Unsustainable Fishing and Farming

Overview of the Solutions Landscape

Fishing is arguably the most immediate and solvable threat to ocean health. Definitionally, commercial fishing is premised on capturing marine life in order to provide food and jobs. It is also the ocean threat where we have the most immediate, effective, and actionable solutions, primarily in the form of fisheries management, both formal and informal.¹ On paper, economic and environmental outcomes can be aligned: reducing fishing effort towards “maximum sustainable yield” allows fishers to fish less (and reducing pressure on marine life) while earning more.² Given that we have proven effective solutions and potential for “win-wins,” the marine conservation community has spent a substantial proportion of its time and resources on trying to solve this problem and create wins for the planet and for people, making it the third most funded area by marine philanthropy, after science and protected areas at USD 200 million in 2015–2016.³

Fisheries policy and management – when implemented well – can create a better balance between sustainability objectives and human well-being.⁴ At its core, fisheries management refers to a suite of tools used to manage or restore specific species to ensure sustainable use. In formal iterations, fisheries management can involve input controls (e.g., licenses, seasonal closures, gear, and effort restrictions) and/or output controls (such as limits on catch or certain species) as required by the understanding of the status of the fishery resource and the best available science. There are also significant informal or customary approaches to fisheries management that draw on local and indigenous knowledge and rules about access and use, such as community-based natural resource management and customary marine tenure.^5,6,7 Most importantly though, fisheries management works: “Successful rebuilding of depleted fish population has been achieved at local and regional scales through well-proven management actions, including catch and effort restrictions, closed areas, regulations of fishing capacity and gear, catch shared, and co-management arrangements,”⁸ according to the world’s leading marine experts. However, the effectiveness of these interventions and their associated impacts can vary widely depending on the governance and social context, as in the case of small-scale fisheries.

The focus of fisheries policy and management is different depending on governance context. The effectiveness of fisheries management in improving fish biomass is correlated with governance level in a fishery, specifically research, management, enforcement, and socioeconomic attributes.⁹ As such, fisheries management interventions look different in high-governance regions like the US and Europe and lower governance regions like Southeast Asia, Africa, and parts of Latin America. In high-governance fisheries, fisheries management focuses more on ensuring effective implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, preventing roll backs, and addressing small-scale and recreational fisheries. For low-governance countries, solutions seek to understand the status of the fishery resource through fisheries science and research, developing management systems and tools that can help to achieve competing objectives (including sustainability, economic rent maximization, food production, and jobs), ensuring that these systems are legally enshrined, and pursuing efforts to ensure greater compliance without resulting in harm to vulnerable populations. In both governance contexts, there is a strong overlap with work to protect habitats and biodiversity, through solutions like no-take reserves, area-based closures, and Marine Protected Areas, which are covered more in depth in the Habitat and Biodiversity chapter. Minimizing collateral damage to habitats and biodiversity from fishing is also a major goal of much fisheries management work, by seeking to use less destructive gears and reducing “bycatch” – the unintended capture of non-targeted marine life via un-selective fishing gears.

Beyond national-level reforms, international standards, agreements, and treaties play an important role in setting what rules govern sustainable production of transboundary resources. Global treaties governing ocean resources are relatively new, with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – the main international convention governing jurisdiction and use of ocean resources – only coming into full force in 1994. Outside of UNCLOS, there are an array of conventions, protocols, agreements, and active treaty negotiations that seek to govern fishery resources, such as Regional Fisheries Management Organizations, the Port State Measures Agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity (Aichi Target 11), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 14). Current negotiations for a UN Treaty on the High Seas are expected to conclude in 2021.

