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 International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC) took place from July 30th to August 3rd in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. The congress brings together marine conservation professionals and students in order to “develop new and powerful tools to further marine conservation science and policy”. Under the theme of “Making Marine Science Matter”, this year’s conference dealt with strategies to influence policy-makers and stakeholders, and was divided among several topics of interest, including marine food security, ocean science technology, and marine policy.
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.
