On average, the health of global fisheries is not improving. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), from 1974 to 2021 the percentage of sustainable fish populations worldwide decreased from 90% to 62%. This drop is due almost entirely to overfishing, which continues to threaten food security, livelihoods and marine ecosystems.
But there is a bright spot. Regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), which oversee some of world’s largest and most valuable fisheries, have begun to adopt harvest strategies, which help managers set catch limits and other rules for years at a time – reducing the need for contentious, yearly negotiations. Also known as management procedures, harvest strategies rely on scientific tools to automatically determine fishing levels based on stock status. This takes the guesswork – and the often-politicized negotiations – out of fisheries management and saves managers from having to renegotiate limits annually.
Such a science-based approach is also critically important as fisheries decline or shift due to ocean warming. Harvest strategies allow managers to account for these and other environmental shifts and increase the odds that they can secure sustainability despite a changing climate.
To date, RFMOs have adopted 12 harvest strategies, and the scientific evidence supporting them is clear. The FAO report that showed a growing number of fisheries is in decline also concluded that the tuna species, which are frequently at the forefront of harvest strategy adoption, are doing better overall than the global average.
In November, RFMOs have an unprecedented opportunity to adopt harvest strategies for five additional commercially and ecologically important fish populations. In doing so, these organizations could demonstrate that harvest strategies, which have been called the future of fisheries management, are also its present.
Here are the opportunities RFMOs should seize in November.
Overfishing of the Mediterranean Sea, including of sardines and anchovies, has a long and sad history. The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, which meets 4-8 November in Rome, can address that by adopting harvest strategies for both of these species in the Adriatic.
In fact, the Commission’s own scientists have recommended this precautionary approach. The European Union should work with Albania and Montenegro – which have major sardine and anchovy canneries and, therefore, large stakes in the sustainability of these stocks – to lead on the adoption of harvest strategies. The EU has championed this approach in other RFMOs, and action here would help stabilize these vital fisheries and processing operations.
Last year, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) missed its opportunity to adopt harvest strategies for western skipjack tuna and North Atlantic swordfish. When the Commission meets 11-18 November in Cyprus, it should not fall short again.
If Brazil champions this harvest strategy, it’s unlikely to face opposition because the country is home to the largest western skipjack fishery and has a strong negotiating stance in ICCAT. Adoption in November would put harvest strategies in place for three of the world’s five skipjack fisheries – a major achievement – and it would fill a management gap in the Atlantic. Swordfish, which has a history of overfishing, needs harvest strategy champions, too. The United States, Canada, EU, Japan and Morocco are responsible for the bulk of swordfish fishing in the North Atlantic and should agree to a harvest strategy this year. Given that a similar measure was adopted for swordfish in the Indian Ocean earlier this year, an Atlantic harvest strategy would add further momentum for non-tuna species.
South Pacific albacore tuna is worth US$1 billion each year and is dually managed by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC). WCPFC meets in Fiji 28 November to 3 December, and the host country, which has a major stake in the health of the albacore fishery, is best positioned to lead the charge for adoption of a harvest strategy. Adoption in the west should set the stage for a similar action at IATTC and demonstrate that joint management can work throughout the South Pacific.
Each RFMO meeting in November has its own challenges, but their mandates are the same: sustainable fisheries managed with precautionary, science-based approaches. If the governments involved in these upcoming meetings adopt the five proposals on the table, they will be many steps closer to fulfilling this mandate.
Grantly Galland leads policy work related to regional fisheries management organizations for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ international fisheries project.