the current status of world fishery

Global production of marine capture fisheries reached the peak of 86.3 million

tonnes in 1996 and then declined slightly to 79.5 million tonnes in 2008, with great

fluctuations from year to year. In 2008, 25 percent of the global production of marine

catch was from the Northwest Pacific, 15 percentage from the Southeast Pacific, 14

percentage from the Western Central Pacific and 11 percentage from the Northeast

Atlantic.

The proportion of stocks which are under exploited or moderately exploited had

declined from 40 percent in the mid-1970s to 15 percent in 2008. In contrast, the

proportion of overexploited, depleted or recovering stocks increased from 10 percent

in 1974 to 32 percent in 2008.

We should pay great attention to that the declining global catch in the last few

years, together with the apparently increasing trend in the percentage of overexploited,

depleted or recovering stocks and the decreasing trend in underexploited or

moderately exploited species around the world.

In order to change the terrible situation of world fishery resources, many laws or

agreements of fishery management have entered into force. For example the United

Nations Fish Stocks Agreement entered into force in 2001. It is encouraging to note

that good progress is being made in reducing exploitation rates and recovering

overfished fish stocks via these effective fishery management action in some areas. However the traditional fishery management mostly focuses on maximizing the catch

of q single target species and ignores habitat, predators and prey of the target species

and other ecosystem components and interactions. More effective, holistic

management approach which starts with the ecosystem rather than the target species

should be enacted as soon as possible.