Fisheries Centre research reports, Vol. 14, no. 8

DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD. PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. INTRODUCTION. MATERIALS AND METHODS. RESULTS. Definitions of small-scale fisheries. Estimation of catches, fishers and boat numbers. DISCUSSION. Data reliability and estimation challenges. Improving the estimates. Small-scale fisheries in global and regional contexts. Women in fisheries. Policy implications and next steps. REFERENCES. APPENDICES.Fisheries Centre (FC)UnreviewedFacultyResearcherGraduat

Global shark fishing mortality still rising despite widespread regulatory change

Over the last two decades, sharks have been increasingly recognized among the world’s most threatened wildlife, and hence received heightened scientific and regulatory scrutiny. Yet, the effect of protective regulations on shark fishing mortality has not been evaluated at a global scale. Here we estimate that total fishing mortality increased from 76 to 80 million sharks between 2012-2019, ~25 million of which were threatened species. Mortality increased by 4% in coastal waters but decreased 7% in pelagic fisheries, especially across the Atlantic and Western Pacific. By linking fishing mortality data to the global regulatory landscape, we show that widespread legislation designed to prevent shark finning did not reduce mortality, but regional shark fishing or retention bans had some success. These analyses combined with expert interviews highlight evidence-based solutions to reverse the continued overexploitation of sharks

Database-driven models of the world's Large Marine Ecosystems

We present a new methodology for database-driven ecosystem model generation and apply the methodology to the world's 66 currently defined Large Marine Ecosystems. The method relies on a large number of spatial and temporal databases, including FishBase, SeaLifeBase, as well as several other databases developed notably as part of the Sea Around Us project. The models are formulated using the freely available Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) modeling approach and software. We tune the models by fitting to available time series data, but recognize that the models represent only a first-generation of database-driven ecosystem models. We use the models to obtain a first estimate of fish biomass in the world's LMEs. The biggest hurdles at present to further model development and validation are insufficient time series trend information, and data on spatial fishing effort