Rebuilding EU fish stocks and fisheries, a process under way?
Highlights
► One of the main objectives of CFP is to maintain fish stocks to levels of maximum sustainable yield. ► Levels of exploitation in the North East Atlantic have been greatly reduced during the last 10 years. ► The economic performance of the fleets has improved although the economic situation has worsened.
Introduction
Around 80% of the world's exploited fish stocks are currently considered to be overexploited [1]. Recent re-analysis of worldwide catch data indicates an increasing percentage of overexploited, depleted, and in some cases recovering stocks and decreasing trends in the proportion of underexploited and moderately exploited stocks [2]. In this respect, the European marine resources as a whole are no exception [3]. As a signatory to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) [4], the European Union (EU) has made a commitment to maintain or restore stocks to levels that can produce the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), with the aim of achieving these goals on an urgent basis and where possible not later than 2015. MSY is generally defined as the maximum use that a renewable resource can sustain without impairing its renewability through natural growth and replenishment (OECD definition; http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/; accessed on 28.09.2012). Moreover, the plan of implementation adopted during the WSSD encourages the application of the ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAF) [5] by 2010, the elimination of destructive fishing practices and the establishment of marine protected areas consistent with international laws and based on scientific information. Nonetheless, 10 years after the WSSD, most stocks in European waters (88%) are still considered to be overfished and 30% of them are estimated to be outside safe biological limits, which means that they may not be able to replenish [3]. Thus, up to 2010, Europe is still far from achieving the objectives agreed at the WSSD in 2002 [6]. In this perspective, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) has been considered ineffective in terms of reducing fishing capacity [7] as well as in rebuilding marine ecosystems [8] but see also [9] for a critique. Furthermore, the fishery sector is still considered to suffer from overfishing, fleet overcapacity, heavy subsidies, low economic resilience and decline in the volume of catches and mean sizes of fish caught [10]. According to latest estimates, in order to restore overfished stocks, the global fishing capacity needs to be cut by 36–43% from the 2008 level, with a likely loss of employment of 12–15 millions fishers and costing US$ 96–358 billion for buyback [11]. Considered from this standpoint, it is indisputable that most of the management objectives of the WSSD have not yet been accomplished, and thus up to 2010 the CFP has not been successful [12]. This is especially true regarding the proposed phasing out of subsidies, the prohibition, reduction or limitation of fishing practices that have a negative impact on the marine habitat such as bottom trawling, and the elimination of discards through the use of highly selective gears [13], [14].
The recurrent and pessimistic “mantra” that the CFP has completely failed, is not only pervading the most recent scientific literature but has also become the common perception of the general public, the media and numerous stakeholders [15], although this perception is not universal [16], [17]. European waters encompass several large marine ecosystems, such as the North East Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean and Black Seas. Such eco-regions are ecologically unique and support diverse communities of marine organisms which historically have been subject to different levels of exploitation and different advisory and management regimes [18]. Given the diversity of such eco-regions and their different historical developments, the question whether it is reasonable to accept the sweeping generalization that the CFP has completely failed and the status and outlook for stocks and fisheries in European waters is generally pessimistic has been addressed. Has there really been no significant progress towards CFP objectives during the last 10 years in any of the European seas?
To address these questions, the status of commercially exploited fish stocks from the North East Atlantic, North Sea and Baltic Sea (Fig. 1; FAO Area 27) has been analysed together with the economic performance of the EU fleets exploiting those stocks [19].
Section snippets
Stock assessment data
Using the results of the 2011 ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea; http://ices.dk/advice/icesadvice.asp; accessed on 28.09.2012) assessments for fish stocks from the Northeast Atlantic, North Sea and Baltic Sea [20], the following metrics, where available, were collated:
Fishing mortality (F, the instantaneous rate of fishing mortality i.e. the rate per unit time at which fish are dying due to fishing)
Spawning stock biomass (SSB, the biomass of fish able to reproduce)
Biological analysis
The stock status for 41 fish stocks in 2001 and 2010 both in terms of F and SSB and their associated values of Ftarget and SSBtarget are given in Table 1. In 2010, 18 of the stocks analysed (44%) were fished at or below the estimate long term target F level, compared to only five (12%) in 2001. The proportion of stocks for which F has declined was significantly greater than those for which F has increased (Fisher exact test; p<0.001). The average fishing mortality has fallen from 2.1 times F
Discussion
The exploitation status for the most important stocks in the North East Atlantic has greatly improved during the last 10 years. As early as in 2007, a similar analysis still depicted a situation of long term unsustainability (SSBcurrent<SSBtarget) and excessive exploitation rates (i.e. Fcurrent>Ftarget) [22]. This pattern is a clear indication that management measures introduced following the 2002 reform of the CFP have been at least partly effective in moving towards WSSD objectives.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer and to the editor for their comments and suggestions, which have significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Valerio Bartolino for assistance in drawing Fig. 5.
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