Current management plans and practises for responsible fisheries should be expanded to take into consideration climate change, the FAO said in its annual “State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture” (SOFIA) report.
“Best practices that are already on the books but not always implemented offer clear, established tools towards making fisheries more resilient to climate change,” said Kevern Cochrane of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, one of SOFIA’s authors. “So the message to fishers and fisheries authorities is clear: get in line with current best practices, like those contained in FAO’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, and you’ve already taken important strides towards mitigating the effects of climate change.”
Climate change is already modifying the distribution of both marine and freshwater species, the report said, and fisheries and aquaculture make a minor but significant contribution to greenhouse gas emissions during fishing operations and transport, processing and storage of fish. Warmer-water species are being pushed towards the poles and experiencing changes in habitat size and productivity.
The average ratio of fuel to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for capture fisheries is estimated at about 3 teragrams of CO2 per million tonnes of fuel used. “That could be improved. Good fisheries management can substantially improve fuel efficiency for the sector,” Cochrane said. “Overcapacity and excess fishing capacity mean fewer fish caught per vessel—that is, lower fuel efficiency—while competition for limited resources means fishers are always looking to increase engine power, which also lowers efficiency.”
According to the report, total world fisheries production reached a new high of 143.6 million tonnes in 2006 (92 million tonnes capture fisheries, 51.7 million tonnes aquaculture). Of that, 110.4 million tonnes was used for human consumption, with the remainder going to non-food uses (livestock feed, fishmeal for aquaculture).
The production increases came from the aquaculture sector, which now accounts for 47 percent of all fish consumed by humans as food. Production in capture fisheries has levelled off and is not likely to increase beyond current levels.
Nineteen percent of the major commercial marine fish stocks monitored by FAO are overexploited, 8 percent are depleted, and 1 percent is ranked as recovering from depletion, today’s report indicates.
Around half (52%) rank as fully exploited and are producing catches that are at or close to their maximum sustainable limits.
Twenty percent of stocks fall into the moderately exploited or underexploited category.
The Northeast Atlantic is one of three areas with the highest proportions of fully-exploited stocks.