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Published online 9 July 2008 |
Nature
| doi:10.1038/news.2008.942
Corrected online: 9 July 2008
News
Overfishing worse than thought
Tropical fishermen catch far more species than reported officially.
Global fisheries statistics generally paint a grim picture of ocean health, revealing rampant overfishing and declining fish catches in various regions. But a new study suggests that, in the tropics at least, the statistics have been telling only half the depressing story — if that.
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While we have always suspected the statistics were bad, the 64 million dollar question remains unanswered by this study - overall how sustainable is coral reef fishing? Our conservative estimate of the ecological footprint of coral reef fisheries across 49 island nations suggests at least 64% more fish (plus molluscs and crustaceans) are caught than can be sustained by healthy reefs. More than half of the island nations were overfishing their reefs. To put this in a different context, we would have to add an area of coral reef the size of four more Great Barrier Reefs to make this level of fishing sustainable on a global scale. Clearly, that is not an option, but it gives an idea of the scale of management action required. Furthermore we calculated with current human population growth trajectories 9 more GBRs would have to be added to the world to sustain the demand (Newton et al. 2007. Current and future sustainability of island coral reef fisheries. Current Biology, 17: 655-658). The key challenge is not just to improve the statistics, but to save coral reefs WHILE sustaining island livelihoods and food security.
I agree with Nick in that the challenge is not only to improve fisheries statistics. The last sentence of this news fell a little short. The call to FAO and governments should be to carry out ecosystem-based management at a regional scale (fishing communities) were the underestimation of data takes place and the first line of action begins. Fortunately, seems that small-scale fisheries are gaining more attention. I hope funds will be directed to both improving statistics and local management.