Lincoln Hood

Following a brief review of their biology, this contribution is an attempt to provide a global overview of the catches of mesopelagic fishes (of which 2.68 million tonnes were officially reported to the FAO) throughout the world ocean from 1950 to 2018, to serve as a baseline to a future development of these fisheries. The overview is based on a thorough scanning of the literature dealing with commercial or experimental fisheries for mesopelagics and their catches, and/or the mesopelagic bycatch of other fisheries. All commercial (industrial and artisanal) fisheries for mesopelagic fishes were included, as well as experimental fisheries of which we were aware, while catches performed only to obtain scientific samples were omitted. The processes of generating bycatch and causing discards are discussed, with emphasis on Russian fisheries. From peer-reviewed and gray literature, we lifted information on mesopelagic fisheries and assembled it into one document, which we then summarized into two text tables with catch data, one by country/region, the other by species or species groups.

The adoption of sovereign blue bonds by the Republic of Seychelles, hereafter referred to as Seychelles, focuses on resource sustainability and illustrates options for island countries to use their ocean resources for years into the future. The fishing industry is one of the main pillars of Seychelles’ economy and is of crucial importance for domestic food- and employment-security. In order to promote long-term ecological sustainability and economic viability of domestic fisheries, accurate and long-term baseline information is required. Such baseline data were derived here with a reconstruction of the Seychelles’ domestic fisheries catches and fishing effort within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) from 1950 to 2017, coupled with resulting Catch Per Unit Effort data (CPUE). The total reconstructed domestic catch was approximately 1.5 times larger than the baseline as reported by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on behalf of Seychelles from 1950 to 2017 after adjustment for fully domestic catches within the EEZ. Domestic catches (i.e., excluding the large-scale industrial pelagic catches) increased by over 500% throughout the time period, growing from 1,900 t⋅year⁻¹ in the 1950s to around 11,200 t in 2017. The major targeted taxa were jacks (Carangidae), tuna-like fishes (Scombridae) and snappers (Lutjanidae). Total fishing effort in the form of fishing capacity grew from 21,500 kWdays in 1950 to over 3.4 million kWdays in 2017. The resultant artisanal CPUE displayed a declining trend over time, suggesting a potential decline in relative abundance of fish populations within the Seychelles EEZ or targeted fishing areas.

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing is widespread; it is therefore likely that illicit trade in marine fish catch is also common worldwide. We combine ecological-economic databases to estimate the magnitude of illicit trade in marine fish catch and its impacts on people. Globally, between 8 and 14 million metric tons of unreported catches are potentially traded illicitly yearly, suggesting gross revenues of US$9 to US$17 billion associated with these catches. Estimated loss in annual economic impact due to the diversion of fish from the legitimate trade system is US$26 to US$50 billion, while losses to countries’ tax revenues are between US$2 and US$4 billion. Country-by-country estimates of these losses are provided in the Supplementary Materials. We find substantial likely economic effects of illicit trade in marine fish catch, suggesting that bold policies and actions by both public and private actors are needed to curb this illicit trade.

Small-scale fishing has been an important element of the livelihood and food security in Pacific island countries throughout history; however, such catches have been under-reported in the official fisheries data. Here, we reconstruct the total domestic catches and fishing effort of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) by fishing sectors for 1950–2017. Reconstructed total catches were estimated to be 27% higher than the data officially reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations on behalf of the RMI. Catches of the truly domestic, but export-oriented, industrial tuna sector accounted for 84% of the total catch, dominating catches since the early 2000s. The subsistence component contributed 74% of total small-scale catches, of which 92% was deemed unreported. The remaining 26% of small-scale catches were artisanal, i.e., small-scale commercial, in nature, of which 45% was deemed unreported. Trends suggested steady growth in small-scale catches from 1,100 t⋅year^–1 in the early 1950s to a relatively stable level of 4,500 t⋅year^–1 since the 1990s. However, over the 2009–2017 period, there was a gradual reduction of 2% per year in subsistence fishing, which was paralleled by a concomitant increase in artisanal catches of 3% per year. This gradual shift from predominantly non-commercial to commercial small-scale fisheries may be related to efforts to commercialize small-scale fisheries in the past decades. Small-scale fishing effort increased approximately 13-fold from the early 1980s to the late 2000s, stabilizing at around 401,000 kWdays since then, while catch-per-unit-of-effort (CPUE) displayed an inverse pattern, declining eightfold between the 1980s and 1990s, and stabilizing around 15 kg⋅kWdays^–1 in recent decades. These findings may assist sustainable coastal fisheries management in the RMI, which is particularly important given the increasing impacts of climate change on local stocks.

Commercial fisheries catches by country are documented since 1950 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Unfortunately, this does not hold for marine recreational catches, of which only few, if any, estimates are reported to FAO. We reconstructed preliminary estimates of likely marine recreational catches for 1950–2014, based on independent reconstructions for 125 countries. Our estimates of marine recreational catches that are retained and landed increased globally until the early 1980s, stabilized through the 1990s, and began increasing again thereafter, amounting to around 900,000 t⋅year^–1 in 2014. Marine recreational catches thus account for slightly less than 1% of total global marine catches. Trends vary regionally, increasing in Asia, South America and Africa, while slightly decreasing in Europe and Oceania, and strongly decreasing in North America. The derived taxonomic composition indicates that recent catches were dominated by Sparidae (12% of total catches), followed by Scombridae (10%), Carangidae (6%), Gadidae (5%), and Sciaenidae (4%). The importance of Elasmobranchii (sharks and rays) in recreational fisheries in some regions is of concern, given the life-history traits of these taxa. Our preliminary catch reconstruction, despite high data uncertainty, should encourage efforts to improve national data reporting of recreational catches.

1. Abstract For many small island nations, fisheries provide residents with both food security and economic stability. However, in order to create effective and sustainable fisheries policies and management that will ensure a growing population can prosper, policy makers need to know what is being fished and how much is fished. Vanuatu, the smallest country in Melanesia, has a declared and claimed Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of over 820,000 km2 and fisheries resources play a large part in the food security and economic stability of this country. This reconstruction of total marine fisheries catch of Vanuatu for 1950 to 2014 faced major data gaps. It showed that the reconstructed total catches of nearly 1.4 million t were 40% higher than the 977,997 t reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on behalf of Vanuatu for the same period. However, if large-scale industrial catches are excluded, the reconstructed small-scale fisheries catches (~ 270,000 t) were over 200% higher than the 114,862 t of reported catch that were assumed to represent the small-scale sector in FAO data. Subsistence catches made up almost 93% of small-scale catches, followed by artisanal and recreational catches with ~7% and less than 1%, respectively. By continuously improving the fisheries data of Vanuatu for both the past and the present, policy makers, stakeholders and fishers can make better decisions that will maintain the benefits of marine fishery resources.