Conventional fisheries management typically focuses on individual fish stocks. This short-sighted approach overlooks the important fact that the health of individual fish stocks is closely entwined with the health of the broader marine ecosystem. One important element in the broader health of the marine ecosystem is biodiversity – the number and variety of marine species in a given area.
The link between biodiversity and fish stocks was the focus of a new multi-year study of fisheries worldwide that predicts their wholesale destruction by 2048. The report examined the relationship between biodiversity loss and marine ecosystem services, and found “not a piece of evidence” to contradict the conclusion that ecosystems will unravel and fisheries will collapse by mid-century without rapid changes in fishery management.
The paper concludes that biodiversity itself contributes to an ecosystem’s ability to deliver services like clean water and food. Notably, the study suggests that mixtures of species generally perform better than do simpler systems of a few dominant species. Results also show that greater marine biodiversity helps ecosystems recover more quickly from shocks to the system.
Most significantly, perhaps, the study suggests that it will require management of entire ecosystems and not just single species to maintain ecosystems that can keep providing goods and services. According to the Economist (subscription required), some countries are moving quickly on this front, but most are lagging.
(source: WRI’s Fishing for Answers: Making Sense of the Global Fish Crisis)
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is a multi-year study by more than 1000 scientists from around the world which examined the state of fisheries and other ecosystems on a global scale. Its Marine and Coastal Ecosystems & Human Well-being: Synthesis was released in June, 2006. Read the overview of MA findings or view the animated slide of global overfishing trends based on MA data.
(To produce the study in Science, a team of researchers spent four years examining all the relevant data they could find, including a giant UN Food and Agriculture database and results from archaeological projects. The researchers also examined 32 small-scale experiments and 12 coastal areas in Europe and North America.)
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Janet Ranganathan, Vice President for Science and Researchjanetr@wri.org+1 (202) 729-7656Janet Ranganathan is the Vice President for Science and Research. She oversees and takes a lead role in the planning, quality control, and evaluation of WRI’s research and publications.
