Global fishery prospects under contrasting management regimes

TLDR

The study asks what extensive fishery reform would look like and what benefits and trade-offs alternative global fisheries management approaches would entail. The authors assembled the largest database of fisheries and coupled it with advanced bioeconomic models covering over 4,500 fisheries worldwide. The analysis shows that fishery recovery worldwide would boost food provision, profits, and biomass, and that access‑rights approaches can align profit, food, and conservation with minimal trade‑offs.

Abstract

Significance What would extensive fishery reform look like? In addition, what would be the benefits and trade-offs of implementing alternative approaches to fisheries management on a worldwide scale? To find out, we assembled the largest-of-its-kind database and coupled it to state-of-the-art bioeconomic models for more than 4,500 fisheries around the world. We find that, in nearly every country of the world, fishery recovery would simultaneously drive increases in food provision, fishery profits, and fish biomass in the sea. Our results suggest that a suite of approaches providing individual or communal access rights to fishery resources can align incentives across profit, food, and conservation so that few trade-offs will have to be made across these objectives in selecting effective policy interventions.