feeding on smaller fish or vegetation. Sharks, for example, are large predators that regulate smaller species below them, so when large numbers are lost as bycatch, smaller fish populations might grow too large. If there are unnaturally high numbers of fish, they might feed too heavily on vegetation that’s needed by other species, further impacting the ecosystem and causing a ripple effect through the food chain. 

Plastic Pollution From Ghost Gear 

When fishers engage in huge fishing operations, they leave a lot of trash in their wake. Up to one million tons of fishing gear is abandoned in oceans every year , smothering animals, corals, and other marine habitats. This “ ghost gear ” makes up 10% of all ocean plastic pollution , but constitutes the majority of large plastic items. In terms of weight, 86% of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is fishing nets. Like other ocean plastics, this gear breaks down slowly over time, releasing microplastics into the ocean as it degrades.  

Climate Change

Our oceans are carbon sinks, meaning they absorb carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, effectively mitigating climate change . In all, the ocean absorbs 25% of our CO2 emissions and 90% of heat generated by humans.  Fishing activity removes sequestered  “ blue carbon ” from the ocean and releases it into the atmosphere.

Carbon is sequestered in the bodies of phytoplankton , which convert CO2 into sugars, but disrupting marine habitats and food webs impacts their activity. Carbon stored in the sediment of the seafloor is also released when bottom trawling disturbs its surface.

Social Impacts of Overfishing

Besides the environmental impacts of overfishing, exploiting our oceans also impacts economies that depend on fishing for income, and communities that rely on fish as a source of protein. 

Fishing as Livelihood

The fishing industry is currently valued at $362 billion, and supplies income for 10-12% of the world population, from both large- and small-scale fishing operations. 60 million people globally work either directly or indirectly in the fishing industry, but if fish stocks are overexploited and can no longer be profitably harvested, many of these jobs could disappear. Coral reef areas are also tourism hubs for activities like snorkeling and boating. If these ecosystems are destroyed by trawling and destructive fishing, local communities that depend on tourism will also suffer. 

Food Security 

Sustaining fish populations is also a matter of food security. Globally, 3 billion people depend on seafood as a protein source, especially in the Maldives, Japan, Iceland, Cambodia, and western coastal communities in Africa, all of which could face a food crisis if fish stocks drop so low that they cannot replenish themselves. Because of poorly managed fisheries, the Marine Stewardship Council estimates that 72 million more people every year are missing out on getting enough protein. 

What About Farmed Fish?

Fish farming (also called aquaculture) raises fish in captivity for consumption. The Southern bluefin tuna was first bred in captivity in 2009, and now about half of the fish eaten in the U.S. are farmed. Aquaculture is often touted as a solution to wild-caught fish, but it comes with its own set of issues. Carnivorous fish — like tuna and salmon — need to eat smaller fish in order to grow. So while these fish themselves are grown in farms, their prey are still being fished — often unsustainably — in order to feed them, merely displacing the problem. There are nutritional drawbacks to farmed fish as well. Wild fish get omega-3s (a fatty acid that is a main benefit of eating fish) from eating aquatic plants, which they don’t get in fish farms when fed a diet of corn and soy. A growing body of research suggests that, contrary to prior assumptions, fish do feel pain and stress , which are heightened when living in confined conditions. 

Solutions to Overfishing

There are, however, solutions to overfishing — both on the personal and the legislative level. 

Remove Incentives and Subsidies 

Subsidies make it possible for companies to keep fishing in overfished waters, even when these ventures become less profitable as fish populations decline. It’s widely understood that ending subsidies would be effective at preventing overfishing, as 54% of high-seas fishing grounds wouldn’t be profitable in their absence . The World Trade Organization made moves in 2022 to curb subsidies by securing the Fisheries Agreement, under which countries are working to ban subsidies to IUU fishing and overfished stocks. 

Better Management Systems  

Better management of fisheries could reduce overfishing, as could enforcement of rules, including catch limits/quotas, whereby only a predetermined amount of fish can be caught every year; catch-share programs, which distribute harvest allowances to companies or individuals, who can then either use or sell them; and gear restrictions that only allow for species-specific nets or other devices that prevent bycatch, like turtle excluder devices (TED) that allow megafauna and turtles to escape shrimp nets. 

