As Fishing Threatens Biodiversity in the Northeast Atlantic, Fisheries Management Must Improve

The science is clear: Fisheries in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, and many of the marine species that rely on healthy fish populations there, are in decline. This is due in large part to overfishing of species, including mackerel and herring, that has occurred with the full awareness of the northern European and Nordic countries managing the fisheries.

Those governments have not only failed in their obligations under the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement to sustainably manage these fish, they are also jeopardizing predators such as seabirds, whales and porpoises that may no longer have enough food in the water to keep their populations healthy. As a result, regional governments are nowhere near meeting the biodiversity targets they agreed under the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in December 2022.

To correct course, these governments should end their short-sighted, single-species fisheries management and instead move to ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), an approach that considers the long-term needs of not only the target species but also its predators, prey and habitat. They have a chance to do just that at the 12-15 November meeting of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) in London.

Years of mismanagement and warming waters worsens fisheries and ecosystem health

NEAFC member States—the European Union, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, and the United Kingdom—are responsible for setting catch limits on mackerel and herring. These two species are among the region’s most abundant fish, but overfishing has gone on for more than a decade.; so long that both species show alarming declines These governments have long set fishing rules that they don’t follow, in direct violation of international agreements and the basic tenets of fisheries management. Rather than adhering to the catch limit negotiated for the entire region, they have often set individual, country-based quotas that overshoot the collectively agreed limits.

And because mackerel prey on herring, overfishing of that species has further hurt the mackerel population. Historically, NEAFC hasn’t fully accounted for this interspecies relationship and therefore lacks the rules to tackle it. Similarly, overfishing of both species is hurting seabirds in many parts of the northeast Atlantic, particularly in the Norwegian Sea—home to large mackerel and herring fisheries.

Climate change is causing further fishery declines. Mackerel are particularly temperature-sensitive and have shifted their range in response to warming seas. These species, of course, know no political boundaries, but their movement adds to regional tensions around sharing quotas and access to fisheries.

EBFM could change ecosystem trajectory

Despite their past failings, the northeast Atlantic States are among the regional groups seriously considering EBFM, which can include maintaining resilience to climate change. EBFM requires managers to consider interactions among species throughout the food web, from plankton to large predators, and to dynamically adapt fishing opportunities in response to predicted or observed changes in the environment, such as rising ocean temperatures.

The NEAFC meeting comes only two weeks after member governments to the CBD met in Colombia for its 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) to reaffirm commitments to the global biodiversity framework. NEAFC members are also party to this treaty, and as such, have agreed to implement specific targets to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity, including fish species. The upcoming NEAFC meeting is the first opportunity since the COP for countries to demonstrate that they intend to meet those commitments.

Northeast Atlantic leadership on global biodiversity protections

In London, NEAFC will also consider its contribution to the global target to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030–one of the first regional fisheries management organizations to do so. In these deliberations it is vital that NEAFC follow CBD criteria, which include potential threats to biodiversity, including fishing from the surface to the seabed, and other maritime activity. Other fisheries management organizations will watch NEAFC closely, so it is important that the Commission set the right precedents to achieve the GBF’s mission to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

In London, NEAFC members can respond to the northeast Atlantic’s overfishing and biodiversity challenges and reshape management by setting ambitious ecological objectives to strengthen ecosystem resilience and help break the cycle of mismanagement. As the region’s fish species dwindle, its seabirds struggle to find food and the ocean continues to warm, it is critical that the Commission move to a proven, modern fisheries management approach and deliver results.

Jean-Christophe Vandevelde is a manager and Daniel Steadman is an officer working on Pew’s international fisheries project.