Fishery management worldwide is on the clock as commercial stocks dwindle and other threats to ocean health mount. Ecosystem Marketplace examines the role that catch shares can play in promoting efficient management of fish stocks.
Of the 230 fish stocks under US management, about a quarter are still being exploited at unsustainable rates. Cod stocks in New England collapsed in the 1990s and still haven’t recovered. Atlantic halibut have been fished to commercial extinction, while other prized fish such as bluefin tuna are on the brink. Salmon stocks in the Pacific continue to decline, and the red snapper fishery in the southeast has just been closed for six months.
While researchers have reported the loss of 90 percent of large fish in 50 years since the advent of industrial fishing and warned of an overall collapse of most major global fisheries by mid century, some fishermen accuse the scientists of crying wolf.