As with most environmental law and policy, ensuring effective monitoring and enforcement are key to achieving positive outcomes for marine life. What happens out at sea has for too long been “out of sight, out of mind,” which exposes the seafood industry to long-standing allegations of fraud, illegality, and human rights and labor abuses. Having a better understanding of what is happening at sea – via technological tools like electronic monitoring of fishing vessels and remote sensing – can be critical in ensuring good management and dis-incentivizing bad practices. These tools – particularly through efforts led by Global Fishing Watch – have led to groundbreaking research discoveries that are reducing the uncertainty of what is actually happening on the water. This combination of technology and research has resulted in novel collaborations with fisheries agencies and enforcement bodies all around the world. These advances in satellite data and imagery, combined with the use of artificial intelligence, have ushered breakthroughs in ocean transparency, particularly for monitoring illegal fishing by “dark fleets” that do not broadcast their location or appear in public monitoring systems.

The environmental community’s perception of aquaculture continues to evolve, as industry explores best practices to develop and sustain a responsible ocean aquaculture sector. As wild capture landings have plateaued since the mid-1990s, aquaculture has driven continued growth in global seafood production. Although industry practices have historically resulted in pollution, rampant antibiotic use, habitat conversion and destruction, and unsustainable feeds, the industry is shifting towards more responsible modes of production. Improvements in siting, which species are farmed, technology innovations to reduce waste, and feed improvements that do not rely on wild-caught seafood are all promising trends that are making the promise of sustainable aquaculture an ever more present reality, which, many suggest is necessary to meet the food demands of a growing global population.¹⁰

Market-based solutions—eco-labels, certifications, standards, and ratings—can help shape consumer demand and pull the seafood industry towards better practices – up to a point. An increasing share of the world’s seafood is sold under an eco-label or sustainability certification (such as the Marine Stewardship Council) or otherwise working towards better management via a fisheries improvement project.¹¹ Currently, more than 90 percent of the North American retailer market and more than 85 percent of the Northern European retailer market has a commitment to sustainable seafood. Consumer-facing education campaigns like Seafood Watch are helping to build consumer demand for sustainable seafood, especially in the EU and US. The effectiveness of these strategies is hard to judge given how challenging it is to influence markets via voluntary programs, but there is a general sense that more could be done. In particular, expanding the accessibility and reach of these programs from fisheries in higher-income good governance contexts and to lower-income weak governance contexts is considered to be a critical next step to ensure these tools can shape the seafood market at a meaningful scale. The alternative path is market-based solutions serving only higher-income markets and consumers. Leading philanthropic funders in the seafood markets space are actively exploring strategic directions to leverage market-based interventions for achieving durable change on the water, while also grappling with human well-being implications and labor and human rights challenges systemic in the global fishing industry.

Technology can play an important role in improving seafood sustainability by reducing waste, improving efficiencies, and ultimately reducing pressure on fisheries resources. Helping producers earn more for the same product through improvements to the cold chain, more efficient engines, and better processing technologies and techniques and increase the value of seafood and reduce pressure – if implementation is contingent on meeting sustainability benchmarks. (Otherwise, higher value is likely to drive increases in fishing pressure). Supply chain transparency and traceability technologies can play a dual role of improving business operations and ensuring legal compliance with import requirements, such as the U.S.’s Seafood Important Monitoring Program or the EU’s rules to combat illegal fishing. Capacity building efforts in the form of support for fisheries cooperatives and training programs can help producers exert more power and influence in globalized supply chains.

Potential Areas That Are Underexplored or Understudied

The following areas are considered underexplored or understudied in the unsustainable fishing and farming sectors:

• Though equity is garnering increased attention in conservation, it remains poorly conceptualized in both research and practice.¹³ The relationship between conservation, equity, and human well-being has significant knowledge gaps, particularly around highly sought-after “win-wins.”¹⁴ Nonetheless, many in the marine conservation community are currently exploring ways to enhance conservation outcomes while simultaneously enhancing the ability of wild capture fisheries and aquaculture to reduce poverty and improve food security and nutrition. Empirical research and practical application are needed to move beyond the rhetoric of triple bottom-line solutions and to understand how (and under what conditions) equity measures influence conservation effectiveness.¹⁵
• Recognition of human rights abuses in seafood supply chains is increasing. The seafood industry is moving, if not belatedly, to address the root causes of documented human rights abuses. Improvements to worker well-being have not materialized in a meaningful way to date, though this is an area of growing exploration and engagement by marine conservation NGOs and funders. Journalistic exposés, including by Ian Urbina and others, have brought this issue to the fore in recent years.
• Philanthropic engagement on fisheries management remains limited in areas outside of conservation funder priority regions. Currently, there is little to no marine conservation funding going to India, East Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.¹² Addressing the impacts of accelerating global environmental change (including climate change, fisheries management, and human health) will require interdisciplinary partnerships between conservation funders and practitioners, nutrition and public health experts, natural resource managers, development economists, and policymakers.

