Fishery Management: Where are we at?

Fishery management has certainly not become easier over the years. This graphic below summarizes the findings from a scientific study looking at how effective fishery management is in Economic Exclusive Zones (EEZs), those areas 200 nautical miles off the cost of a country in which that nation is given exclusive rights to fishing within those waters.

Their analysis included an assessment of scientific robustness (understanding the best sustainable approaches for their fisheries), policy-making transparency (cooperation between groups and government to make the policies), implementation capability, fishing capacity, reliance on subsidies and access to foreign fishing. The cumulative representation of their findings are summarized below and it becomes clear that there is no where on the map that has highly effective management of their fisheries. The largest difference that they found was in transparency of policies; having poor communication about making decisions on management was more detrimental than even having the solid science, because these voices could be present but not heard if politics drive decisions. From this we can begin to see that policy is much more than just understanding how fish interact with their ecosystem. These policies will be discussed further under the tab "Policies."

Mora, C., Myers, R. A., Coll, M., Libralato, S., Pitcher, T. J., Sumaila, R. U., Zeller, D., ... Worm, B. (June 01, 2009). Management Effectiveness of the World's Marine Fisheries. Plos Biology, 7, 6.