Small-scale fisheries in Japan and Chile have found success in using rights-based management . Under this system, exclusive ownership is given to a person, company, or municipality (like a village or community), which removes the tragedy-of-the-commons mentality and gives the owner an incentive to avoid overfishing the waters. 

Better Fishing Methods 

Technological advances have contributed to overfishing, but they might also offer a solution. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the FAO instituted a program in 2018 that promoted fish aggregating devices (FAD) , which are essentially floating devices that lure fish rather than catch them with large nets. So far, the program has seen a successful reduction of bycatch in Pakistani fisheries. SafetyNet Technologies has also developed a method of using LED lighting on gear that changes color and intensity to evoke behavioral responses from fish, allowing them to target specific species. These are among the many technological innovations being explored to reduce bycatch and other harmful effects of commercial fishing. 

Legislation and Governmental Intervention 

Even with new technological solutions, legislation is needed to implement management strategies and ensure compliance. Legislation around overfishing in the United States has seen success in helping fish species rebound. The Magnuson-Stevens Act — which provided for the management of marine fisheries in U.S. waters — passed in 1976 and is credited with helping Atlantic sea scallop and haddock populations rebuild, but hasn’t been updated or reauthorized since 2006 . The Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) managed by NOAA is a federal traceability standard, whereby importers have to report data about where fish were harvested for over a thousand different species. Before SIMP was implemented, almost a third of all wild-caught seafood imports to the U.S. were from illegal fishing operations. However, some environmental groups have argued that the program needs to be more stringent .

Protected Oceans 

While some Pacific island nations have historically protected their oceans, the U.S. and European countries didn’t manage coastal fisheries until the 20th century. Only 8% of the ocean is currently classified as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), which are protected along a spectrum: minimally, lightly, and highly/fully protected, which prohibits any kind of extractive activity (including drilling, mining, and fishing, aside from subsistence and recreational fishing under some circumstances). Science has shown that even under the best management by fisheries, an ocean ecosystem doesn’t receive all of the benefits of a fully protected MPA . Creating more MPAs would give species the chance to replenish within their borders. Ultimately, fisheries would benefit from these protections, too , as fish populations rebound within MPAs, and then often go back to fishing areas — a phenomenon referred to in the industry as “spillover” — and can be caught once again. 

Buy Sustainable Fish 

On the personal level, choosing sustainably caught fish creates an impact. The U.S. is a top importer of seafood ( Americans consumed around 6.3 billion pounds of seafood in 2019 , 90% of which was imported), so our choices can have a large influence on global practices around fisheries. Here’s how to choose sustainable fish for yourself and your household:

• Eat locally sourced fish when possible, or join a community-supported fishery (CSF), which is similar to a CSA.
• Use seafood guides to choose the best seafood, like the Environmental Defense Fund’s Seafood Selector or the Seafood Watch app from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which shares recommended species. 
• Look for labels on fish packaging from vetted third-party organizations, which award their certifications to fisheries that meet their standards. Some of the best are the Marine Stewardship Council , BAP (Best Aquaculture Practices), and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council .

Huge demand for fish and inadequate management of fisheries has allowed overfishing to continue. If unchecked, this decline in fish populations will have devastating impacts on the environment, food security, and the many economies that depend on the fishing industry. However, the many legislative and technological solutions to overfishing are in our hands.

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Coastal salmon fishing banned for a second year amid steep population declines

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With salmon populations struggling, fishery officials have decided to ban fishing along the California coast for a second straight year.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, a multi-state, quasi-federal body that decides on ocean fishing seasons, voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend shutting down commercial and recreational fishing along the coast.

Chinook salmon populations have suffered major declines in recent years, and fishery managers decided to prohibit fishing for another year to help stocks recover.

“A lot of people have already been hurting because of last year’s shutdown,” said Scott Artis, executive director of Golden State Salmon Assn. “And this is just going to be one more devastating blow.”

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California’s commercial salmon fishing fleet now numbers about 460 vessels, Artis said, and many in the business have recently turned to other work to make ends meet. Others who take groups out on charter boats for recreational fishing will also be forced to find other business for another year.

It’s the second time in California history that coastal fishing has been prohibited for two consecutive years. The other back-to-back closure occurred in 2008 and 2009.

In both cases, the cancellation of fishing came a few years after severe drought.

“After the closure last year, this decision is not an easy one to make,” said Charlton “Chuck” Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “While we have been enjoying back-to-back rainy and wet winters this year and last, the salmon that will benefit from these conditions aren’t expected to return to California until around 2026 or 2027.”