Knowledge Gaps and Outstanding Questions for the Field

The following areas represent knowledge gaps and/or outstanding questions for the community:

• How do we manage fisheries to adapt to a changing climate and its effects in the ocean? What are implications for adaptive fisheries management systems and socio-economic policies? Understanding how climate change is likely to lead to shifts in biomass, species composition, and catch is critical to developing dynamic management approaches and effective socio-economic policies and food sustainability strategies. One study found that at least 70 countries are likely to see new fish stocks in their waters by 2100 under current emissions scenarios. This suggests, then, that governments must consider potential solutions for avoiding conflicts, including allowing the trade of fishing permits or quotas across international boundaries.¹⁶
• From a livelihoods and well-being perspective, how can the global community best support the needs of developing countries with high fisheries dependency that are likely to be negatively impacted by climate change? According to one study, about 845 million people will likely face macro-nutrient deficiency due to fish-catch declines and climate change impacts; these impacts are most pronounced in low-latitude developing nations.¹⁷
• What is the capacity of the seafood sector to meet growing global demand for nutritious protein, and to what extent can it do so sustainably? Experts are exploring the degree to which seafood production can meet increased food demands; one study suggests that seafood may represent 12 to 25 percent of the estimated increase in all meat required to feed 9.8 billion people by 2050.¹⁸ There are several factors – including policy reforms, technological innovation, and consumer preferences – that will shape the sustainability level of increased seafood production.
• How can fisheries managers and conservation practitioners reconcile the costs and benefits of management reforms? Where do the costs and benefits of transitioning to sustainable management fall, particularly in “J-shaped” recoveries when benefits may take time to accrue to fishers?¹⁹ How should costs of sustainable management be distributed between government, industry, and consumers? In case where producers and supply chain actors close to the water bear the brunt of the costs, how do we develop more fair and equitable approaches to transitioning towards improved management, while remediating the worst abuses?

Emerging Areas of Interest and Research

The following areas represent emerging areas of interest and research for the wild capture fisheries and aquaculture sectors:

• Reforming harmful fisheries subsidies has become a global focus as a pathway for reducing overfishing and supporting the livelihoods of small-scale fishers. Although politically complicated as negotiations occur at the World Trade Organization (WTO) level, removing harmful fisheries subsidies (for fuel and vessels) can bring substantial benefits to fish populations, fishers, consumers, and taxpayers, globally. Subsidies negotiations were reinvigorated in 2015 when the UN adopted Sustainable Development Goals—including SDG 14 which had a dedicated target for reaching an agreement to end harmful fisheries subsidies by 2020. Although the WTO made important progress in negotiations in 2020, it did not ultimately reach an agreement on eliminating harmful fisheries subsidies. Negotiations will continue in 2021.
• Novel data gathering and visualization techniques—including remote sensing tools developed by Global Fishing Watch, Skytruth, Planet Labs and others—may offer breakthrough solutions for improving transparency on the ocean. The coming years may lead to striking gains for marine conservation at scale, particularly if the technological tools are married with good governance and enforcement measures.
• Cellular production methods for “growing” seafood are being explored as alternatives to both wild caught and farmed aquaculture, with potentially lower life-cycle environmental footprints. Proponents of the cell-based seafood market suggest that this alternative represents a partial solution for reducing pressure on wild fish stocks. Skeptics suggest that time will tell whether the emerging industry can overcome challenges including costs, regulatory requirements, and consumer preferences to assume a position in the marketplace.

Typology: Direct Interventions

Typology: Indirect Interventions