Due to the expansion of fishing practices, fish catches have become stagnant at best while global fishing efforts continue to grow, ultimately creating major stresses on marine resources. Fisheries impacts on both coastal and deep-sea ecosystems are well understood and documented; however, the biological and ecological impacts of fishing on open-ocean systems are not well studied or documented.
Up until the 1960s, the open-ocean in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) was one of the last frontiers of fisheries exploitation. The magnitude and inaccessibility of open-ocean ecosystems, as well as technological constraints, deterred fisheries from operating intensely in them. However, open-ocean fisheries expanded exponentially from the 1960s through the 1980s and 1990s, at which point global fish catches peaked, plateaued and possibly began to decline.
The Nereus Program will have a presence at the International Marine Conservation Congress taking place from July 30th to August 3rd in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Following the theme of…
For five days, from May 23rd to 27th, and 14 years after the 1st World Fisheries Congress in Athens, Greece, the 7th World Fisheries Congress visited Busan, the second largest city of South Korea. The venue was hosted by the World Council of Fisheries Societies and took place at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center (BEXCO), where 498 presentations divided into 36 sessions addressed the common theme of the conference: the Challenge to Sustainable Fisheries and Safe Seafoods.
The Nereus Program presented at a Global Fishing Watch Research Workshop on June 6th and 7th at Google’s offices in San Francisco, California, United States.
Global Fishing Watch is a technology-based partnership that started between digital mapping non-profit SkyTruth, oceans advocacy foundation Oceana, and Google’s Google Earth Outreach program, “designed to show all of the trackable fishing activity in the ocean” via an interactive web tool. With the goal of combating fisheries decline, the project will “reveal the intensity of fishing effort around the world” and help citizens hold world leaders accountable for the maintenance of an abundant ocean.
by Guillermo Ortuño Crespo
For three days from January 18th to 20th, Monterey, California, has become an aggregation hotspot for more than 100 of the world’s foremost experts on the conservation and management of the three bluefin tuna species that inhabit our global ocean. The Bluefin Futures Symposium represents the first-ever international gathering of leading science, policy, industry and conservation leaders to address the current stock status, research efforts and management uncertainties, topics which hold the key to ensuring the future sustainability of harvesting these ocean predators.