Bonham said the salmon “were impacted by the difficult environmental factors present three to five years ago.”

In an announcement of the closure , the Department of Fish and Wildlife said salmon stocks “continue to be impacted in California from ongoing issues associated with drought and climate disruption.”

The agency said low numbers of returning adult salmon last year — as well as low ocean population forecasts — led the Pacific Fishery Management Council to recommend full closure of ocean salmon fisheries.

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Captains of fishing boats on the California coast are bracing for salmon fishing to be severely restricted — or possibly canceled for a second year.

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The fishing season for fall-run chinook salmon would normally run from about May to October.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is expected to act on the council’s recommendation and enact the closure.

The council also recommended that the California Fish and Game Commission close down inland fishing for salmon on the state’s rivers at a meeting next month.

Many who work in the fishing industry have said they blame California water managers for the low salmon numbers, saying too much water has been sent to farms and cities, depriving rivers of the cold flows salmon need to survive.

Artis, whose group represents fishing communities, blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration.

“We’ve seen that under Gov. Newsom, the state of California has had a disastrous environmental record,” Artis said. “Dangerously low river flows, unsustainable water diversions have been happening out of our rivers.”

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He also criticized the amounts of water going to the state’s agriculture industry, saying that California has seen a dramatic expansion of “insatiably thirsty almond acreage” in recent years, and that the water the salmon industry relies on is being “stolen on Gov. Newsom’s watch.”

State officials say they are prioritizing plans to help salmon populations recover. Newsom’s administration in January announced a salmon strategy plan including a series of expanded efforts, including restoring habitats, modernizing hatcheries and removing barriers that block fish migration.

Bonham has said that even as the fishery goes through this difficult time, state officials are focused on actions that can “change the trajectory.” He said these efforts include restoring wetlands to create more habitat, removing dams on the Klamath River and protecting flows and water quality in rivers to support fish.

“Hope is very much alive for salmon in California,” Bonham said in a recent interview with The Times. “We think they can not only hang on in the state but thrive, and get back to healthy numbers each year, where people can enjoy them.”

California rivers once teemed with salmon, but the construction of dams blocked the fish from reaching many of the cold mountain streams where they once spawned. For decades, government-run hatcheries have reared and released millions of salmon each year. Those efforts, however, haven’t been enough to prevent populations from declining.

Successive droughts and global warming have also taken a toll. During the 2020-22 drought, the water flowing from dams sometimes got so warm that it was lethal for salmon eggs .

“There is no way that we can sugarcoat this or just lay the blame solely on drought. This really is a water policy problem. And it’s just compounded by drought and climate change,” Artis said. “If we want to save this industry in the long term, and save the species in the long term, we need to make some changes now on our water policy.”

As fish deaths increase at pumps, critics urge California agencies to improve protections

Environmental groups are urging water managers to scale back pumping until juvenile salmon and steelhead have finished migrating through the delta and into San Francisco Bay.

April 8, 2024

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns., the largest commercial fishing trade association on the West Coast, supported the closure. George Bradshaw, the federation’s president, said that although the shutdown is painful for fishing communities, “we all need to be doing everything we can to give California’s salmon a chance to recover.”

Salmon are also central to the cultures of Native tribes, whose leaders canceled subsistence fishing last year.

Regina Chichizola, of the group Save California Salmon, said the closure is devastating for those who depend on fishing. She called it a “manmade disaster” and said it’s linked to decisions by the Biden administration and the state government to continue with water operations that “prioritize water for agriculture over salmon, cities and communities.”

The federal government has announced $20.6 million in disaster relief funds for California fishing communities affected by last year’s shutdown . But the funds have yet to be distributed. The Department of Fish and Wildlife said it is accepting comments from the public on the plan for spending the relief funds.

In response to the closure, Newsom announced Thursday that he had requested a federal declaration of a fishery disaster, much as he did last year. If approved, the disaster declaration would provide needed relief to impacted communities.

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Ian James is a reporter who focuses on water in California and the West. Before joining the Los Angeles Times in 2021, he was an environment reporter at the Arizona Republic and the Desert Sun. He previously worked for the Associated Press as a correspondent in the Caribbean and as bureau chief in Venezuela. He is originally from California.

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