Global Spatial Risk Assessment of Sharks Under the Footprint of Fisheries

Effective ocean management and conservation of highly migratory species depends on resolving overlap between animal movements and distributions and fishing effort. Yet, this information is lacking at a global scale. Here we show, using a big-data approach combining satellite-tracked movements of pelagic sharks and global fishing fleets, that 24% of the mean monthly space used by sharks falls under the footprint of pelagic longline fisheries. Space use hotspots of commercially valuable sharks and of internationally protected species had the highest overlap with longlines (up to 76% and 64%, respectively) and were also associated with significant increases in fishing effort. We conclude that pelagic sharks have limited spatial refuge from current levels of high-seas fishing effort. Results demonstrate an urgent need for conservation and management measures at high-seas shark hotspots and highlight the potential of simultaneous satellite surveillance of megafauna and fishers as a tool for near-real time, dynamic management

From sea monsters to charismatic megafauna: changes in perception and use of large marine animals

Marine megafauna has always elicited contrasting feelings. In the past, large marine animals were often depicted as fantastic mythological creatures and dangerous monsters, while also arousing human curiosity. Marine megafauna has been a valuable resource to exploit, leading to the collapse of populations and local extinctions. In addition, some species have been perceived as competitors of fishers for marine resources and were often actively culled. Since the 1970s, there has been a change in the perception and use of megafauna. The growth of marine tourism, increasingly oriented towards the observation of wildlife, has driven a shift from extractive to non-extractive use, supporting the conservation of at least some species of marine megafauna. In this paper, we review and compare the changes in the perception and use of three megafaunal groups, cetaceans, elasmobranchs and groupers, with a special focus on European cultures. We highlight the main drivers and the timing of these changes, compare different taxonomic groups and species, and highlight the implications for management and conservation. One of the main drivers of the shift in perception, shared by all the three groups of megafauna, has been a general increase in curiosity towards wildlife, stimulated inter alia by documentaries (from the early 1970s onwards), and also promoted by easy access to scuba diving. At the same time, environmental campaigns have been developed to raise public awareness regarding marine wildlife, especially cetaceans, a process greatly facilitated by the rise of Internet and the World Wide Web. Currently, all the three groups (cetaceans, elasmobranchs and groupers) may represent valuable resources for ecotourism. Strikingly, the economic value of live specimens may exceed their value for human consumption. A further change in perception involving all the three groups is related to a growing understanding and appreciation of their key ecological role. The shift from extractive to non-extractive use has the potential for promoting species conservation and local economic growth. However, the change in use may not benefit the original stakeholders (e.g. fishers or whalers) and there may therefore be a case for providing compensation for disadvantaged stakeholders. Moreover, it is increasingly clear that even non-extractive use may have a negative impact on marine megafauna, therefore regulations are needed.SFRH/BPD/102494/2014, UID/MAR/04292/2019, IS1403info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Competition Policy in Latin America: Legal and Institutional Issues

Latin America has emerged from the lost decade of the 1980s with substantially transformed economies characterized by sounder fiscal policies (cuts in expenditures, increases in revenues through better tax administration and from the one-time proceeds of privatization), substantial deregulation and decentralization of economic activity, outward-looking trade and investment policies, and greater domestic savings. While progress has been uneven across the region, in virtually all countries a more prominent role is envisaged for the private sector as the future engine of growth. Unlike earlier decades in Latin America where macroeconomic/instability and import protection coincided with a domestic competition policy characterized by price and exchange controls as well as capacity licensing, the new Latin America has called forth the need for an entirely different approach to fostering a competitive environment for private sector development. This is particularly important in a region where there have historically been very high concentrations in the manufacturing sector which could be exacerbated through uncontrolled privatization. Infrastructure privatization has largely been handled through separate utility regulation statutes. Competition policy (or antitrust policy in the U.S.) can be defined narrowly in accordance with the practice of the majority of OECD countries “as the body of laws and regulations governing business practices (horizontal or vertical agreements between enterprises, abuses of dominant positions, monopolization, mergers and acquisitions). However, it is often viewed in a broader context to include the myriad of government policies that impact competition at both the local and national level including trade liberalization (import competition), foreign investment regulation, protection of property rights (including intellectual property) and consumer protection to name a few. The core objective of competition policy in nearly all jurisdictions is to preserve and protect the process of competition not competitors with a view to maximizing economic efficiency (both allocative and dynamic) by achieving efficient market outcomes in the form of lower consumer prices and better quality products. Some countries or jurisdictions also include broader “public interest” objectives (regional development, promotion of small business, export promotion, decentralization of decision-making) which often tend to undercut the fundamental efficiency objectives of competition policy. This paper examines recent Latin American experiences (legislative, institutional and enforcement) with the establishment of competition policies at the national level, using the narrower definition of competition policy. But it also examines the nexus of competition policy and the broader framework of trade liberalization, consumer protection, foreign investment regulation, and intellectual property protection. Finally, the paper looks at competition policy from a sub-regional and regional integration context (MERCOSUR, Andean Pact and NAFTA), and the prospects for international convergence. The paper does not purport to explain why competition policy is important (this has been elaborated in numerous scholarly books and articles) but rather evaluates how it has been implemented to date in Latin America and to suggest some areas for

Reply to: Caution over the use of ecological big data for conservation

[Extract] Our global analysis1 estimated the overlap and fishing exposure risk (FEI) using the space use of satellite-tracked sharks and longline fishing effort monitored by the automatic identification system (AIS). In the accompanying Comment, Harry and Braccini2 draw attention to two localized shark–longline vessel overlap hotspots in Australian waters, stating that 47 fishing vessels were misclassified as longline and purse seine vessels in the Global Fishing Watch (GFW)3 2012–2016 AIS fishing effort data product that we used. This, they propose2, results in misidentifications that highlight fishing exposure hotspots that are subject to an unexpected level of sensitivity in the analysis and they suggest that misidentifications could broadly affect the calculations of fishing exposure and the central conclusions of our study1. We acknowledged in our previously published paper1 that gear reclassifications were likely to occur for a small percentage of the more than 70,000 vessels studied, however, here we demonstrate that even using much larger numbers of vessel reclassifications than those proposed by Harry and Braccini2, the central results and conclusions of our paper1 do not change

Reply to: Shark mortality cannot be assessed by fishery overlap alone

[Extract] Our previously published paper1 provided global fine-scale spatiotemporal estimates (1° × 1°; monthly) of overlap and fishing exposure risk (FEI) between satellite-tracked shark space use and automatic identification system (AIS) longline fishing effort. We did not assess shark mortality directly, but in addition to replying to the Comment by Murua et al.2, we confirm—using regression analysis of spatially matched data—that fishing-induced pelagic shark mortality (catch per unit effort (CPUE)) is greater where FEI is higher. We focused on assessing shark horizontal spatiotemporal overlap and exposure risk with fisheries because spatial overlap is a major driver of fishing capture susceptibility and previous shark ecological risk assessments (ERAs) assumed a homogenous shark density within species-range distributions3,4,5 or used coarse-scale modelled occurrence data, rather than more ecologically realistic risk estimates in heterogeneous habitats that were selected by sharks over time. Furthermore, our shark spatial exposure risk implicitly accounts for other susceptibility factors with equal or similar probabilities to those commonly used in shark ERAs3,5