Rules and choices: Overfishing can be reduced in two ways: policy and laws that control the fishing industry, and changes in what consumers buy. Action happens at four levels, from world treaties to one person's shopping.
The points to remember
- International: treaties and commissions share out quotas for fish that cross borders and ban harmful subsidies.
- National: governments issue permits, set quotas, seasons, mesh sizes and zones, and patrol their waters.
- Local: fishing communities make their own rules, such as village no-take zones.
- Individual: shoppers choose labelled, sustainable fish and eat less of overfished species.
- Rules work only with monitoring and enforcement: patrols, observers, satellite tracking.
Example (SL): a world deal on subsidies. In 2022 the members of the World Trade Organization agreed to stop paying subsidies to boats that fish illegally or catch overfished stocks.
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The simplest rules limit how many boats may fish and how much they may land.
The points to remember
- Permits or licences: only boats with one may fish, so the fleet does not grow too big.
- Quotas: a total allowable catch each year, set at or below the maximum sustainable yield (MSY), shared between countries or boats.
- Minimum landing size: fish below a set size must not be kept, so they can breed first.
- Strength: the total harvest is controlled, and sharing quotas avoids one firm taking it all.
- Weakness: quotas are hard to set accurately, catches are hard to monitor, and boats may throw back fish over their quota, dead.
Remember it as: Permits limit the boats; quotas limit the catch.
Example (SL): Iceland's cod. Each boat owns a share of the national quota. Since 2007 the cod quota has been set at about 20% of the fishable stock each year, and the stock has grown since.
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Other rules limit when and where fishing can happen, to protect fish while they breed and grow.
The points to remember
- Closed seasons: no fishing while fish spawn, so they breed undisturbed and young fish survive.
- Zones: some areas are closed to all fishing (no-take zones, MPAs) or to some gear, as nursery and spawning grounds.
- Strength: stocks get time and space to recover; immature fish are not caught.
- Weakness: needs policing; the supply of fish stops for a while; climate change can shift the breeding season.
Example (SL): Zamboanga's sardines, the Philippines. Since 2011 sardine fishing has been closed for three months each winter, the main spawning time. Catches recovered in the following years, and canneries now plan around the closed season.
Gear rules control how fish are caught: which nets and hooks, and how big the holes are.
The points to remember
- Mesh size: a minimum size of the holes in a net lets young fish escape, so they can grow and breed.
- Bans on destructive methods: bottom trawling in some areas, large drift nets, poison and explosives.
- Bycatch devices: escape hatches for turtles, hooks that seabirds cannot reach.
- Marking gear and bringing old nets back to port, so fewer are lost as ghost nets.
Example (SL): turtle excluder devices, USA. Since the late 1980s, US shrimp trawlers must fit a turtle excluder device. It lets most turtles escape alive.
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Consumers can change fishing too: if shoppers and restaurants buy only fish caught sustainably, fleets have a reason to fish that way.
The points to remember
- Food labels: the MSC blue fish label means a wild fishery is sustainable and well managed; ASC does the same for farms.
- Seafood guides rank fish as best choice, good alternative or avoid.
- Catch certificates trace fish from boat to shop, keeping illegal fish out of markets.
- Shoppers can eat less wild fish, choose smaller, faster-breeding species, or farmed mussels.
- Weakness: labels cost money, so small fishers in poor countries may be shut out; many shoppers ignore them.
Example (SL): Western Australia's rock lobster. In 2000 it became the first fishery in the world to earn the MSC label. The label helped it sell to buyers who wanted proof of sustainable fishing.
Evaluation questions ask for the strengths and weaknesses of two strategies, or whether fishing can ever be fully sustainable.
Even at a sustainable yield...
- Bycatch of turtles, dolphins, young fish.
- Lost nets go on ghost fishing.
- Trawls damage the sea bed.
- Boats burn fossil fuels.
- MSY may be miscalculated.
- Farms add feed waste, escapees, medicines.
...rules can reduce the harm
- Bycatch devices, closed areas.
- Marked gear, net return schemes.
- Bans on trawling in sensitive zones.
- Fewer boats, fuel-saving gear.
- Quotas below MSY, a safety margin.
- Integrated farms, vaccines, certification.
The judgement: Laws and labels can make fishing far more sustainable, but some harm, such as bycatch and fuel use, cannot be removed completely.
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How this comes up: Paper 2 asks for two strategies [2] or four [4], and to evaluate two strategies [7]; Paper 1 asks how one country's fishing could be managed sustainably [3].
Catches of reef fish around the islands of Fiji have fallen as more boats fish further and longer.
Evaluate two different strategies for preventing overfishing.
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